In no spray gardens east of San Francisco, california where the soil is heavy clay, and the conditions favor p.m. over blackspot during most of the green season. -until June or Autumn, when rain or watering the foliage will bring on blackspot. Rust is rare here. I ignore light coverings of p.m. and get rid of any rose that defoliates from disease, those roses included: Lundy Lane yellow' Ducher' the worst rose for p.m. it defoliated more than 90% of its leaves which of course stopped it from bloomming. Borderline, moderate p.m. during wet months but never defoliates 'Mutabilis' The best: China Fabvier' very healthy, floriferous and a bright color. Le Vesuve' such a gorgeous plant. Old Garden Tea roses, and Tea-Noisettes; white: Westside Road Cream Tea' as fragrant as Ducher but far more resistant to powdery mildew. Clean most of the year, here. Lamarque Mme. Alfred Carriere ( best in full sun, small plants are borderline for p.m. in cool wet months) Reve d' Or Crepescule Marachal Niel' ( borderline when a baby, but has good disease resistance now) Marie Van Houtte Mrs. Dudley Cross Duchess de Brabant (borderline for p.m. as a young plant, now that she is older, still gets some p.m. but never defoliates from it) Souveinir de Pierre Notting (not my favorite yellow Tea, as it forms an ugly brown rufff before the petals fall off a bloom) Etoille de Lyon ( a great beauty in my op.) Mrs. B.R. Cant ( one of the fastest growing Teas I've ever grown along with- Monsieur Tillier' Mme. Berkeley (very healthy here, and one of the 3 most beautiful Tea roses I think) Maman Cochet and the white sport Lady Hillingdon (some p.m. easy to ignore with that great vast wealth of apricot bloom.) Paul Nabonnanad Tea roses I'd avoid here, these defoliated from disease or were thickly covered with p.m. most of the year. Alliance Franco Russe ( covered with a thick coat of p.m. as a young plant, if you live where conditions are hotter this is a gorgeous Tea. ) Georgetown Tea (p,m. on all leaves, thickly. H.P.s Reine des Violettes Comtesse de Chabrillant' such a pretty H.P. Arrilagga ( I love this rose, a big buxom beauty, light pm easy to overlook) Glendora (some b.s. not enough to be a concern) It does shattter rapidly in hot weather but has plenty of side buds which makes this a non-issue on the plant, but not a long lasting vase flower) Grandmothers Hat (is this a perfect pink H.P.? or what? fragrance, disease resistance and a long bloom season with quick re-bloom for its' class. --- Polyantha Mlle. Cecille Brunner and all her sports. Borderor Leonie Lamesch Marie Pavie katherine Zeimet and her offspring 'Popcorn' perle d'Or Musk roses R. moschata Temple Musk both have clean foliage most of the year. I cannot detect any fragrance off Temple Musk, which I think is odd as I find R. moschata to be very fragrant. Hybrid Musk Callisto such a pretty yellow rose and very fragrant too! Cornelia my favorite pink H.M. very fragrant as well. Lavender Freindship Queen of the Musks' fat red stained rosebuds stand out against the open creamy white rose blossoms. a wowser of a rosebush, gets huge here, 7' tall x 6' wide, a good rose for a tall hedge. Pernetiana roses. Etoille de Feu Mari Dot that Penardananda rose I can never remember the full name of , cantaloupe hues and very fragrant. Gruss an Coberg Irene Chirucca Borderline : President Herbert Hoover better in a hot and dry climate, c. 10%-20% b.s here during the b.s. season. Very fragrant Bourbon S.D.L.M., but needs full sun here or won't open well. Pauls Early Blush' on rootstock this has genormous blooms even on a small plant. starts blooming when the Tea roses do. (Bourbons that flunked the no spray test: M.I.P and its pink sport M.me . Ernst Calvat. Alba white rose of York Maidens Bluch Gallica Belle Sultane Species R. californica laden with sexy pollen, huge flakes of it, fragrant and long blooming. R. palustris Hybrid Tea roses. Mme. Caroline Testout some p.m. in the spring. La France Mme. Jules Bouche ( I adore this white rose) Radiance' and all her clan. Mrs. Herbert Stevens The rest Souvenir something Denoyal. nearly clean the whole growing season, fragrant and lovely, I did not love a red rose until I saw this at Luannes and nabbed one. The climber called 'Sombruiel' Albertine Ramblers The Garland Pauls Himalayan Musk' a musk to climb a mountain. Veilchenbleu is more resistant to pm. than Rose Marie Viand' well that's a start, I have c. 200 no spray rose names from the area from my days as a volunteer at a local no spray public rose garden. Hope your sister finds a low-care rose to love, Lux

