On the Rooter Pots: Susan4952 -- no, these rooter pots are not for "bands." Basically, it's just a way to make a new plant of fairly good size quickly from a plant that you already have a full grown specimen of. It would not work on a small limb or a "band" size plant. A 3/8 inch cane is probably the minimum diameter you would want to work with. You can use up to about a 5/8 inch cane. Seil and TNY78 -- you DO make a cut in the cambium layer all the way around the cane that passes through the rooter pot -- yes, all the way around -- and you DO remove the cambium layer, down to the white wood for a length of about 1/2 inch. I know that sounds like it is girdling the plant and would kill the top part, but it doesn't do that in practice. I've tried it both ways -- part girdling and full girdling, and the full girdling method works best. And I do put a thick gel-type rooting hormone on the cut part. And then it just takes considerable patience for it to do its thing, while you are making weekly inspections to make sure there is still water in the reservoir. I use a turkey baster to refill the reservoir. And as you can see in my picture in the prior post, I use 3 bamboo stakes around each rooter pot to keep it from sliding down the stem it is on, and to keep that cane from falling over from the weight of the rooter pot. The advantage of a rooter pot over starting a cutting is that you get a larger than band size plant the first season, because you are using a bigger stem to start with than a band would be started with. Kathy

HarmonyP,I hope you haven't thrown out that poor Paradise rose with the signs of RMV. After all, it isn't contagious except through the propagation process, so it won't spread to your other roses. It is very common among big box store roses and still appears sometimes in reputable nurseries. The serious vendors seem to be taking it seriously and trying to glean it from their rootstock sources and budwood source plants, but its hard to eliminate completely because it often doesn't "show" itself at times. But anyway, RMV tends to, over time, weaken the plant and reduce productivity and resistance to diseases and winter frost, but different roses seem to show varying degrees of resistance. So once you know you have it, you might as well keep the plant as long as it seems to be growing and producing ok. I've had some infected specimens that still produced beautifully for several years. As for vendors, I think it makes perfectly fine sense to do what you've done. I did the same. Early on, I could not afford a lot of expensive plants but wanted to expand my varieties.I've had some great Lowe's roses and even from (gasp) Walmart. But once I got to a point where I no longer had room for many more roses, I naturally felt comfortable being much more selective, and the specialty vendors were there ready and waiting. I just got rid of roses that didn't please me. That was many cheap roses, but also some expensive ones. I don't consider the expense entirely wasted, because I satisfied some curiosity about the variety. I've had a few that were first purchased cheap and then replaced from a serious nursery, such as Chrysler Imperial and Elina. But I've also kept some of those cheapies for many years. One of my best workhorse roses has been Paradise, purchased from Home Depot, which I agree is generally one of the worst sources to buy from. Go figure. The big box stores definitely mislabel much more often, but you know what, I've had that happen from some of my favorite nurseries, too. It happens. One of my favorite roses ever was an obviously mislabeled red rose from Kmart (back in the early 1990s). Even friends with the Mobile Rose Society never were able to identify it, but it was a gorgeous,voluptuous velvety red rose of impressive size --and thorniness. Sometimes those unplanned mistake events turn out to be pleasant surprises. Last year I made one cheap purchase, just for no reason. I bought Chicago Peace for 3 bucks, because I saw it and had already spent what I had budgeted on "serious" roses. It even had waxed canes. It produced beautiful blooms even though the plant didn't seem very robust. I thought I'd replace it with a better Ch. Peace this year, but lo and behold, by November it was starting to bulk up and become a proper bush. So I've given it a repreave for another year. Who knows, I may never have to replace it.

Just an update. This experience is turning out to be an extremely good overseas import so far. After almost month and half inside in the unheated garage potted up - including having to cover them up for a week due to -14C weather where some lost their first set of leaves to freezing "inside" - I've only lost 5 out of the ~ 105 delivered that failed to break dormancy (canes shriveled). The potting up is turning out to have been a smart move also with the long delayed plant due to weather because they been allowed to become soil based for 6 weeks instead of soaking. Of course I lost one car space in the garage to my DW slight annoyance - my car stays in, it is newer ... hahahaha. The Geschwinds have broke - except Geschwind's Schonste and it looks dead. The one I was zeroing on, Ariana, has been very vigorous (got planted outside yesterday). Planted it in the south bay plot just in case it does behave like a noisette and not like a Harisonii for hardiness. I dosed nearly half with mychrozial fungus (forgot the first half until I remember I bought the stuff in winter). Next week is the big plant with the Pickering's and the Skinner and Erskine roses special order coming this week. Yeah the pain and ecstasy starts again ... bring it on!!!! Of course November sucks as we do it all in reverse again.

