Kater, I mostly have OGRs and just a few HTs on Dr Huey bought at Lowe's (cheap). My Mrs BR Cant is on fort from the Apopka nursery (forget the name). Personally, (and I think I must be outnumbered) I don't like the growth habit and I don't think it's necessary re nematodes when the garden is well composted. (The most important reason I water the whole bed is to create a moist and healthy environment for the microbes which feed the plants and repel the nematodes.) OGRs typically come only on their own roots, although Dr Manners buds them and puts them up for sale at the Lakeland meetings. If you google nematodes/roses/Florida, you'll find articles by the FL IFAS on the subject. Apparently, the acids put out by the decomposing organics repel the nematodes. Organics create a hostile environment for them, countering the effect of hot, dry sand. That's what I've read, and I hesitate to contradict anything that Dr Manners does. His USF garden is all fort-budded roses. Another consideration for me was the expense which is about double if you can find them. Roses on fort get very large. HTs get to 6 to 8 feet tall. I installed my micro system from parts bought at Lowe's. A semi-strenuous process and only sort of like rocket science. Do it in the winter when it's cool. With the 180-degree heads you can cover the whole garden by spacing them accordingly with little or no wasted water. My beds are generally 6 feet wide which is the spread of the sprinklers. Spacing of roses when planting is crucial. Roses start out tiny and grow quite large at maturity here, so the temptation will be to space them close, but be strong and resist the temptation or you'll be digging them up and moving them. No fun. Six foot centers are minimum, and your tea roses can get to a width of 8' in 3 or 4 years plus you need access room for pruning, etc. It may look funny for a while to have so much space between your roses, but you can fill in with annuals or perennials until the roses get bigger. That will give you a cottage-y look anyway. Pine bark mulch is good. It will decompose and add to the organics. Roses like alfalfa. I get the 50-lb bags of pellets from the feed store for horses. Rose Tone is good, and there are recipes for making your own organic fertilizer. Just google it. A soil test from your county extension service would be good. This is a great forum full of great, lovely people. Welcome! Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: Good info at Marion County Rose Society

Roses on a patio sound lovely! I've grown some Austins in pots, though mine rapidly outgrew a half barrel within 2 seasons in N. California - it probably depends on which rose you get. I had Lady Emma Hamilton and Charles Darwin in half barrels and they got very large, very fast with giant octopus arms. Currently I have Sharifa Asma in the ground and after two years, it's still very compact which makes me think it would be a good container rose (no octopus arms so far). I second the advice about getting the largest container that you can! Home Depot sells some nice acrylic half barrels that I'm currently using for tomatoes. Drill some holes and yes, get the nice sturdy plastic trolleys! Mine set me back about $30 apiece for the trolleys (more than the pots), but they have lasted and are amazingly strong. Happy planting :)

Thanks, everybody :-) My cat's name is Muesli. We got her as a rescue kitten from a local rescue shelter and she's a very spoilt princess! She's 7yrs old now. (She's also the feline star in my cozy mystery series - well, the fictional version of her anyway!) Lisa - I must tell you, Lady of Shalott can be a bit "strident" when the blooms first open, which clashes a bit in my garden (which is mostly pink, purple & white - probably like yours! ;-) ) - so I like her better once she fades a bit. The blooms do fade to a very beautiful colour - a soft pinky-orange (more orange than Abraham Darby, who is quite pink for me so far) - and the flowers do have a perfect shape, I think. In every other respect, she seems a fantastic rose - constantly blooming (top to bottom) with upright blooms and bushy, even growth (except for the few octopus arms), no disease and doesn't mind heat and blooms don't fry. If it wasn't for that very lurid orange colour when her blooms first open... I'm planning to move her come winter (at the moment she's planted next to Princess Alexandra of Kent in a very narrow bed and aside from the colour clash, they're both growing bigger than I expected!) She keeps throwing out these LOOOOOOONG octopus arms but unlike the ones on Pat Austin which are stiff & angular and look really odd, hers are very graceful & really flexible. I'm sure I could have cut them down and forced laterals but I like leaving the roses to their natural state a bit - I think it gives them "personality" ;-). Plus, I think she'd make a great climber with those long, bendy arms so I'm going to move her to the opposite side of the garden in winter and train her on the wall there next year. ~ HY

[https://www.houzz.com/discussions/rose-propagation-and-exchange-dsbr0-bd~t_30003[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/rose-propagation-and-exchange-dsbr0-bd~t_30003-dsbr0-bd~t_30003) Just add it to your topics. You might want to post in the Rose Forum and Antique Rose forum and even the Organic Rose forum, but that would require a separate post as one can only post to 3 forums at a time. I remember your posts. A better option to find a particular post is to click on your name which takes you to your page. Click on activity at the top and you'll see posts, comments on the left hand side. I see you've started 18 posts and have made 106 comments! You can then save it so you'll easily find it under your Idea Books.