awesome roses harold! it snowed here alittle this morning, so, it's great to see good things happening in that sunshine state of yours! lol
thanks harold for brightning my dreary day! lol

harold, snow is just starting to lay alittle in our backyard right now. helppppppp! send some sunshine pics to melt it. lol

{{gwi:1284617}}

Harold,

You must have read my mind, I was just thinking that you needed to pick up the ball and run with it because most of the rest of us are becoming very climatically challenged right about now. Good job and bway-tea-fway-la :-)

Harold,Gorgeous mini-flora! In Memory is so beautiful and MEMORABLE! What a beautiful mini!

Eggplant! I am chasing yours with a frying pan, LOL, LOL!

Harold, your Climbing America, like mine is such a satisfying rose! I love mine too, plenty of blooms, but alas, I have to keep my fingers that mine will open. Boxofrox had to tell me that my 34-36 degree weather is going to stop them from blooming; waaaaaaaah! I had so many lovely fat buds!

Boxofrox you are not off the designer clothes/rose rack yet! I bet you have plenty of rose hips, glorious berries and some more roses to show off. And we will have to see who's right; if it's Serena crazy miracles of blooming through the coldness or the usual rosie saneness/experience that the rest of you rose folks predict!

Jim, Candy looks very startled to see all that snow too! Great pic! Eluane would be not standing still but chasing them down! Here is her photo from last year. Eluane loves snow. Look at that happy smile!! Jim, your roses may actually weather the light snow quite well. It's the ice that is the horrible part. Anyway, Eluane sends her smiles to Candy!

JIM that sure looks cold to me I don't know how well I could deal with snow. I've only seen it snow here a couple of times in my 60+ years of living here. And don't worry I'll do my best to send some sunshine pictures your way for sure.

BOXOFROX with the posts that you have put up this year that should take anyone thur the Winter months and I for one know that come Spring your MASTER PEICES will appear once again.

Harold

serenasyh, i'm not worried about our roses getting through the winter any longer. lol
i took a short walk today around our block. all our neighbors went to the same rose school of learning or something. lol
they all cut there roses to the ground in early oct. lol
they all do the opposite of what your suppose to do with roses. yet, they have no issues with them growing back each spring. lol

Harold,

There's going to be a lot of my pictures disappearing from GW because I'm going to start deleting them from my photobucket. Even though I'm only 25% full there are well over 500 on there and it's getting a bit cumbersome to go through all of them to find the ones I'm looking for. Before the stalker who has the link to get in starts screaming, I will say that I'm not going to do it right away just sometime between now and my first camellia blooms ;-)

Harold,

how big will those roses you have in pots get?
i suppose they grow smaller in pots, then they would planted in the ground?

Jim I guess the roses might get larger if they were planted in the ground but so for the have been producing nice blooms. The main reason I grow them in pots is because of the nematodes that kill off our roses in the south. I've only been growing roses seriouesly for about two years now and like most people I bought some roses ( about a 100 )and put them in the ground and thought they would grow on their own. HA HA
Well it turns out that all the roses I bought were on the wrong root stock for this area, so sooner or later they will have to be replace. This why it is so import for people to educate themself like you are doing before they just go out a buy a bunch of roses like I did. OK I've rattle on long enough so let me end by saying LOL Brother and heres wishing you a speedy recovery.
Harold

harold,

i have read about that root stock issue your talking about for Florida. sorry to hear that!
i'm going to grow about 5 or so in pots. the ground soil here is very good. i've been top dressing composting it fort many years now. our neighbor grows a shrub rose 4ft x 4ft and NEVER fertilizes it or sprays, just prunes. it thrives year after year with 3 3/4" 37 petal blooms all season. I've lived here in this house for about 25 years and that rose they have is a good one. never gets blackspot or gets eaten much by insects. i would take a cutting, but, the color of the blooms is aweful ugly. lol
you have a totally different climate and probably soil type. you will have to figure out what works best for you.
Wish you the best!

harold,

this article may help you out alittle. this large rose garden is in california. probably totally different then Floridas climate, ect.
But, the soil part of the article is probably what's happening in alot of Florida soil. Possible? lol

http://www.sjrecycles.org/organics/pdf/HeritageRoseGardenCaseStudy.pdf

harold,

high numbers of root feeding nematodes in the soil, represents poor soil conditions. usually caused by fungicides, insecticides, over- fertilizing, ect.
since you need to do these things in your climate to be able to grow roses, there is probably not much you can do with your soil? (i'm just guessing though.)
maybe that other root - stock is better for your growing/soil conditions?

