Reminds me of "Rosa Mundi" but the Rose forum would be the best place to ask. FataMorgana Here is a link that might be useful: Google Images - Rosa Mundi gallica

NO. You have to feed and water the rose and that is best accomplished FROM THE TOP. The water and nutrients are going to go through the herbs first so they'll get theirs before the rose will. You want the rose healthy and vigorous. Why take half its root area; half its water holding potential away from it for the herbs? What happens when you determine you don't like the bugs or fungal issues and want to spray the rose to get rid of them? You don't want to spray your herbs, even with organics or bacterials. If the plants were in the ground, it would be less of an issue as there would be tremendously greater soil area providing tremendously better water holding potential than the pot does. Even then, though, you would still face the potential spray issue. Plus, the rose will benefit from being regularly fed. The herbs generally don't NEED to be. Kim

Thanks buddy. We're fighting the good fight. Those folks in that old farmhouse-the one where I tried to get water, had to laugh at all my work and struggles, as I started my project right behind their property. In truth, to the casual observer, I'm sure my plantings look like a part of their property as the farmhouse they live in was a part of the very farm my field belonged to. Funny thing is, if we stand down at the base of that field and look back up-slope towards their house (and this is really a moderate slope) you can hardly see the house any more- a big old brick two and a half story farm house-what with all the larch and spruce taking over the view. Pretty amazing what a hard-working person or two can accomplish in a short time. That's why I get so tired of always hearing people talk about how "they'll never live to see a new tree grow" or words to that effect. I say, try it! you will be pleasantly surprised at how fast trees really do grow. Speaking of work, one year-this was in the early going where I'd plant maybe 250 trees a spring-I got the bright idea to pre-dig the holes in the fall. Well, I dug and dug and dug. that's when they were chuckling at my efforts. Then spring came along a bit too dry and all those little piles of soil next to the holes were rock-hard. I had no backfill material, without chopping and chopping up hard dirt piles. Talk about a good idea that didn't work! Never will I do that again. But I learned.. Evidently, there's enough clay and silt in that ground to stick tightly together. When we machine-planted that big bunch, we accidentally ended up with trees too close to our lane, so all of those will have to be moved, perhaps a couple hundred trees. So I'm thinking I'll scatter then wherever we want a tree or two and maybe give a few to that guy in the farmhouse, if he is willing to take down a lone box elder that is continuously seeding into my plantation. As it is, I'm going to have to go up there this fall or winter and do cut-stump[ treatments on all of those @#$%^& box elder saplings coming up in my trees. Darn junk. And that's all from one medium-sized mother tree. I can relate to the weeds. That first year, the one where all the annual weeds came in, it was almost all lesser ragweed..Well, "lesser" in this case was about six feet tall in all the rain that year, and when I'd drive my vehicle down the lane to get to where I like to park, clouds of pollen would erupt so thickly it was like driving in a snowstorm! Good thing I'm not allergy-prone! Unbelievable...just clouds of ragweed pollen. Glad that's mostly gone now, replaced by the Solidago (goldenrod) and asters, etc. I'm fine with that change. Hey look, I'm running away with this thread too! +oM

Hello, i thought i would add some more photos from this year. I forgot to mention in my initial post that the rose suckers—and that when moved to a different location, the rose sprouts again (sucker about 2ft to the left of the original rose below). My MIL notes that the rose appears to have suckered 4 times since it was moved from St. Louis in 1987, but I am wondering if this change now that it is getting more regular attention since I’ve rallied the family to care for it more (I do what I can when I visit, like mulching and fertilizing, but I live 3 hours away). The rose definitely gets crud and defoliates, but is still tough as nails.