Kitty, I got more than 300 bulbs, and I went to the Contractors' Warehouse and bought two "damaged" standing refridgerators that had the freezer part separated on the top. The two standing fridges are about a person height, the one that you usually build in the kitchens. I should correct myself though: One of the same kind came with the house that we just bought a year and some ago, so I actually only had to buy one fridge... Since it had some surface scratches or slightly dented side panel, the fridge was less than $200. When I have my bulbs out in the garden, the cleaned out fridges can store food items, drinks, water bottles, and the two freezer parts, of course, hold the kind of stuff you put in freezers... But when I start buying the bulbs in September, one of the fridges is cleaned out of EVERYTHING, and bulbs start to fill it up. I keep it a steady 47F, and never put anything else in the same space with them. Then now, that I just lifted the bulbs that were out in the garden, fattening up, I clean out the other fridge from everything, and these bulbs will go to sleep there. First, I lift them, then I hint them with some Captan as soon as I can figure out where to get some. So far nobody's got any in the stores I went to, then after about a week of drying out in the garage, in they go to the fridge, same conditions as the new bulbs. Then in 6 weeks, on February 24th, I will take out my first bulb and plant it in a pot, so I can enjoy its flower inside. Then when they stopped flowering and giving me the seed pods, I will just stick them out in the bed again for another season of California Summer outside... Sunscreen and topless girls are provided, so they are happy like a puppy... So that's all. And the two fridges fit comfortably on the two sides of the entry to the house in the garage... It is a blessing to have an empty fridge in California during summer. You can stuff it full of liquid, then you are never without water and refreshments. It is actually very helpful when you are in the middle of construction. Water is like a commodity in the heat. I just wonder what I will do if I buy the same amount of new bulbs next year as I did every year so far... Would I have to go and buy another fridge? It is actually funny...

translocation requires the plumbing of the plant (the xylem and the phloem, not the cambium, which is a lateral growth point) to be functioning. glyphosate is a translocated product. As a point of reference, so is 2,4-D, and when either is used for basal application of woody plants, using at a higher rate of concentrations would be recommended than for broadcast spray. Knowledge of plant physiology and growth response to pruning would tell me that even at this late stage of the season, you would have the desired result. Also, dormancy in plants and cessation of physiological activity are things that I just haven't studied enough to give you a technically correct botanist's response, but the simple answer is, that just because the leaves are off doesn't mean the plant is not working. If this would be the case, adequate moisture through the fall would not be so important. The rate of activity may be slowed, but that doesn't mean stopped. Combined with a plant's normal physiological response to pruning (which is to promote bud initiation and growth)...well, you get the idea.

Yes, but don't let it get as dry as you would a plumeria. The roots must not be allowed to dessicate, the boug does not have the ability to regenerate new roots in the spring. I learned that the hard way :-) Try to give it a head start and take it out of dormancy around February if possible - they bloom heavily with enough warmth and light in the early spring months. x

I've always thought of dormancy as something plants can do, more so than something they need to do. It is more of a skill of survival through the cyclical weather patterns of the seasons--evolution and genetic adaptation. It is a rather insular idea that cold is the only condition that promotes dormancy in plants. In many places in the world dormancy is promoted by lack of water--a dry season if you will. Some of our heat loving roses likes teas and chinas hail from places like that. I strongly suspect the disaster teas roses are in my 7a garden where they cannot survive through to spring--even though conventional wisdom says it should be warm enough--has more to do with the fact we have significant moisture in the late winter and early spring. It is the moisture that forces them out of dormancy, but then it is still too cold for growing, un-dormant plants to not to be mortally damaged. We take plants that have evolved under certain weather patterns and then expect them to thrive someplace with a different cycling of conditions all while assuming that dormancy triggers are the same. They aren't. All that to say, I don't think I would try to force dormancy based on temperature/cold without at least trying to understand the potential genetics of that particular rose.