That hedge looks fine. I haven't had rust lately with my Abe, but in late summer I trim him back and remove the leaves before they get too old. Then there's enough time until the late Jan/ Early Feb. spring prune for Abe to grow new leaves and put on a few flushes. I stumbled on this by accident when I had to cut back my Freddie M. when we were having the roof done and the guys needed to put the ladder up next to him. Late in the year I thought why isn't Freddie doing the usual rust routine? The leaves weren't that old and didn't rust I guess. With no big rust buildup around the area the pressure to rust gets less I hope. Freddie's a great rose and so is Abe. It's fun to have these guys finally rust free.

Maybe 12 years ago, I wrote the article linked below. The 3. at the end is a foornote to the 3 after susceptibility. George Mander "has made arrangements with a wholesale rosegrower, Jan Verschuren, to graft his budwood on R. canina. Jan prefers R. canina currently. R. canina is what was used there before WW2. The original canina was notorious for suckering. There are new canina selections since then. R. canina cv. "Inermis" is the most widely used variety. Much less suckering takes place, but it still suckers. R. canina cv."Heinsohn's Rekord" is regarded as the very best for Hybrid Teas (Jan agrees out of experience). R. corymbifera cv. "Laxa" or R. dumetorum cv. "Laxa" is more and more being grown on Europe's mainland. It was always used as a rootstock for Great Britain only. Because it suckers little and is, therefore, a cheaper way of growing roses, the mainland now also grows more and more on Laxa. However, Laxa is not as winterhardy as R. canina. For treeroses, R. canina cv. "Pfander" is the best one (his family has a well established R. canina cv."Pfander" weeping treerose of The Fairy in their garden at home surviving at some -24 degrees C unprotected, its budunion up in the air). Cheap fast production for big box stores has opened a market for multiflora cutting rootstocks for treeroses in Holland, but they have little winterhardiness. He also points out that R. multiflora is softer and the grafts a little more likely to be weak during the first year (Brad had one of George's Canadian White Star break right at the bud union; it can happen in a strong wind). Multiflora is much faster in production, but has a shorter lifespan than canina. Brad's experience is roses grafted on R. canina suckered freely and didn't produce as many basal shoots as R. multiflora or own-root roses. However, Jan points out that multiflora was shipped to Sweden because they had guaranteed snow cover in their winters. All other parts never wanted multiflora because of its frost susceptibility 3. Obviously, there is great debate going on here concerning the relative merits of various rootstocks." "3. This has always been a hot topic for Jan. Another former local grower here lost his crop on multiflora when temperatures went down to minus 24 degrees C. "I should have put more straw on" was his thinking... Jan hills up his budunions in fall and sleeps easy, even with minus 24. In his opinion, multiflora is never as winterhardy as R. canina selections are. As his father mentioned when he said to him that all growers use multiflora in Canada. " What?! Are they backward there?" The name Verschuren is closely related to rosegrowing in Holland. They are rootstock specialists. They produce seed, stratify and produce rootstock (about 6,000,000/ yr); and are only a medium size rootstock grower! Combined with Germany and the huge rosegrowers, competition is immense. Out of the competition, the best emerges because of the scale in which things are done there. The scales are different in Canada: here, rose production is done on a hobbyfarm basis. Multiflora is easy to grow; that is why it is used here; that is Jan's conclusion. When he met Otto Palleck, the just retired Ontario rosegrower, Palleck said, "What? You grow on canina? That is the best rootstock there is, but we cannot get No.1 quality here...." That was most likely not his only problem, as seed germination with canina requires 2 years of stratifying. Brian Minter told Jan initially when he started out doubtfully here with canina rootstock, "Do the best you can and grow the best product possible, and you will succeed" Now, Jan has customers who are coming back raving to buy more. His treeroses did not blink their eyes at the cold last winter." Here is a link that might be useful: A Visit with B.C. Rosemen

I got mine from Edmunds last Friday. Its big, not as big as the ones I have gotten from Rosemania, but BIG and appears to be a healthy plant. I know its late to be planing bare roots for some but here I can do it up until June and still have great results. I have it soaking as we speak since I was in NYC on vacation when it arrived.

I think they don't know how to store them as Ann said, but worse yet is they don't know how to package the bareroots for shipping. My plants arrived around early February, bone dry, with no damp paper, filler, or anything to keep the roots moist. There was a sheet of plastic (not a bag) draped over the end of the roots. It was kind of like they stuck the plants in the box up-side down and then put this piece of plastic just over them and tucked it in the box. Thankfully, the roses appear to be making it, however, they are taking forever to break dormancy. I've had to cut off the upper portions on almost all of them because they've died back so much. There is still some hope, but, if they don't start sprouting soon, I will be asking for replacements! (This time!) I would not have ordered at all based on my experience with them last yr, except that I wanted ADOLPH HORSTMANN and they're the only place that have it, other than Hortico, and they didn't have it available this yr. I had gotten AH last yr from Edmunds to replace my old on that died a couple yrs ago. That one never did break dormancy and dried up into black sticks. I should've asked for a replacement last yr, but didn't. This time if these don't grow, I definitely will!