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/horticultural%20myths_files/Myths/Roses%20and%20phosphate.pdf

harold,

here's a article on growing roses in Florida. Take it with a grain of salt though.

http://www.rose-gardening-made-easy.com/growing-roses-in-florida.html

Jim thanks for the rose site some good reeding on them and I need all the knowledge I can get. JIM my soil has to be some of the best in FL. You see I've been hauling oak leaves in here by the truck loads for years. and still collect all the leaves I can find. There are enough earthworms in my soil that I could sell them if I wanted to. My brother has horses so I get all the horse manure I need. I usely add this to my rose beds in the spring right after prunning. I also give my roses alfala tea with cottonseed meal and other things added in about onced a month.They really like this stuff but my neigbors hate it. HA HA

Thanks again and remember I aways I'm willng to learn and I sure have a lot of that to do.
Harold

harold,

are you having this actual problem with root knot nematodes or are you just worried about it happening?

once you get root knot nematodes, they are hard to control and get rid of. if they should happen to kill your roses and become abundant, you would be better off getting the more resistant root-stock roses.

harold,

root knot nematodes article:

http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/diseases/az1187

Jim I don't have this problem at this time but what everyone tells me it's gust a matter of time before I do. I learning to graft my roses onto fortuniana rootstock which is surpost to resist nematodes. I'm lucky to have a rose society which has alot of knowledgeable people that have been growing roses for years in this area. And belive me they grow some fine roses not like the rags I grow. So I guess as my roses die out or become less productive as they say that will happen I'll just will replace it with a grafted one. Thanks again for the web sites I'll be sure to check them out.
Harold

harold,

your soil sounds healthy and the good guys are fighting off the bad guys in the soil. lots of worms is a great sign! continue to add the well composted horse manure and leaves like you have been doing. this must be helping fight them off. you may never have a root knot nematodes problem.
only unbalanced soils will get SEVERE attacks by the bad guys. if you have lots of good guys, they will keep the bad guys in check.

JIM here is list of roses that Mr. Mills from K&M ROSES brought me last Monday night. I only ordered six but some how I wound up with eight roses I am a sick and weak man. HA HA
All of these roses are on fortuniana rootstock I've learned my lesson.

VINO ROSSO
BRIGADOON
BRIDE'S DREAM
GEMINI
FOLKLORE
VALENCIA
ANGEL FACE
MIDAS TOUCH

harold,

have you ever researched how the soil web works?
this is very interesting.

http://www.soilsecrets.com/Soil%20Ecology%20and%20the%20Soil%20Food%20Web.pdf

Harold, bless! If you are a sick man, you may put us all in the hospital so we can enjoy the fruits of your abundant roses! O.K. Jim remember to take it easy on that arm of yours, LOL!

Serena I certainly don't mean to put anyone in the hospital.HA HA

JIM that last site you sent me was some good readng. Last year I added some mycorrhizae product call plant success to each of my bushes and plan on adding again this Spring.
Harold

http://rosemania.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/page16.html

What a beautiful garden! All the roses look so fresh and the colors are wonderful.

your a very sick man harold. lol-lol
using butt kicking fortuniana rootstock from now on is a great idea for your area. the superman of rootstock. lol
i read where those root knot nematodes attack 2000 different species of plants. hungry devils aren't they. lol

Harold,

that product you got from Rosemania. the same company that makes plant success, also makes mycogrow, which is a powder that is sprinkled on rose roots while planting in the ground or containers.

http://www.fungi.com/mycogrow/index.html

Krista thanks for your kind words and comments, I've been bless with so nice roses this year.

JIM I have order some of the mycogrow to use on my new roses I'll let you know how it works it should help them get off to good start.

harold,

you were blessed this year for sure!
how's your wife doing?
sue has been fine, besides having to put up with me. lol

JIM, I'm so glad to here that Miss SUE is doing fine and as for ADELE she's improving each and everyday. We are surly two very blessed men to have two wonderful and great women to share our life's with. And I know they are GREAT because they can keep us in line. HA HA
Harold

harold,

i'm glad to hear Adele is getting better each passing day.
ours prayers are still with both of you!

Part I: Harold and Jim I am so happy that Adele and Sue are strengthening each day! You are all in my goodnight prayers too! Harold, I have been sharing chocolate cupcake danger stories with Jim as well! LOL! and tonight I just finished making some more rose petal jam, and was thinking of Your Delicious Lemons and Kumquats, Harold and imagining what a wonderful cook Adele must be! I had stored a bunch of dried Mr. Lincoln petals from mid-July and was cooking with it tonight as well.

O.K. Part II, Boxofrox I am screeching!!! How could I have possibly missed out on an earlier response!!! GAAAAA, deleting rose photos! I will especially be screeching if any of my favorite ADs, yessssss, that favorite rose of mine from your beautiful Garden's A. Darby turns up missing. Yes, it is highly ironic that I just love that rose with the lineage that makes me cringe, LOL! I just love those A.D.'s of yours! GAAAAAAAAAAA! I am pacing and wailing...

