Lynn....... I think you are making the overwintering of these roses too hard. I know you are a planner, but sometimes you just have to wing it. I started my rose life in San Diego and was given the same advice as above. San Diego is also considered to be Rose Heaven. Note the ARS giving that advice in San Diego gave that timing so that the first flush of perfect roses would be ready for the rose shows in early April. It takes about six to seven weeks for a rose once it has set bud to bloom, so if your timing is early April you work back from there. You do not have to follow that timing if you are not worried about having roses ready for a show, but are just growing roses for your garden and don't need perfect roses, but need healthy roses. Cooperative Extensions and Master Gardeners have been parroting the advice given by the local rose societies for more than 60 years. That's because they do not specialize in roses and figure the ARS must know what should be done for their care. In San Diego, we stopped dead heading our roses in October and then began our pruning in December to be completed by Valentine's Day, so that they would be ready to show. My experience and personal opinion is that you stop deadheading in October, allow the rose to set seed and then the rose will go as dormant as nature will allow that rose to go dormant. When we dead head, we are interrupting the plant's natural cycle of getting pollenated and then setting seed, which stimulates the rose to re-bloom. If you don't dead head, the plant will complete it's natural cycle and rest. There is no need for dormant sprays unless you have a serious disease problem or unless you want perfect foliage for a rose show. I believe in leaving the leaves because the rose will abandon them when they no longer perform the function needed for the rose. Studies show that the photosynthesis process stops when temps reach around the 70 degree level. So you can take them off or not. I think they provide a larger mass for the top growth and leaving them on helps protect the canes from the colder temps. Cluster your pots on your patio and surround them with bags of leaves or mulch and stuff the same material in the gaps between the pots to make a bigger mass and to protect the outside pots from the colder temps and to keep the temps within the mass as constant as possible. If you feel you need to protect the top growth from freezing temps, you can cover them just as farmers do with their crops. These are small roses, they don't need to be pruned for the first year except to clean out the rose and shape it. (Note: I don't even shape the rose until it's been in the ground for at least two seasons, but I live where temps get colder.) You want it to grow out of those gallon cans, so you might as well just let it grow. Cutting them back/pruning them when they are small just slows down that process because the roses are storing nutrients in their canes. I now live in a climate with temps lower than you have reported. I over-wintered roses outside for six years in containers before I got them all planted. None of them died. I should have replaced the soil in those pots, but I was too busy digging rose holes in rock. I had to over winter the pots in a totally unprotected yard and I did not go out in the rain or snow to cover them. I also had to maintain those roses in direct sunlight in high temps that lasted for months. The key to my success was the larger mass. Not taking off leaves, spraying or taking off leaves. It kept the temperatures and moisture more consistent. In my best year, I could only get about twenty out of over one hundred roses planted. The only thing you need to do differently than I have done, is to make sure the pots don't dry out while they are resting on the patio. I've been told watering once a month is sufficient, but it doesn't hurt to check and see if you need to do it more often in your climate. Once I got them in the ground, they my roses took off even better than I expected because they finally had a chance to spread their roots. So your choice is to go by the book or wing it. Smiles, Lyn PS ... this rose, 'Kim Rupert', looked horrid in the pot, this is how it looked the first year I got it in the ground.

Thanks, Fusion, for posting that link, I think it is the study that I have been searching for. Bookmarked it again... I wish I knew how to transfer bookmarks from a dead computer, I lost a lot of good references. Drloyd, after shelling, I dry nearly all of my beans on trays exposed to room light. Since I don't transfer seed into storage containers until the indoor humidity is low (below 40%), some of that seed is exposed to artificial light for 2 months or more. As reported above, I have seen no ill effects from this treatment. However, I make sure that direct sunlight from nearby windows never hits the trays. For drying pods that were not fully dry when picked, I place them under a fan. The air circulation is the most important factor for rapid drying; the use of heat runs the risk of reducing seed life. Drying pods closely under a light might be OK as long as some means of air circulation is provided. I store seeds in the dark because my initial research into seed storage said that heat, light, and humidity were the enemies of stored seed. To be honest, that was quite some time ago, and I guess I never questioned the light aspect... because dark storage has worked so well for me, and you don't mess with what works. (Additionally, as mentioned above, packing bags of seed tightly in boxes also helps me to keep air from reentering the bags, and further moderates the temperature of the seed inside.) It may be that light is inimical to stored seed because stored seed is enclosed in a container, which is most often transparent. With no air circulation inside, heat from radiant sources can penetrate & accumulate very rapidly in a transparent container. I've observed this most notably in ziplock bags, which can heat very rapidly when exposed to sunlight. For that reason, when carrying seed into the garden for planting, I use a small ice chest. Light absorption can directly induce heat into the seed; but I still wonder whether the light itself - and perhaps its spectrum - has any direct effect on seed metabolism. There is anecdotal information that it doesn't, of seed stored for years in a jar in a lighted room. Personally, I still prefer to err on the side of caution, and keep my seed in the dark.

