Oh my! Such a nice group of responses to my post. And I thought I was the only one visiting this forum during the holiday weekend. anntn6b - I'll have to get up to speed on the terminology ('abnormal' is about as technical as I get) but will take your advice and look for the doohickies you mentioned. The asymmetrical leaves will sometimes have lobes (think of mittens with one or two thumbs). These lobed leaves are found directly under or very close to the rose bud itself but not in a compound set. The compound sets, however, will sometimes have an uneven number of leaves or be asymmetrical from one side of the stem to the other. And some sets show the beginnings of a spiral - perhaps a 90 degree turn. I'm thinking these are early signs of RRD - especially in conjunction with other signs or when I see more than one occurrance on the same cane. My garden is a no-spray zone. Not because of any principle but mostly because I'm a lazy girl. My roses have been selected for hardiness and disease resistance. I've learned to tolerate or squish the bugs and my robust feeding & watering seems to take care of the rest. The more I look at my roses the more I see signs of RRD - or maybe I'm just paranoid. My cats and other family members are worried that I'll see signs of RRD in them and take the pruners to 'em. I suspect that RRD has been in my garden for at least 3 years. It was nice to be blissfully unaware of the situation but I can't go back to that. Have a lovely weekend everyone, Karol

I have lots of roses.... I am so glad I got two Darlow's Enigmas! I got them last year from Heirloom Roses. They are own-root and I've got them on the edge of our trees to climb away. Nobody's mentioned the polyanthas, they do great here! I have CL Cecile Brunner, Marie Pavie, Pink Pet, Red Fairy and Perle d'Or. Very sweet roses. I have a new Westerland from last year planted. As for the Austins that do well, I have Chianti, Flastaff( VERY Fragrant) Jude the Obscure, Abraham Darby and Graham Thomas. The Vice President of the Tacoma Rose Society has given a lot of praise for the newer white hybrid tea Pope John Paul II. He said it does very well here! It is very beautiful and is supposed to have an amazing fragrance. I have the hybrid tea Ebb Tide. Wonderful! Dark purple with an incredibly strong frgarance. My favorite!

Folks, I forgot to update that 2011 is the Year of Camera Experiment. I used to have to wait for the perfect lighting either dawn or sunset, lol! and with certain roses they'd mushroom out and lose their spirals by then, haha! So this year I started messing with the manual settings of my Canon Rebel XSi. I sent these to Jim first to look at, lol! The Ralph Lauren Cover Boy model for the camera is Jim's Baby Napoleon Distant Drums :D 1. Here is the default Sports setting 2. Here is the TV setting of 160 with the wrong fluorescent instead of the sunlight setting but still kind of cool 3. Here is a TV setting of 250 with sunlight setting 4. Here is my favorite TV setting of 200 with sunlight setting I also forgot to demo my frustrations with how HTs mushroom out into moppy blooms with open stamens in the heat... and when it gets cooler HTs start to "normalize"; not quite there but better... I also forgot to show 2 more blooms. Crepuscule is going to be shovel-pruned next year. It started out as a 5" band and grew to be a 6' tall rose, but after the first winter it had to be cut down to a 7" rose from which it never regained much vitality afterwards. It doesn't have quite enough scent for me to have patience. Only highly fragrant roses get coddled in my garden, lol! Another rose, Aromatherapy. This rose is highly fragrant and the color is the perfect deeper bubblegum pink that is slower to fade. But it is highly BS vulnerable and requires a lot of Gardenville sea tea to keep it healthy- way too expensive to sustain, lol! It is coddled because of the fragrance. I may replace it in a few years with Laguna if a friend from England likes her Laguna. I would replace Aromatherapy with Belinda's Dream which is HT PERFECT in bloom form! but the pink is not the deep pink alas!

With all my roses pruned, there is no activity nowadays. However, when I complained to my rose nursery that the roses this year were not healthy, he sent me another pack, most roses of his own choice, at 80% discount. I am dealing with this rose nursery since long and many a times he sents a few roses free of cost Penelope (Hybrid Musk, Pemberton 1924) Brandy, (HT, Herbert Swim 1981) Memorial Day (HT, Tom Carruth 2001) Elizabeth of Glamis (Floribunda, McGredy 1958) Black Caviar (Astrid Grafin Von Hardenberg, Shrub, Tantau 2001) Daftrausch (Senteur Royale, HT, Tantau 1986) Andre le Notre (Betty White, Meilland 2000) Niclole Carol Miller (Grandiflora, Meilland, 2005) Pink Peac, (HT, Meilland 1958) JFK, (HT, Eugene Boerner, 1965) Souvenir de Baden-Baden (Pink Enchantment, HT, Kordes 2000) Princess Alexandra of Kent An un-tagged rose I already have two bushes of Princess Alexandra but he sends me a third at his own. No problem. I am not paying . I am fascinated to have Penelope, Memorial Day, Black Caviar and Andre le Notre. Have heard good things about these roses. I spent whole friday afternoon planting these roses... On Saturday morning me and my sons went up Margalla Hills for hiking. Margalla Hills National Park starts less than a km from my house. Here is one of the biggest trees that I saw in many years.... growing on the foot hills of Margalla. Yes, this is one tree. It is certainly hundreds of years old and Banyan tree do spread like this over the centuries; each root that touches the ground becomes a tree. This was last week. This tree is not that old but it is located high up on the Margalla mountain. We reached this spot after 2 hours of hiking. And here are few photos of one of my favourite palms, growing in the wild in Margalla National Park. Phoenix rupicola is indeed makes a majestic bush when fully grown. Phoenix rupicola grows up in the Margalla mountains at medium ranges. Here is one majestic specimen, isn't it? Another specimen This one has been through a jungle fire. The trunk is old but the leaves on top are few. Look how majestic this one looks. I am quite certain that if I grow this plant in my house (which is just 2 hours walk and in aerial distance, around 5 km from this place where this plant is going naturally), it will perhaps never grow this well. This is what I try to discover during my hikes. In nature, what makes the plants grow so well. What is God's Recipe for this lush growth? I think Straw would be interested to know this.... So many Phoenix rupicola growing naturally near the top of the mountain. I am so lucky to have this place just two hours hike from my house (in distance, it would be around 5 km aerial distance). Since there are no rose pics to show.... I thought we can talk about Banyan tree and Rupicola Palms I guess All photos shown above have been taken by me during my hikes in Margalla mountains. best regards