Traditionally, before the technology of refrigerating them was developed, most new roses were planted as bare-roots in the late fall. Transplanting roses as bare-roots is much the easiest way to do it. In your zone, there is a risk that a warm December could cause roses to grow out, freeze back, and deplete the plants or even kill some of them. However, that's the way I'd do it, as opposed to the expense and labor of potting. Just dig them with 12" roots and canes, strip all leaves, label them and bag them. Store in the shade until you can plant. They should keep well at temperatures mostly between 25 and 40 degrees Remove any growth buds that break before spring. After planting, spray the canes with dormant-strength Wilt Pruf.

Yes. It is possible. A recent paper by Golino et al discussed in detail the root to root transmission of RMV. The abstract for that paper is on line at the link below. Golino works at UC Davis with the collections of grapes, strawberries and roses that are there to provide disease free plant material. The paper on root to root came about because they were seeing RMV where it shouldn't have been. I talked to her several weeks ago and the info in the paper still stands. In addition, there are a lot of papers about other root-to-root transmission of other viruses in other plants in Rosaceae. If you have access to a university library, you should be able to get the full paper from that library. It's well worth the effort. And there is also the possibility that Chamblees might have RMV in some of their roses. RMV in my garden definitely shows in times of stress. Here is a link that might be useful: Abstract :Transmission of RMVs

Thanks Mantis :) and Inga, Krista, and Lesley, Eluane sends her puppy paws hugs to you ! And she gets so excited about Puppy Competition (our name for AKC trials)and Puppy School (I have to drive about an hour's commute both ways to practice usuallly around 3:00-5:00 a.m. once a week). Unfortunately we can't afford to compete except for 4-5x a year compared to everyone who does 24x a year minimum (trialing at other venues besides AKC or traveling out-of- state for AKC). At the Pro-Level, competing multiple times is crucial to earn the Master Agility Champion rank; so sadly it may take forever! for us to get our MACH title. How often you compete has a huge impact! So we train really hard and do tons of praying that we make it, hehe! Eluane is very tiny for a B.C. but unfortunately she is in the 20" division which has the majority of Border Collies flooding her height division, so we are always super worried when our turn comes up. And yes we have to compete against the MACH handlers at our level regardless of whether it's Open or the Excellent (pro-level). Now that I have a Blackberry, I always get to email Jim1961 whenever our turn comes up to so that he can help cross fingers for us, haha! Krista, I wish Cornelia bloomed as bountifully as your gorgeous hybrid musk Felicia. Cornelia will only put her most magnificent show in the Spring. The quantity of flowers is only so-so in Fall. Summer output is dreadful! But Cornelia does have a wonderful scent and it fills the air and resembles fragrant cherry blossoms. I am also debating about showing the full bush shot of my Lincolns. I noticed that my bloom shots do not do justice as to how huge and prolific a bloomer and what a great performer/vigor for an HT this rose is. The garden shot is not "pristine" of course, but it does show the real life proportions of the grapefruit-sized blooms and Lincolns' vigor for a completely no-spray garden. If enough people are interested I will go ahead and add the garden photo taken in October, autumn being the prime BS season for Kansas. But I will wait and see what people think and if they do want to see the full bush shot.

The only difference I can see with older wood flooring is that a lot of it seems to be clear or high grade and thus it was likely cut from the outer portion of a tree as opposed to the center. Wood from the center of a tree is called juvenile wood and is formed during the first 5-25 years of growth. It tends to have less dimensional stability and lower density (contrary to Lowe's "center cut is better" lumber ads). So it quite possible with some of today's flooring (especially strip) that you are seeing softer juvenile wood from the center of the tree. That said, many hardwood sawmills do not cut the center of a tree for any grade lumber and instead utilize it for pallet cants or railroad ties. Softwood sawmills cut studs right down to the pith, much to the dismay of today's framing carpenter. Commercial sawmills sell the higher grades of lumber (FAS, #1 Common) to cabinet plants and distribution yards while the lower grades (#2, #3) go to the large commercial flooring plants. Through optimization, the flooring plants can make select or #1 Common grades of 2" wide flooring from low grade lumber. What I posted earlier about density is true if one is comparing apples to apples. A tight growth-ring piece of oak lumber from the non-juvenile portion of a 150 year old tree has LOWER density than a second growth piece of similar lumber from a 70 year old oak tree. The explanation is simple. Slower growth results in a higher proportion of lower density earlywood cells (the annual rings you see). With faster growth, you get more thick walled latewood cells and the same amount of earlywood cells which remains constant. For anyone interested in learning about wood and wood properties, there are plenty of good resources available. My source is "Forest Products and Wood Science" by John Haygreen and Jim Bowyer.