I got down to 25 last nite, and everything came thru with flying colors! A few of the things that prefer cold look BETTER than they did before! The wind made it a little bit chilly, but I was out in the yard doing some miscellaneous things today anyway. Tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful--then cooler again, with "possibilities" of precip! I'm not buying it!!! Kat, if your yard is sloped, seriously consider doing some sort of terracing to level the soil. Watering on a slope--even a gentle one--is really hard. At the swap try to remember to have a look at my Escape-Proof Garden! It's less than 2' wide, but it's sloped--doesn't really look like it should be much of a problem, but it was impossible to water until I half buried some 2 X 4 pieces here and there to keep the water from immediately running off. In this case the area isn't visible from the yard, and you wouldn't want to do that, but maybe a couple railroad ties or bricks or something--depending on the degree of the slope. I had tried using bark mulch to make it easier to water, but it turned out that the mulch just kept washing down to the bottom--and a lot of water was wasted in trying to get the plants watered deeply enough to grow well! And it'll be a lot easier to do some sort of terracing now than it would be after you've started putting plants in. Just something to think about. Skybird

Thanks Pat, I don't know that you remember but you convinced me to plant Over the Moon and that was such a good suggestion, OTM is doing great except for the rust and powdery mildew. This area by the beach has lots of fog, salt spray and these days shade as the sun moves further south, so they are bound to get these diseases. But the HTs around here in the same conditions that were planted over 30 years ago seem to have adapted to all these conditions and are putting out blooms, so I hope mine adapt too. I love the color of Chris Evert, perfect for me since she has a orange-yellow hue. I don't like the red on VaVoom as much but I do see it in nurseries here, leading me to think it is a good performer in this area. Pat, since you have so many roses, can you tell me which have been the most disease free of your roses, including floribundas? I won't be planting any Austin or OGRs, but I will be planting more floribundas that have some gold, orange hues. Thanks and gorgeous photos. I've seen some photos of VaVoom where is was a clear orange and many people love it. Is it just now in Fall that it takes on so much red?

Carol, In my garden Neptune is amazing both as a plant and the color. The scent is nowhere near as strong as Blue Moon but pleasant. You know I spent years only buying blackspot resistant roses and most had little scent. But now, everything I thought I knew about roses and black spot I just chucked out the window. IMO there are just too many variables and here in Southern PA cool nights and warms days are common in Spring. So, blackspot on some anyway. And I wondered why Aloha which should be very disease resistant and vigorous rose despite being own root looked pathetic and had black spot. I figured out it is because it is on an arch near a mature Colorado Blue Spruce and apparently those are water hogs. So I guess what I am saying is that we can talk about which roses are blackspot resistant, but placement on your property matters so much I am not sure that it matters. I never thought about what plants were within their own root zone and what THEIR water needs are. Mission for 2017: to be a better keeper. I will keep diseased leaves cut daily and removed. And fortify the roses with the fish emulsion + seaweed I just bought from Amazon.com as well as enriching the soil and adding manure when my new load finally rots down. I will keep to a better watering schedule weekly or more in Summer. I will battle Japanese Beetles as best I can and not let that keep me inside. And I am going to buy bushy roses that are first and foremost extremely fragrant and secondly hold in a vase. If they are supposed to be blackspot resistant, too, so much the better. This year I am making a commitment to enjoy my roses more, blackspot, Japanese Beetles or not. While I have placed my order for this year, next year I am going to find a place for Gertrude Jekyll. English /cottage gardens are my thing I guess and she was voted the #1 rose in Britain. That one is a no brainer.

Thanks, Chris for your kind words. I am a Chris as well. Anyway, Lemon Fizz was one of the roses several years ago our Extension site was trialing for Earth Kind designation for Texas A & M. I remember many of the Master Gardeners liking that rose. The Extension’s Demo rose garden has Poseidon & it is a big rose situated on one of the corner inner berms. Everyone loves its color & fragrance. I didn’t want a big rose in my own garden, so I went with Plum Perfect, another fragrant lavender Kordes rose. I do agree with Chris about the canes of MA being not as pliable to go around an obelisk. I have an open 3 sided obelisk and I put a clematis called ‘Betty Corning’ in the center of it. It has pale blue/white bell shaped flowers, is disease resistant & in my garden it dies to the ground & re-emerges every spring to grace the 3 poles on the interior. At the Extension’s garden it is paired with a climber called Jasmina, another Kordes rose. There it reaches the top of that arbor every year. We lightly prune it in that particular garden area & it doesn’t die to the ground like at my home. In case anyone is wondering, both gardens mentioned are mulched with wood chips/cedar mulch is for my rose garden.