I use the same system as others--have a large plastic ornament box with cardboard dividers and most of my standard/inexpensive ornaments go in there. As juddgirl says you can easily customize by removing divider strips if you want larger cubbies. My special and fragile ornaments go into a separate plastic bin and most of them are in their own boxes if the ornaments are glass or really delicate. If not boxed, I wrap in tissue paper. And pesky, I knew there is a reason I like ya! When you wrote this: "I have 15 large bins, all numbered and with items sorted into them by category. They get stored in the attic and DH HATES me when I ask him to get them down from the attic. I know just how many bins I have (they're numbered) and he knows he must get them all in the order I ask for them, because some aren't needed till later in the season and some are needed before we get the tree up." ...I figured it is safe to confess my own neatnik/freakishly organized secrets about holiday storage and procedures. I also keep all my holiday supplies in our loft; all are in containers with red/green color themes so it's obvious they are holiday related. I also have each box numbered; I put the same number (printed on labels) on each end of the box and on top so it's easy to see no matter how the box is stored. And then, I go one step further and keep a master list of what is in each box. I print that out using MS Word tables, so I end up with a single sheet of paper on which is listed, by box number, exactly what is in each storage box. I make 2 copies and place one in a plastic protective sleeve in the loft next to the boxes. The other stays on my desk. When it's time to start decorating it is incredibly easy! I just get my master list and ask my husband to bring down boxes by number. So, for example, when it's time to trim the tree I may only need boxes 1, 2 (ornaments), 3 and 4 (lights). Once I start wrapping gifts I'll get 5 and 6 (bows and boxes). To decorate the house 7 and 8 (knick-knacks, linens) come down. I keep my wreath in a special wreath box and gift wrap is stored in a gift wrap upright container. Gift labels, ribbon, tape, scissors and extra fine point sharpies for writing names are in one of those stackable storage box set ups. All are kept in the loft, together, and with the master list handy in its plastic sleeve right there with them. Aside from the ornaments, I also have my holiday cards organized: all cards are stored in a particular cabinet in my LR, to keep them inside an air conditioned environment so as not to ruin envelopes or get moldy which would happen in the loft. On my computer I have a file of mailing labels which I created years ago using an Avery formatting online tool. So the labels are pre-formatted and only need to be printed onto holiday labels, which I buy and keep in my office in my desk organizer. When I'm ready to do holiday cards I only need to buy holiday stamps, print out my labels, get my return address labels, and sit down for a card session. Makes sending cards a breeze. And since I'm confessing, I also keep a master Excel spreadsheet of gifts. I have columns set up with the recipient's name, the gift(s) I either am planning to give or have given, the price of the gift and who it is 'from' so in the case of someone who gets several gifts like my niece they come from different people, even though I'm the one doing the gifting process. I do this each year. I can easily track how much I'm spending and it lets me see quickly what I have gotten and still need to buy. I have my lists from past years in a folder on my computer at home so I can also review quickly to be sure I'm not giving the same gift I gave the year before for example. Hmmm, I better move on over to the neatnik topic now! Ann

"Maybe they are grown with shade from the sides so they have to reach up for sunlight? And also protected from wind" Yes. "They are also pushed with fertilizer and low branches are pruned in the drive to create a saleable product as quickly as possible." Well, not only that, but they are most likely all grown from cuttings. I'm not sure what they use, but I tend to take cuttings, stick them down in the containers, water them, and then let them do their thing. Large cuttings, as well as small, can be propagated. I myself, will admit, that I do push my potted plants (that I sell) with nitrogen fertilizer. Every spring I use water-soluble fertilizer, except I mix it stronger than recommended. It really does boost growth, and helps to make my topiaires denser, making them sell better. The plants are not going to suffer any long-term ill effects from this fertilization, although, I wouldn't recommend fertilizing most plants in this way.