V.ery nice. Thank yOU

Thanks, Nik. Entertaining patter, beautiful roses and gardens. Helped pass a hot afternoon :-)

Thank you.

A few things to note.

A med climate is not a single climate but a whole class of climates mainly defined by long dryish hottish Summers and coolish wetish Winters with short but distinct seasons in between. Yes, anything below the Alps line can be classed as Med climate and indeed while traveling by road in a North to South direction one can immediately feel the difference when crossing these horizontal mountain ranges (feels homey to me..) but that's about all one can say about med climates. Lots of important things like average yearly rainfall, summer rainfall, existance of frost and freezing minimum temps as well as average max temps can vary greatly depending mainly on latitude, altitude and distance from the sea. The sea itself plays a big role differentiating true Med from med like climates since the Med Sea is very different than the Oceans.

Quite a few of the mostly well known roses presented are once bloomers, a thing that should be noted by people in Cal, in my opinion.

It has been my experience, supported by others also, that neither 'Laxa' used as understock in the UK, nor other vars of R. canina used in northern Europe are unsuitable for the med climate. Others, such as the ones mentioned, may be more suitable but they are not much used anymore even by Med growers due to commercial and other considerations. That guy near Barcelona who was mentioned in the speech must either have been doing something very wrong or it has been the roses themselves rather than the understocks which have been unsuitable for his climate (Austins anyone?).

I do have a couple of the speaker's books, which I do enjoy also. He has some good photos of less well known roses in his book on climbers.

Lol Sheila! French names pronounced half correctly in a British upper middle class accent sound different than pronounced half correctly in an American one.. I wonder whether Quest-Ritson's actual ancestors used to take the train to spend the winter in the Riviera.. A double barrel name might suggest so but you never know...

Btw, this book mentioned, '99 Years of Tea, China and Noisette Roses' should be really interesting judging from the author. I would buy it despite my limited understanding of Italian if it were not so expensive for a paperback. It should pair well with the australian Tea book.

Maybe an English translation is in order? Any Italian speaking rosarian over in the US willing to take up this project? I would gladly spent that amount of money on the book if I were sure I would understand all that was written in it.. Maybe one of our very own forum members residing in Italy? Melissa, Tuderte, bart?

Another note. Paul's Scarlet climber was mentioned growing at the edge of a vineyard in Tuscany. Here's an interesting piece of useless info. I don't know about Italy, I would be surprised if it weren't similar, but over here roses have been traditionally grown at the edges of vineyards. The reason has not been some romantic love of the vine grower or his wife for roses but a very practical one; powdery mildew... Although powdery mildew fungi affecting roses and grapevines are different they are encouraged by similar climatic conditions. Traces of PM on roses were used, before the regional weather service assumed that role, as an early warning sign for growers to take measures about it (usually sulphur dusting) before it decimated their grape production. In a similar, but more limited, way as interesting old roses are found in cemeteries in the US and places in western Europe, some old or species roses can still be found at the edges of old vineyards here.

...I rather enjoyed that, so thanks so much for highlighting it for us... Charles sometimes writes an article for the Heritage Roses Group magazine here, which I receive and I think he tours with them on occasions too... they planned to visit California this year but I think that's been shelved for some reason...

...as most members here seem to be from California, the segment from their area occurs about 39 mins. in and lasts about 6 minutes, and must have been filmed before the Descanso demolition job.... but right at the end there is a lovely vase of roses including Julia Child and Benny Lopez...

..I also like his attitude to pruning.... he does it..whenever he has the time, which may be ''this year, next year, sometime, never''... I find this quite reassuring...

Nik - at least here in our local grape growing areas in the Napa and Sonoma valleys of CA, growing roses at the ends of the grape rows is very common. I love to go up there in the Spring, as there are roses EVERYWHERE! And yes, they were planted and are used as "canaries in the mine". There is one road in Napa where I saw a constant hedge of huge banksia roses (mostly yellow, but some white) in full bloom last Spring - not kidding, it was at least one solid mile long! I tried to count the bushes but had to give up. I will try and get a picture of it.

Jackie

Jackie, are you talking about this banksiae row in West Sacramento?

What a stunning hedgerow. Here, more often than not, it is Iceberg.

Thankyou Nik, most enjoyable and informative. Yes, roses are used in vineyards here for the same reason.