Well, you could tell if it was vole damage, which sounds unlikely at this point. They are wiley creatures who spend most of their time underground, gnawing on roots, so cats have to wait patiently for them to pop out of their holes in order to catch them. Probably the best way to tell is if the ground around your rose feels spongy or a bit hollow. Or, maybe you can see what appear to be vole runs just under the surface of your yard. How close to the coast are you? I know that parts of the New England coast got hammered with sea swells and flooding during the last storm. Are you close to the water? If so, maybe your rose got waterlogged or stood in water for a while? Just taking wild guesses to see what we might figure out. :-) Did you get snow with the storm? I'm with those who say to wait another week or two. It's been a funky, confusing spring. Maybe your Alba agrees. The Albas and Gallicas seem to be "smart" in the sense that they don't break dormancy until they are good and ready to do so, regardless of how warm it has been overall. Even after last year's zone 7 winter, when all the other roses came alive early and were full of leaves and new growth, the Gallicas and the Albas just sat there, looking like they'd never get with the program. It seems that most of them will not be prodded into breaking dormancy based on temperatures alone. A lot of my roses are finally setting leaf buds. Just barely. But not the Gallicas (except those that have some genes of more tender varieties) and not the Albas. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

I like 'J.E. Murphy's Pink Tea' (which may be 'Mme. Emilie Charrin'). It has a perfectly healthy and vigorous plant, good leaves, and a flower of a decided pink color with a form which is both pretty and distinctive. Recommended. My 'Second Street Tea' is taking its sweet time to make anything of itself; but early this year, it started to show some interest in growing, so we'll see. The plant is not yet large enough for me to trust how representative the flowers it has are; but, as of yet, they're a warm light pink, and full of petals. 'Arcadia Louisiana Tea' is wonderfully happy in my garden--healthy, vigorous, bloomy, and beautiful. The flower color is essentially a chalky pink, which doesn't sound as attractive as it is. The bush is about six and a half feet tall, and thickly foliaged. It would dominate that area of the garden if it weren't for an extremely vigorous 'Faberge', which is just as tall, and, by its orange color, distracts from 'Arcadia Louisiana Tea'. I think 'Faberge' is an outstanding rose, indeed one of the very best; but I wish I had planted it elsewhere (it wasn't supposed to be so tall!). But no way am I moving a big, healthy, happy rose... Like 'Second Street Tea', my 'Florence Bowers' is a little slow getting started; but, that said, it did put out this year a good, if slender, six-foot cane, more like one would expect of a climber than of a regular Tea. The plant is young, so I can't really say much about the flowers; but it seems to bloom in flushes rather than anything like continuously.

I have been looking at their selection as well. I had my reservations but at their prices it is worth a try and now that Campanula has recommended them, I am plan to order 20 roses from them for delivery in November - works out to EUR5.50 per rose including postage! I would never get that here in Switzerland - min. price here per rose is about EUR14.00 + postage. Sharlene

Carol, I don't think you could go wrong with Dee-Lish. Its ADR designation should make it an unlikely black spotter. It's too soon to report on BS on my Dee-Lish, and I do spray, but I plan to test DL and pass over it when spraying its neighbors to see what happens. It could be quite winter hardy, obviously irrelevant for you since you container grow your roses, but for me it's critical. You know, I am finding ADR roses for the most part are about as BS proof as the Knock Outs, but winter hardiness is very variable from variety to variety. I believe the test gardens in Germany on average range between zone 6 and 7, and the roses tested, again I only suspect this, could be grafted, so winter hardiness could be partially attributable to being grafted also, not just based upon on the scion's winter hardy attributes. Grown own root, the ADR winners could be less winter hardy. This point, I need to further investigate. My Earth Angel is a wonder: no blackspot, no winter kill without any protection, great flowers and scent. My Pink Enchantment, black spot free, dies to the ground WITH winter protection. Could it not die back over winter in Germany's warmer zone test gardens, but dies back big time in my colder zone garden? Both Earth Angel and Pink Enchantment are ADR winners. Questions, question....that's part of the challenge and draw of growing roses. Moses