KG,

After your recent disgusting attention whoring rant against all DA's in general and my beloved ones in particular, I have locked you out of my photobucket account before you can do any further damage so not to worry about a few deletions. However, because I am not of a liberal bent, I have yet to shovel prune them all for the cause of your inconvenient truth. You see, I am more a proponent of the Apostle Paul than of the pathetic twit Al Gore. Paul said that which is not convenient is not truth. Pretty telling, eh ? Now that's not to say I hold you in the same low level of disregard as I do the chubby little attention whore/ hoaxster/green capitalist, but I am keeping a suspicious eye on your shenanigans from now on ;-)

harold,

i was looking at your potted roses again. lol. i think i'm going to have to buy a new watering can, one with a longer, skinnier spout. i'm going to put 1 inch of mulch on top of the potting mix in our containers, so, it further prevents the splashing up of water on to the leaves and conserves water. i may also remove some of the bottom leaves on ours.
i have to make something that keeps the pots off the ground too. lol. they say, hot surfaces like cement, wood, ect. gets too hot for the pot to be sitting directly on and the bottom of the pot needs some airflow. caster wheels? LOL
i'll figure something out.

harold,

i was hoping potted roses did not get as big as in ground roses did. lol. wonder if you could trim the roots every 2-3 years and keep them smaller? like start with a 18"-20" pot
and trim the roots every so often to keep them growing in the same pot? guess i'll find out with my experimenting with them.

Jim I've been doing alot of thinking what to do when it comes time to repot my roses. Frist let me give you some heads up on what pots not to buy. Make sure your pots do not get smaller at the top ( my first mistake ). My plan is to prune the bush pertty hard, then turn the pot on it's side wash as much dirt as possible out, hopefully I should be able to pull it out of the pot at this point. I'll prune the roots to match the bush and repot with new potting mix and I should be good for another three years.
Sounds easy HA HA it want be never is, but that's my plan and I'm sticking to it.
Harold

Oh, dear. I am very, very sorry, very sorry! Boxofrox. I didn't realize you truly were so angry with me and no! everyone admires and loves your Special Garden. It is absolutely Gorgeous! beyond belief, including the very special and painstaking decisions you made for it. Each variety and selection of roses was and is! very lovingly and carefully selected! Both as a memory tribute, beautiful commemoration of those near and dear. That is and always will be the thoughts of your garden. No matter what I have said, I have always been a lover and adorer of your Garden, albeit a thoughtless, stupid, crude and inconsiderate person that I have sadly been. And again, I am very, very sorry. Sometimes my words are hastily typed without realizing the huge damage and missed crucial words are delayed. I was thinking of just the Austins as a class with the thoughtless, idiotic ignorance that I was angering a very special gardener who has always given me such wonderful advice. All roses are beloved, no matter the type, especially! when one has given so much care and love in constructing one's garden. Your Garden will always be that very special and beautiful Inspiration and it will still spread love wherever it reaches.

Anyway, very sorry and deep apologies for my mean and low attitudes. There is no excuse and forgiveness for my inconsideration. I am very sad about everything....

harold,

that's exactly what i was going to do also. lol.
thanks for the heads-up on the tapering pots. our one pot flares at the top to 18" the rest of the pot 1" down from the top flare, measures inside 15" entirely to the bottom.
our pots that will be sat in the yard will be on mulch, like yours. Out front we have cement, so, i'll need to raise those off the ground alittle.
thanks!

KG,

Lighten up, whenever I end with a ;-) it = chain yank = jest= wink, wink. I didn't lock you out nor do I plan to anytime soon, that's provided you behave of course ;-)

gee boxofrox, you fooled me too. lol. i e-mailed serenasyh
telling her she needed to respect your garden choices. lol
she will feel better now as she is just heart-sick over this.
glad all is ok. lol

harold,
hide your knockout rose pics. lol

Boxofrox, you must promise me never! to forget that you are our most Beloved Gardener. O.K? promise??! There's no Gallery, no joy without our Boxofrox! No Memory Garden to Believe In, no Lush Gates of Paradise, no Wonder and Splendor and Miracles....

And yes, you have the most beautiful roses ever! And I will always be the number one fan of your Abraham Darby, LOL! Hence my wailing because I love it so! And in spite of any stupid words of the past, I am always chasing after your glorious and magnificent A.D. way back since time on my Gallery first began, LOL! and if I were to sum up your abbreviation DDG. Without your Abraham Darby, I'd have cardiac arrest, or broken heart, more-like LOL!

Which I was in the throes of, hee-hee! And yes, I will never forget Momma's Bouquets either. See, even from wayyyyy back! I always remember those glorious bouquets. That was the first time I saw your roses and yes, too all the perfect, cupped roses nestled in the glass and balcony... The reflection in that glass was again that Kaleidoscope of Wonders speaking! Just like in the thread you did for Jim on the colorful fall photos!

