I have to echo all with my regrets for your loss. I also have to echo Diane and ceterum, to also query the Antique forum. I know it sounds kind of scary at first with all of the long names but people will be gentle with you and they are not hard to come by at all by mail order from reputable places. The reason you may be more pleased with old garden roses is that often they have more disease resistance, more and more of us don't spray due to the environment, but honestly speaking who has the time and dedication? This might also be why the ones you lost didn't fare well. I particularly like the 'found' roses with names of who found them or where they were found. Some may only bloom once which isn't bad, but for your application you may want to make sure that they bloom throughout your season. I finally dove into them this last year and am very excited about how they will look and do, you sound like it wouldn't take too much for you to become just as excited if only you had better guidance (and enabling, you've come to the right place for that!) than what's at the local big box or nursery. Although you've described your needs pretty well, you might want to think about colors before you start studying what to get. If I may suggest, you might want to focus on bold (but not overly gaudy) colors. I especially like yellow as an accent, it is such a happy color to me and that's what you'll want to feel in the spot, not that she's gone of course, but all the happy memories of times shared. Too many pale colors would just get me down, I know, and that's where you want to go to get away from such a mood. You might also want to include her favorite color as a main color or accent depending on what it is. If she liked white or pale pink, just pair it with a saturated dark pink or the lovely purple clematis above. Best of luck and don't be afraid to really dig in and ask more questions here, we really thrive on wonderful projects like yours. Kerin

Like Melissa said, growing a climber without support depends on the rose. For years, I grew Quadra without support because I was too lazy to work out a trellis or arch. In 4-5 years, it was a massive aggressive free standing bush with killer canes reaching in every direction. Quadra really wants to climb in cold zones, so it was clearly mad at me for not giving it territory to conquer. Once I set up an arch last year, Quadra shot up canes aggressively (there's that word again) all over the arch. In the meantime, the base of the bush was a stiff shrubby mess and I didn't even try to train most of the canes into good horizontal climbing position. I did notice that Quadra put out its best blooming season by far once I got the arch put up, indicating that it had been waiting for the chance to be horizontal and bloom off those lateral canes finally. This year, I was able to train some of those wayward inner canes toward the sides of the arch and it'll be much more tidy this year. The opposite effect happened when I tried to grow Crown Princess Margarita without support, not realizing how much it preferred climbing. For its first three years, it literally lay on the ground with wimpy lax canes in every direction with blooms only on the end of the canes, and few of those. I kept waiting for it to put up laterals, since it was nothing but horizontal, but it never did in that configuration. In its fourth year, I wound it around a wide pedestal and it took off. It was a mass of blooms and clearly much happier around the pedestal than on the ground. True, it was its fourth year and climbers take that long to come into their own, but if it was going to put out some laterals it would have done that in the three years preceding. Every year, Vick's Caprice drops a cane or two to the ground beside its bush and little teeny laterals bloom like Christmas lights all along its length. In the middle between those two are climbers like Teasing Georgia. It would prefer to climb on something, but seems to be happy in two spots in my yard having large arching canes that sort of fountain out from the base. Being an Austin, it's happy getting its arms whacked off periodically mid-season and coming back to bloom, so the unsupported state works OK. If I didn't do intermittent pruning, it would flop all over its neighbors and be too untidy even for me. As for running a climbing rose through another rose, I think the competition would be too much in three ways. One is the root system, as Melissa mentioned, and both roses would want that coveted surface position for the best nutrients and water. Whichever one was strongest would probably win out, unless their bases were far enough apart. More than that in my world, though, is the sunlight. Roses want sun on the full length of their canes to bloom, particularly climbers in my experience, and if the climber was happy and getting all the good sun it would naturally shade out the base plant. You might get a few blooms from the underneath plant if it survived, but only one of the roses could be happy in that situation if they're going to spread out as they like. Clematis and roses can co-exist when happy because the clematis vine is so narrow it can work its way within the rose canes, and it likes to have shaded feet. The third way I think they'd compete is sheer weight. A happy climber needs a very sturdy stable support, and the supporting rose would risk getting its canes snapped by the weight of the top rose plus wind plus poor sun/nutrients to support the vigor of its canes anyway. Having said all that, I'm sure it's possible and under the right conditions and combinations of roses could be done. My mini-climber Jeanne Lajoie wants to eat up vertical space but maintains thin enough canes that it might be able to not kill a rose under it. At present, it's duking it out with a very vigorous clematis, and the loser is the shepherd's cane I naively thought would hold up that combination! Cynthia

LOL. I was ignoring this thread because I have no knowledge re rose folks in NJ. Then I noticed the total number of responses, and had to find out what's goin' on in the Garden State rose-wise. What I found is kind of wacky. Or, to borrow a term that John McCain used yesterday on the floor of the Senate -- BIZARRO! First, we have someone who's making her very first post on this forum asking a legitimate question based, one must assume, on her own very specific needs. Then come responses attempting to convince the poster that she really doesn't want what she clearly states that she wants. Then, rose service agents in Va and NJ are recommended. The info-seeking poster, who specifically requested info on NJ-based rose experts, replies that she shall contact the out-of-state source forthwith. Then, in a rare appearence here, comes one of the few folks on the planet whom a rather august body has officially proclaimed to be a "Great Rosarian of the World". In contravention of the rules of these forums, the Great Rosarian of the World came to tout/promote/solicit customers for his business. I hope things work out well for the initial poster, & that she finds the help she's seeking -- in VA, NJ or where ever. Turned out to be a curious, interesting and entertaining thread after all.

Rose slugs are very common in Ontario. A rose slug is the premature form of a sawfly. Sawflies are members of the bee/wasp family, and there are different types....ones that lay their ever-so-tiny eggs within leaf axils, and those nasty ones that deposit tiny eggs within canes. Organic or chemical pesticides in liquid form won't prevent the adults from landing, and laying eggs, but will kill their offspring (slugs) on contact. OTOH, Rotenone powder (a botanical derivative) is mildly toxic to bees, and will discourage the adults from doing just that. It should be applied on canes, and foilage only, and washes off easily with water. It needs to be re-applied every four days (depending on severity), as it loses its efficacy by then. Not only do I get regular sawflies, but a very nasty *stem* sawfly who likes to deposit a series of bright orange eggs within tender cane shoots, destroying rose buds in the process. Rotenone powder is the only solution to this nasty; the adult doesn't like the powder in its face while it's trying to lay eggs, and avoids landing altogether. Incisions (black dots) where eggs are laid The incisions fuse together to form a slit that splits open after a few days, revealing a series of tiny orange eggs Watch out for this nasty orange stem sawfly in Ontario. It measures 8mm in length. Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Slug Info & Photos