Danger, never ever ride or allow anyone to ride on the auger this is a very very dangerous. The auger is spinning the shaft is spinning. You or someone could be hurt perhaps fatally. We have a tractor and an auger we use it to dig the holes to plant our roses. If the ground is hard we run a hose into the hole and let it soak in for a day. The hole is easy to drill and there is no danger to anyone. Fact is the operator of the tractor could not stop the machine quick enough if someone was to get caught in the mechanism. Bottom line be safe rather than sorry. That said the auger is one of the best investment we have made. We use our machine to dig holes for all of our planting on our 20 acres. We never saw a rose we did not like. We are looking forward to seeing your garden in full bloom. Be safe. gvbill

We had a pretty serious midge problem the previous two years here in the cutting fields, but this year we went totally organic and I've seen very little midge. I don't know if there's something we have that actually kills the little buggers or what that we'd been killing off and now they've come back, but it's been great not seeing those burned tips so often! We change a few months back from organic sprays to only using Actively Aerated Compost Tea, and roses we've not been able to get for cut in a couple years suddenly started producing good roses (Elina/Peaudouce, Geoff Hamilton, and others), plus it seems to have eliminated botrytis on our white roses. Powdery Mildew (our worst summer disease here) has been eliminated on the vast majority of roses, and has been losing hold on the roses that did have it, it's actually been curative in some cases (where foliage that had PM cleaned up). In reading that book "Teaming with Microbes" it said that the AACT using fungally based compost can actually kill nematodes because the good fungus in the soil around the roots will strangle the nematodes (they had an actual photo of that occurring). We don't have the bad nematodes that I've ever seen, but I'm wondering if maybe that same fungus kills the midge larvae, or something like it does. All these good fungus and bacteria are eliminated by chemical sprays, particularly the good ones right at the roots. They are also killed by strong chemical fertilizers. I don't really know for sure if this has been the cause for a much better rose year for us, but it does make sense, and it's a heckuva lot cheaper to do for us, even including the cost of the Compost Tea maker we bought. Plus, the crew doesn't fuss about spraying, and in fact are fairly enthusiastic about it (for our crew, LOL). Our rose production has increased about 44% over last year, some of this is due to newly planted roses getting big enough to cut, and stopping some excessive pruning practices in the past (we stopped that 2 years ago). --Ron

Thanks Prof R...What you've said takes away some of the guilt I've had about his passing. I don't believe that he had a murmur before and he had recently gone through some pretty thorough exams trying to get to the bottom of what was causing his seizures. The only thing we didn't have done was an MRI, because they didn't have the capabilities at my vet, and we would have had to bring him to UT. Our vet and I made the decision that, even if we were to opt for an MRI and it showed a brain tumor, that there really was no reasonable treatment and we would just let him live out his days until it seemed like his quality of life was gone. He was a fighter and made it out of a horrible breeder situation. Part of his neurological disorder effected his balance, and we even had a little wheelchair specially made for him. He was a sweet little guy and we miss him dearly :( I think its wonderful that you work with a veterinary hospital. Ever since I was a little child, everyone told me I should have been a vet, and I greatly regret not going into that field and instead ending up in finance. I volunteer every weekend at a no-kill shelter and we also foster special needs dogs (how we came to acquire Dusty last year). Its not the same, but its my little contribution :) Tammy ps: sorry for hijacking gardenweb to talk about my Dusty!