Our organic method Old Rose garden has these Tea and Tea like roses that thrive here where condtions favor p.m. more months of the year than blackspot: these I consider to be A list Tea roses and I would buy them first: Mrs. B.R. Cant a larger bloom and deeper pink than Duchess de Brabant and I consider both to be Must have Pink Tea roses along with the China-Tea Le Vesuve which has very rapid rebloom,, and Mme. Antoine Mari, which gets lightly covered with p.m. but no loss of leaves nor bloom production. Mrs. Dudley Cross, very healthy and quite smooth stemmed. Souvenir de Pierre Notting, a lovely Tea rose that has large blooms. I'd give it a few hours of filtered shade to keep it from bleaching out in the hot summer sun. Etoille de Lyon: can be kept to c. 5' in zone 7 a useful size and easy to espalier in a narrow space. Lady Hillingdon and the apricot form of Anna Olivier are also healthy A list Tea roses and most Teas are pale or light hues so these are very welcome in a Tea rose garden. plus A.O. is the most strongly scented of all the Tea roses to my nose. The white Tea roses, such as Niphetos and Devoniensis can be Divas depending on cultivation and situation, the ones I've found to be easy to grow are: Westside Road Cream Tea" I adore this fragrant white Tea rose, and bought two of them. W.R.C.T. is far more resistant to p.m. than Ducher which defoliated and was shovel pruned. Le Pactole" I had to leave mine behind when I moved, a great loss for it takes ages to build size and is worth every second of waiting. Exquisitly elegant blooms. Caveat Rosa: I shovel pruned my "Georgetown Tea" it was far too sickly from p.m. to keep in my garden, it defoliated c. 90% of its leaves. Mme. Lombard is borderline for p.m. resistance here,yet although it is covered with a thin icing of p.m. it neither defoliates nor decreases bloom production. As an organic method gardener I'm used to ignoring this amount of p.m.. Mme. Berkeley is quite resistant to powdery mildew in our area, but I have heard from folks elsewhere that it is not as resistant to blackspot as some other Tea roses. I love it and have it outside my living room window so I can see her often. I prefer Monsieur Tillier to Gen. S. for color and M.T is slightly healthier in our garden. The Triomphe du Luxembourg we received appeared like a plainer version of Mlle. Franziska K. and I regret ordering 3 of these. "Alliance Franco-Russe" shows less resistance to p.m. than Etoile de Lyon and Souvenir de Pierre Notting. best wishes for a beautiful Tea rose garden. Luxrosa.

This morning I decided to add insult to injury by moving two more plants! Yesterday my poor husband had to switch around Burbank and Mme. Lambard since I'd forgotten what goes where in the original move, and this splendid man did not demur when I proposed moving two more roses today. The plants we had originally moved are doing surprisingly well, probably because I spray water on them several times a day. Today we moved Duke of York to Carding Mill's spot (which had been moved to the cutting garden) and Alexander Hill Gray to the spot Blumenschmidt formerly occupied (he's in rose heaven). The original spots I chose would soon have been too small and there were two glaring spaces where Blumie and CM had resided so it's all good. Fortunately the weather is still on the cool side. I happened upon Paul Zimmerman's video about moving roses in the summer and it was very reassuring. It's actually all been a very good learning experience. And made quite fun, I might add, with all your great posts. Ingrid

I think the issue that I am having is seeing a tiny band, looking at a couple of the 2 year old teas and not thinking, oh ya....that will fit the space. On that note, Lady Hillingdon has put out a 24" cane and a couple of blooms. Crepuscule is still about a foot tall, but looking fairly happy. And Safrano has gone from sitting and doing nothing since mid June to exploding with new red growth. Still no planting holes, but lots of fence post holes are in and some garden wire fencing, should keep mom from scaling the berms and funnel the access to areas we can keep an eye on. Since I started this idea, the use of the garden space has flipped. What was going to be open for the chickens to free range and the chicken free zone are now opposite. I now have some roses to protect from chickens, but even more I do not have to worry about. Anyway, another few Sundays and the fencing/arches/gates will be done and painted and ready to put those roses in for that first real rain....when ever that is.

I guess the tears in my eyes are the joy seeping out, not the joy I expected or was looking for since Ingrid started this post nine days ago. Nine days ago I had no joy, nine minutes ago I had no joy, but now I have the hope of joy. I have the joy of Melissa and Anita and Neils, all of whom I can identify with. The last of summer (not quite able to say the end yet) had taken its toll on my joy. I wanted the somber gray gravel to be joyful green grass. I wanted to see the mostly bare canes covered with lovely green leaves. I wanted the lushness of spring and saw the barrenness of winter and the heat of summer. I wanted positive results from the labor and dedication and high hopes. I wanted joy in my garden. As a friend says, want in one hand and spit in the other and see which fills up faster. I was pretty desolate and stayed away from this post - until now. Because now I see that there are different joys in the rose garden, unexpected joys, barely noticeable joys but joys nonetheless. There is the joy that Melissa found - improved, wonderful soil. I found some on Sunday. I also found the dry sandy stuff. And there is the hope. Not many feet separated the two shovelfuls of soil, but wow, what a difference, and all I did was what Neils did. Add composted manure - the horse kind - and nature did the rest. And joy added upon joy. LeVesuve, a volcano overflowing joy growing in the dry sandy bed. Go figure. He is rewarding me and thanking me for making him the center of the garden. A decision I was barely able to make, a heartfelt decision not a brainthought decision. I have loved learning his habits. He's been a stealth rose from the beginning. Growing almost minutely, more sidewards than upwards. This magnificent fellow feels about leaves the way I do. He likes them green and plentiful, always there, never fading or missing. Now I look at him and right after I notice how short he is, I feel a rush that tells me before he blooms again (which will be sooner than I think) he will quite suddenly get bigger. Each place where a flower will be won't have been there before, isn't there now, but next week it will be. New canes, extended canes will be taller and have buds - so many of them - and then the big floppy fat flowers, all pink and reddish and pretty gawdy. He brings me joy, joy that is coming and that is here and gone and coming again. Another joy is new fans on recently planted daylilies. Joy in another unexpected place, because though I feed and prepare and water, truthfully my thumbs are not green at all. I think probably they never will be. I think the plants grow because of their own joy not because of me. I think my joy will be more and bigger the more I see myself as setting the plants free to be joyful, to be fruitful and to multiply as they were ordained to do. Yes, I think that's where my joy will be. Then there will be joy in the hard labor, and joy in the journey toward finding what, which, how the joy can be found and nurtured. And there is joy in knowing confidently that unanswered questions today will be answered tomorrow or maybe the next day or maybe in nine days. Sherry