Happy New Year farmerduck. I live in the bay area, 40 miles east of SFO on the Delta. We are warmer, colder, and not as wet as the city. I am not an expert, yet, but one of my roses that doesn't get huge (like Pristine or Gemini) is St. Patrick. Many blooms and very healthy foliage. I don't really pay attention to thorns much, but once again NOTHING like Pristine, who happens to be my very well armed favorite. I have Austins, but they are only 3-4 months old so I cant say much. Lady Emma Hamilton is already blooming (yes now!) and looks to be a healthy, gorgeous, and terrifically fragrant girl. She is a graft so she is actually older than 5 months. Most of mine are own root so are really young. Hope this helps, andrea

Anchita, the rose you are seeking is likely the Autumn Damask (one of its many names, see the HMF link below. I've grown it here in Livermore and it would be an easy rose for a beginner to grow, I think, the main problem mostly being keeping it under control (a vigorous rose). Its main bloom is in the spring but it has scattered blooms later in the season and it does smell heavenly. Other roses along that line that do well here, blooming a bit more frequently due to added genetics in their backgrounds, are Rose du Rescht, Joasine Hanet (Portland from Glendora), Jacques Cartier, and other "damask perpetual" or "portland" types. You are not likely to find this rose, or any of these, at Regan Nursery, which mostly carries only newer roses. The tiny selection of old roses they have at the very beginning of the season are gone in a blink and I've never seen a damask of any type there. (In fact, I've only ever bought one rose from them, Valencia, for my mother -- not the kind of roses I grow, for the most part -- but they have the one of the best selections of fruit trees and shrubs of anyone in the Bay Area in early January). So, unless you can find them by chance at some other nursery (Annie's Annuals in Richmond frequently has Rose du Rescht), mail order is you best chance. HMF lists a number of nurseries offering Autumn Damask (click on the "Buy From" button on the upper right side of the HMF page). A rose in a pot can be planted any time of the year as long as it is kept supplied with water during dry times, though it is usually better to avoid planting during really hot periods (providing temporary shade really helps in that situation). If the plant you buy is "band" size (a rooted cutting, essentially, with maybe some further development), it is usually safer to repot it into a gallon-size pot and allow it to grow a better root system before planting it into the ground. Here is a link that might be useful: HMF Autumn Damask

Thanks Henry. With so much prey to feast on hopefully beneficial insects, "the friendlies" will increase enough in the open landscape to keep chilli thrips under control. Perhaps this is happening in Florida as I read some reports on the Florida Forum that folks had had chilli thrips in the past, but then the infestation abated. A friend wrote this on the Texas Forum: "I was living in Hawaii when whiteflies first made their appearance. It was an ugly thing. Their population exploded exponentially. Their were so many whiteflies that our ceilings were coated in them. They were absolutely everywhere. They smothered a lot of leaves in sheltered areas even though we had significant ocean breeze. It was disgusting.It took about 6 months and then they had a population implosion and it attained a balance. One never saw them. Perhaps bugs and geckos had learned to eat them. I don't know what happened. I hope some natural enemy to chilli thrips comes forth and something like this happens." Now I'm find chilli thrips are on several other plants in the garden. After seeing suspicious leaves I've ID'd them on Coral vine, Henry Duelberg salvia and Texas smoke tree by tapping the affected leaf and looking at the tiny yellow dots moving around with a 10 power jewelers loop. And I do mean tiny. They are less than the size of a period and barely visible in bright light on white paper with my reading glasses on. They are much smaller than flower thips, and looked just like the photos. Also several pale colored tiny spiders quickly scurried off the paper. They were just a little larger than the chilli thrips. Hopefully they were eating them. This makes one reluctant to spray even with spinosad, but knocking them back before winter may significantly reduced their population next summer. I don't know. Right now I'm trying to reduce the number of the most susceptible plants.

This was posted on the Antique Rose Forum to my thread about chilli thrips. "Posted by malcolm_manners 9b C. Fla. (My Page) on Mon, Oct 15, 12 at 22:32 I cannot claim to be an expert on chilli thrips, but I know how we control them, and how most successful programs work -- they are based on soil-applied imidacloprid as the primary control measure. Then supplemental sprays with unrelated chemicals help prevent any build-up of resistance to the imidacloprid. It works very well. "There appear to be a few roses that at least tolerate them, if not being actually resistant -- 'Mrs. B. R. Cant', 'Trinity', 'Smith's Parish' 'Tausentschoen'. Probably lots of others. Unfortunately, some of the most otherwise carefree roses (Belinda's Dream, all of the Knock-Out series, Don Juan) are unusually susceptible." When questioned Dr. Manners said in a subsequent post that the systemic imidacloprid doesn't transfer to the petals and pollen of roses so isn't harmful to bees and unfortunately doesn't protect against flower thrips, but when I looked it up online sources said that it is very toxic to all insects including bees and other beneficial insects, so I wouldn't use it. Incidentally, my Don Juan by the front door has not yet shown evidence of chilli thrips. It's good to hear the one of the very best of the antique roses, Mrs. B. R. Cant is tolerant of them.