Did you hear the screeching of breaks? Fatal information was finally discovered, sufficient to bring this whole experiment to a screeching halt... After 9-11 (whether this actually had anything to do with it or not, the change occurred after 9-11), our government determined that plant imports MUST be walked through the process, instead of permitting them to simply flow through the mail and filter through as has been the traditional case. Yes, you CAN walk them through yourself...IF your point of entry and inspection station permit it. My POE and inspection station are LAX which is too large, too busy, too "high security" and this requires I hire an expeditor. That is usually a USDA employee, who hand carries my order through the process. Cliff Orent shared with me the charges for one order he received back in 2007, the only information he had readily available at the moment. Remember, these are in addition to the actual cost of the plants and the cost of future inspections. Overtime Customs Clearance $185 USDA Services $204 (they must walk the plants to inspection and back, which you used to be able to do yourself) Single Entry Bond $85 Duty and Taxes $25 Carrier Certificate $30 Import Delivery $122.29 Messenger Fee $40 Total Charge $691.29. For a nursery importing several hundred plants, this might be a cost more easily absorbed. Unfortunately, they don't drop dramatically for shipments of just a few plants. The final nail in the coffin is the more recently imposed size restriction. I imagine it was in an effort to reduce the potential for importing borers, but about a year and a half ago, the USDA changed the standard for the size of material they will permit to enter the US. No rose material greater than 10 mm diameter (that's .394 inches thick) will be permitted entry. That pretty much limits anything brought in to small rooted cuttings and bud wood. Most nurseries overseas bud their plants. It would be hit and miss finding even a one year, rooted stock of that gauge. A two year, budded plant where the THICKEST portion of the plant (including the bud union) doesn't exceed .394" in diameter would have usually been considered a cull. Even for stentlings, the stock is usually 4 to 10 mm before grafting. The gauge for a two year old product is most often much thicker than that. I suppose if your situation permits you to receive the small, thin dormant plants and bring them out of dormancy under greenhouse or shade house conditions, this could work. My situation doesn't. My quarantine area, required by Federal Law to be a minimum of 10' from anything in the Genus Rosa, must be nearly twenty feet down slope from the planted rose area where I can create a pad to hold fifteen gallon cans in which to plant, grow and hold the imports until released from quarantine. There is no way anything of a 10 mm gauge could be expected to successfully break dormancy and survive in the conditions experienced on that slope. A very frustrating facet of this experiment is digging out the information required to successfully accomplish it. The only way to discover all the pitfalls is to ask those who have experienced them personally. No one I have been able to speak with at the USDA nor my local County Ag Station nor the "wonderful" USDA web site either know these issues or are able to point you in the direction to find them out. Ironically, I received a call from my inspector yesterday. We'd missed my initialing one of the boxes on the paperwork. She could be here in twenty minutes. I thanked her and let her know what I'd discovered. She seemed horrified as she had no knowledge of any of it. Importing isn't impossible, but it certainly is tremendously more expensive and fraught with many more restrictions than it has been in the past. If you live near a less restrictive POE and inspection station; have a sufficiently deep checking account to permit some rather hefty expenses to enable your hobby, and can commit suitable conditions and space for small pieces of plants for the required two years, you may still bring in stentlings, cuttings and bud wood. I think for most of us (definitely me), this will prevent entertaining what used to be a rather fun rose adventure. Yes, Michael, it does appear the restrictions are in reverse as we seem to have more than our share of pests. For colder climate nurseries, this apparently isn't a worry, as they feel their climates kill off most serious pests. I've been rather surprised how unimportant the virus issue is to several I've had contact with. It has ranged from total oblivion about it to simply not caring as they've felt if there was infection, the plants would simply die out and the only "spread" would be within the specific cultivar through propagation. Of course, for more Mediterranean climate types, there should be greater restrictions and worry because the climate would encourage spread and faster infestation. Kim