Bart, first of all I am sorry for your hip issue. This getting old stuff is such a challenge.

Now, about that rose. Do you love it ? Is there a rose that you have been dying to try ?

My feeling is that as I get older I

want to spend what days I have left with roses that make me smile

It is a different Perspective than when you are young and have years to work with problem roses.

My credo is. You cant grown a rose you love if you are still watering the one you dont.

Mike Lowe had an enormous one growing up a telephone pole not too far from Boston. We had it for a while, but it was never right. Poor vigor, poor flowering, never really looked healthy. So we ditched it with the idea we would get another from a different source. I don't think I've seen it for sale since.

I don't know the supposed parentage off the top of my head, but it is definitely a R. setigera hybrid. I don't know if those are like other hardy once bloomers and require a certain number of chill-hours or something to flower well.

Thank you both! Kristine, I totally take your point, it's just that my soil is really bad in general, though in some areas it's better. I adore Mme Solvay, but whereas one plant I put in only 2 years ago is growing wonderfully, another-put in a long time ago, refuses to flourish . And-guess what? this stunted Mme Solvay is right next to where Gem of the Prairies was! So maybe it just is that area. It's also taken me a long, long time to learn really how to prepare this bad soil before planting,so I'm wondering if I should give GemoP a second chance.

Mad_gallica, what was Mike Lowe's enormous one like? Did you ever see it in bloom? Mine seems vigorous,but as I said,it's never flowered much at all. This has happened with other roses in my garden: plant growing vigorous and well, but poor flowering, and this, too,has been due to bad soil; I've moved these plants and then they picked right up. However, here in Tuscany we're more like a zone 8/ 9, so if it's the type of rose that needs cold, it'd be best to forget it.

bart, I've been thinking about you and wondering when you will have your hip surgery. I know you don't give up easily, but there are so many gorgeous roses available that will do better for you, and I would suggest you choose one of those instead. I can't imagine that a rose from the frozen north would be the best choice for you. Sometimes retreat is the better part of valor. Take care.

I seem to remember seeing Mike Lowe's Gem of the Prairies in bloom once. The HySets tend to bloom later then the main once blooming flush, so it was a hit or miss thing. He had it trained to the guy wire for a telephone pole, and it went almost the whole way up to the top of the pole.

I have no idea if R. setigera is a purely cold climate rose like gallicas or not. The hybrids are not at all commonly grown. Now looking at HMF, it seems that there is some confusion in commerce between Gem of the Prairies and Geschwind's Orden. We (attempted) to get rid of GO because of blackspot, but apparently it's back! That one does require good culture to perform well.

You people are the best. I think I'm maybe convinced; a decisive factor for me is the info that "Hy Sets" bloom late,because this trait is one that tends to make me exclude a rose a priori. In my climate, it just gets too effing hot out in late June and July to even want to be outside, and it's not like I could enjoy the rose from the windows of my house, since I have no house out at my garden. Not to mention that the heat just spoils flowers too much. So this consideration makes me think that, no, it's not worth giving it a second chance, because even if poor soil, etc, is the cause of it's unsatisfactory behaviour,it still wouldn't be worth my while to spend more energy on the plant, since it'd only flower at a time of year in which being out at my land tends to be generally pretty unpleasent. Also this info rescued me from ordering "Himmelsauge" ,since that, too, is a setigera! And do you mean, Mad_gallica, that "Orden" requires good culture? If so, that, too, is off the table...

Thank you for your kind thoughts, Ingrid . I see that the setigeras are native to the American prairies, and are, indeed, noted for their cold-hardiness,not for tolerance of a generally warm-to-hot climate like mine.

About cold-climate, chill-needing roses: I don't live all that far north of bart and would be surprised to find her climate significantly warmer than mine. None of my plants has trouble with inadequate chill hours or cold. R. gallica grows wild here, and its forms and hybrids are among the absolute best for my garden (which like bart's has terrible soil), along with Albas, Damasks, and the older Mosses. So there might be other problems with this rose, but I rather doubt this is one of them.

Bart, how are you doing? It's too warm and dry for the time of year here, good for working in the garden and for my mood, but I'd like some rain, and, why not, some chill as well. We need precipitation. I know you have a lot on your mind now besides weather, however.

Mariannese,your pictures do show why I was tempted by this rose; the flowers are indeed beautiful. When in rose season does yours bloom?

Melissa, thanks for asking about me. Nothing has changed for me, unfortuneately. I try to get out to do some gardening, but can only go rarely since I'm so disabled that it totally exhausts me. I have to fight off the feeling that I "just can't take any more pain and suffering". I'm worried about the weather as well. We've had some rain, but the trend isn't reassuring at all. Still, I did plant out one potted rose so far, thinking that, if they ever can actually do my hip, I won't be able to do any planting while I'm recovering.

One day I'd so like to get some gallicas! It seems so hard to choose amongst them; they all look so beautiful. But I'm not sure that just chill factor is the only thing that would make a rose of a particular family not do well in this climate. Setigeras are native to the American prairies, apparently, and the climate there is just so different from here. I've tried rugosas in my garden, too; only three, because each one just "grew backwards" and wound up dying.I remember in Connemara, in Ireland, seeing them flourishing out in the wild...along with rhododendrons. And there were fuchsias growing along the roadsides, big, tall SHRUBS. I never even knew that fuchsias could get so big; I've only ever seen them as small house plants. Obviously, with all the peat bogs in Ireland, one assumes that the soil there tends to be quite acid, but rain patterens are totally different from Italy, too, as is temperature. It was always comfortable there, temperature-wise, none of these terrible extremes we get here.I loved it there...

I know this is a hard time for you, and don't have much comfort to give; only that it will pass eventually. It's dry here, too, and I'd love rain--which is in the forecast for tomorrow, how about you?--though at least the current state of my body allows me to work outside in this period of endless sun, so it's not a total loss. Still, let it rain!!!

I'm believing more and more firmly that the bes and easiest t roses for my garden are the ones descended from species that are native here: on our land we have R. gallica, R. canina, and R. arvensis, and sure enough, the Gallicas, Damasks, Albas, older Mosses, and Ayrshire ramblers are stars here. Not much repeat in all that, I know, but there are the Hybrid Damasks, and some of the Hybrid Perpetuals do well. The warm climate roses can be wonderful if the soil is lightened to that nearly mythical "well-drained but moisture-retentive" state that plant catalogs mention so often. I wrote off Rugosas years ago, also the early yellows, going by R. hugonis and its tremendous susceptibility to cane girdler. And all the others, too many to go into (supper's on the way).

Remember, fall is coming! I've never been to Ireland, by the way, but it does sound pleasant.

P.S. I agree with you that the timing of rain and temperature patterns matter as much as highs and lows.