So remember, Boxofrox, you are our most Beloved Gardener. O.K? Promise? A big huge hug from me!

KG,

No really, my bad. Sometimes I just forget that not everyone appreciates my sick humor and something get's lost between my mouth and their ears or in this case from my mind to my fingers to my mouse to your mouse to your eyes to your brain yaddayaddayadda..............I call it TYPINGIS which can be defined simply as a malady of the fingures whereby there is a disconnect between the keyboard and the brain.

There is always going to be differences in what fires everyone's rockets not the least of which is geography. Around these parts if you were to go onto the NW Gardening forum, you'd discover an overt disdain of most things rosa. Not that there aren't people growing them but generally those who do will 'include' a couple of them in the whole landscape whereas many people on the rose forum might 'include' only a few other things besides roses. Then you get to all the other numerous subsets aka HT vs DA vs HP vs cutters vs leaver on the bushes vs lavendar vs apricot vs red vs poiple vs bloom vs shrub shape vs one and done vs spring to frost. One has to wonder where will it all end and then all of a sudden you find the right rose for the right spot and the point becomes moot ;-)

HIDE.... I just DELETED all my Knock-out pictures but at lest your don't have to spray them. I'm sorry I shoudn't have brought that up. Everything will be sooooo... lovely come Spring. LOL LOL LOL everyone
Harold

hee-hee, and Boxofrox, you should see the firing of rockets between HP-PC users and Mac-Apple users! hahaha! Another pretty hilarious topic!

But speaking of landscaped gardens, I always argue with the rose organics people that it is your landscaped gardens which hold the ideal because you have beautiful varieties of plants which bring eco-balance and protection for the roses and supports wildlife like the birds. Whenever a garden only consists of roses, disease attacks uniformity. Again, your point that so many opinions to field, even color, LOL! Just as you say the lavenders to make our faces turn purple, hee-hee! or blackspot confusion to make us slip! Man, all those debates about blackspot that exist, heh-heh!

Harold, bless! LOL! so funny! and bless every one of you! Boxofrox, Jim, Harold! Today I think I better stay with subjects like Adele's delicious Lemon pie and your Basil Pesto, Boxofrox's lovely Lyda-honey and bee-loved Sedum, and both Jim and I have chocolate stories of naughty dogs. Boxofrox, I bet your Fluffy Pom-poms are quite the angels and not the naughty Border Collie pup-type when growing up.

Last night I wrote Jim this. We were actually originally talking about coconut husks and cocoa shells which are used as potting soil substitutes and the conversation gravitated to the dangers of chocolate/cocoa.

Here is what I wrote:

"(Eluane) was only 7-1/2 weeks old and at the carport at my apartment (when I used to live in apartments). Suddenly she ran a few yards away from me! I chased after her (amazing how fast a little puppy can run) and saw her mash her entire little face into this giant chocolate cupcake that was even bigger than the biggest Hostess Ho-Ho! I yelled in panic to James to grab her. But as soon as he let go of her to put into my car, that little puppy ran straight back to the giant chocolate cupcake and screeched with puppy frustration and anger when James chased after her and grabbed her before she could get to the cupcake. She was one mad puppy, wriggling and screeching away; she really wanted to eat that chocolate cupcake! ItÂs strange that dogs just instinctually know that chocolate is a very tasty treat. They can smell its yummy chocolate smell a few yards away even though theyÂve never tasted it. They just know that it is something that tastes good."

To which Jim replied, "Candy ate over half of a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. it was on the table cooling and she climbed on to a chair and helped herself."

All we have to do is throw in a few lemons and pesto noodles into our thread, LOL! Yum,yum, yum! Harold, I truly believe Candy would have helped herself to Adele's delicious Lemon pie too had she the chance. Instead of Chocolate Candy she would have been the ultimate Lemon "Candy". LOL! LOL! oooo, a Photobucket Pie, how about it? LOL!

harold,

i've decided not to spray harold. our area is not nearly as bad as yours for blackspot. But, it's still possible i may end up with a yard full of knockouts and austins. lol
I will make sure i post lots of pics. lol
serenasyh, just teasin. lol

serenasyh,

i forgot to tell you that they changed the date of that movie again. they will be filming here Nov 2nd & 3rd.
the recent snow screwed up filming.
anyhow, they are filming part of the new movie "UNSTOPPABLE"
in front of our house on the two dates above. there paying us $300 to stay out of there way. lol
about the movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477080/

here is the 5 locations for filming of the movie.
ours is tyrone pa.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477080/locations

harold,

scientific evidence has shown french marigolds to repel and kill root knot nematodes.
i thought i seen some of those marigolds in one of your pics above?