Sorry for the late reply to your query Joe. I haven't been on the forum much over winter, busy with other things. I did go up to the Summerland Ornamental Gardens yesterday to do a quick check on the roses. We had a very difficult winter with a warm November and December, and in early January a sudden flash freeze with temperatures as low as -27 C for a week or so. It is still late winter here and the soil is yet frozen to a degree. Summerland is rated as zone 6b, but we had 5a temeratures with strong arctic catabatic winds and wind chill during the cold snap. So, on to the roses. Most of them will be going into their 3rd growing season this summer, and so are still immature plants. I am happy to report that all of them survived. Many have quite a bit of cane damage, but they all have live cane close to the ground and some have swelling buds already. The collection at the Gardens consists of the following: Marianne, Gallicandy, Oshun, Jerry Jennings and Treasure Trail. We also have Allegra, Janet Inada, Mel's Heritage and Won Fang Yon in the greenhouse at Fraser Valley Rose Farm in Deroche. I will continue to look for viable opportunities to acquire more varieties if feasible, but won't be actively seeking them out. We imported six cuttings of each, along with many more early Austin varieties and a few other hard to find varieties last spring. Jason stuck the cuttings and has been growing them on over winter. I have not spoken with Jason for a month or so, but he is doing an inventory and I will know in a few weeks what took. As well as putting Paul's Plants into the collection at Summerland, Jason will be growing Barden varieties as well and will no doubt have some for sale in Canada in a few years. We too will propagate from the plants in the Summerland collection when the mother plants are mature enough. We will sell our resulting plants at our spring plant sale and our annual Rose Tour held in June. The proceeds will go to help support the Ornamental Gardens. So by my count, we have nine of Paul's varieties in the two Canadian collections. They should be secure for a long time in our Public Garden, which is now 110 years old. We of course were unable to get all of the varieties that we might have liked, but we did pretty well in my books. Because the whole idea of the project was to secure and currate some of Paul's varieties in a safe place, I guess we have a success. An additional intent was to allow us to propagate and share these lovely plants with others. Jason will be able to do that better than we can at the Gardens in the next few years and may in fact eventually begin shipping to the US as his new nursery grows. But again, that will be a few years down the road. Even propagating plants for sale here in Canada is still a year or two away. But then this project started in 2019 and we are now entering year six, but we are on the road to reaching our long term goals. I know many on the forums are familiar with Jason through his You Tube Videos and website. he is young, energetic and a cutting edge nurseryman and Rosarian who shares my passion for preserving rare, garden worthy varieties. For those of you in Canada, check out his website and support him if you can.

"That tintype photo is really neat! Do you also use pictures of people? I would imagine plenty of folks would love to have a family photo made like that. I know I would, and it’s certainly the kind of photo that should be prominently displayed. How long does it take you to “make” one, from start to finish?" Thanks, Lisa! I occasionally do wet plate photos of people, but very rarely. Why? In part because the medium is used almost exclusively by modern practitioners for portraiture, and many of them make "cookie cutter" portraits (the same thing over and over) and I did not want to work in that realm - making distinctive work when doing tintype portraits is difficult. And although many practitioners do well selling tintype portrait sessions, I have no interest in selling my services for such purpose. The time it takes to make one wet plat/tintype varies on lighting conditions and a few other variable, but as "traditional" photography goes, its a fast medium. I can prepare and pour an aluminum plate (Glass takes longer because it has to be meticulously cleaned), sensitize it in the Silver nitrate bath, load the plate holder, make the exposure, and develop/fix the plate in as little as ten minutes. Washing, drying and varnishing the plate adds more time to the process, of course, but the making of the plate itself is fairly fast. "I hope my rose is truly ‘Siren’s Keep’. It’s total lack of fragrance throws me off. I’m assuming you would have mentioned it, had mine appeared to be misidentified. It does bloom in small clusters, but the largest blooms are quite a bit smaller than 4”, only 2”." Well, I hate to have to tell you this, but I guarantee you that rose is not 'Siren's Keep'. I'm 100% certain because I do know what it is: 08-02-05 How this came into the hands of RPN is a mystery to me. About 8 years ago I sent about 45 plants of 08-02-05 to Rogue Valley for introduction (It was about to receive a name) and somehow they lost track of this variety in their inventory. I asked about its whereabouts several times, and at one point they had located the plants, and then months later they were "lost" again, and this time it was permanent. What appears to have happened is that this variety ended up in RVR's "lost label" roses, and was distributed to customers as a "no ID" freebie rose. Several GW folks have posted photos of this variety in the past couple years, explaining that it came from RVR as a no name freebie. But again, I have no idea how it came to be in the inventory of RPN, and I have no idea if all of the plants they are selling under this name are incorrectly labeled. (But I bet they are) If any of you have bought "Siren's Keep" from RPN, you may want to contact them and show them the story I have posted here. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there you have it. And no, 08-02-05 is not a repeat bloomer, so set your expectations accordingly.

Aaron, congratulations on your DH! I am waitlisted. Ann, I’m not too far from you, in Portland, and just got a young Jeri Jennings from a local rose friend who received a spare with his order. JJ looks like she is going to be a wonderful Hybrid Musk for my arch. Her clusters of blooms are buttery golden-yellow with peach edges and what I’d call a sweet licorice fragrance. GORGEOUS! Joyce B looks like a fantastic rose, too. If only I could grow them all! I’d love to see pics if you get JB. Carol Jeri Jennings

Thanks, fig_insanity - I always get great explanations of the weird things rose do on here, and your latest makes sense. I love roses which change color - either when the actual blooms change color over time, or as in this case, where the entire bush can be different colors at different times. When "they" finally achieved what I have seen called "stable" colors in roses after many years of trying, IMO the new roses lacked the excitement and mystery of the older ones which kept providing surprises. I am happy to hear that you think Lauren's different colors are due to night time temps - we are having (for here) an unusually chilly Winter, and I am looking forward to her first flush, which should be in a month or so - purple! Jackie