Nothing like fresh blooms on my 'Cramoisi Superieur' in early December as the rest of the U.S. is frozen! Gosh I love Tampa!

How very odd to be getting great germination from open-pollinated seeds of "Barfield White Climber" in trays that received NO chilling!

This rose species, Rosa multiflora, can be invasive in colder U.S. states where many decades ago it was planted on purpose for erosion control....I've met it in my many road trips between Denver and Tampa. I love the simple form of the bloom, and the sweetly sharp fragrance. Today I was blessed with hips of it in the mail! LONG shot in south Tampa between the lack of winter chill and nematodes, but why not at least try? IF they grow here, since it is a once bloomer, I MIGHT get blooms in 2016 for me to work with as a breeder, so I WILL be bugging a certain woman in Missouri next spring to mail me in normal envelope with one stamp a few dozen of the tiny barely opening buds so I can use the pollen on my Teas, Chinas and Noisettes, plus 'Teasing Georgia'.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.5366.5&tab=1

From two years ago when Pamela Greenewald asked Gene Waering and I and others to give talks at her spring rose festival there at Angel Gardens in north Florida. All of her roses are grown on their own roots and organically vs. on Fortuniana and endlessly sprayed. A shame the 2013 HRF Conference did not take tour goers there for a real eyeful! She is a high energy and delightful person and does SO much with just the help of her husband and with their own funding. Her curiosity about roses is insatiable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7H4JPFyCoo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_ioKCLsL0

I've started my first ever new FaceBook group! 'Sustainable Rose Growing in Florida'

https://www.facebook.com/groups/445842838861225/

'Cramoisi Superieur' entered commerce around 1834 and once was common in Florida where it thrives. For many years there was a HUGE hedge of it at the south end of the meridian for Bayshore Blvd. so people could enjoy the incredible perfume when they'd use the water fountain. Sadly, when I was in Denver, for some incredible reason the city dug it up!!! In Okeechobee where my Mom and Dad once lived there is a yard with several huge ones that have been thriving for decades, and the last time I was at Marie Selby Botanic Gardens in Sarasota there was a HUGE one growing next to the sidewalk and street, EASILY 8' X 8'! I am growing two here that my Dad rooted from the one I gave him and Mom maybe 20 years ago.....last time I was there to sell his place it still thrived with zero care.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.1355&tab=1

One of my life missions for my 60s is reminding Floridians that in the late 1900s and early 20th century, Florida landscapes boasted Chinas, Teas and Noisette roses, long before the advent of the Fortuniana root stock and modern chemical fungicides and insecticides. I used to love to curl up on the warm carpeted floor of the Denver Botanic Gardens library on snowy days and savor articles about this in old American Rose Society annuals. For sure, long term drought has very badly impacted rose growing here in central Florida, except for the wealthy and subsidized who can afford gargantuan water bills while plundering a plunging aquifer, but Floridians can grow own root and organically 'Cramoisi Superieur', 'Old Blush', 'Francois Juranville', 'Seagull', 'Leontine Gervais', "Barfield White Climber" and so many more without running up their water bills if they mulch deeply. I pee on my roses both for the water and the dissolved nutrients. Even if one prefers roses budded to R. fortuniana, they are very rarely retailed here. Some advocates of R. fortuniana bud their own as a result, an option not open to Florida gardeners and home owners who just want to enjoy the grace, beauty and fragrances of Old Roses. To me, pesticide-based, high water use rose gardening is not sustainable and discourages people here in Florida or elsewhere to even try roses. My intent is to see the iconic Mystery Rose "Pink Cracker Rose", that was common in Tampa up until the early 80s, once again widely available as it eats nematodes, laughs off fungal attacks, thrives own root and is very long-lived, plus is wonderfully fragrant.

The north side of "Barfield White Climber" is 95% pruned....I can see my fence again and repaint it! Thank goodness this monster is 99.9999% prickle free or I'd be a bloody mess! Hard to believe how LONG the severed canes are! I am almost certainly going to severely prune the south side, which is MUCH less vigorous to get light through for my street beds' winter plantings of nasturtiums, glads, white sweet alyssum and more. Now that 'Marechal Niel' is fully exposed I can that, oddly, it leaned NORTH and hence off the rebar trellis above it. It should not be too hard to prune it lightly then use a rake to push the main canes onto the rebar and lash them with phone lines I dumpster dived tons of brand new ones of at Dollar Tree. This whole project will make my property much tidier looking and the front flower beds MUCH sunnier. Its is going to take some work to turn that huge pile into mulch for the nearby Raja Puri banana but will be worth it.

I became an environmentalist in 1970, a rosarian in 1989....if I had to choose, the former is of far greater to importance to me as the world buckles under the weight of 7 billion human beings plundering its resources and polluting entire ecosystems and wiping out several species daily. As a native Floridian it has been disturbing for me to see my state go from lush wetness in the 60s and 70s to essentially permanent drought beginning in the mid 80s. Water tables have plunged. Watering restrictions are draconian and permanent. But I DO love roses too. As an organic landscaper I've planted hundreds of own root Teas, Chinas, Noisettes, Poly-Teas and Wichuraianas in clients' gardens since 1989 that thrived if kept deeply mulched, fed organically, and given a DEEP watering weekly. But I'll be the first to admit that most modern roses fail own root in Florida, likely due to drought and root knot nematodes...the ONLY two to thrive for my clients or me were 'Don Juan' and 'Abraham Darby', both of which have R. wichuraiana in their lineage. Modern roses on the Dr. Huey rootstock sold at Home Depot, etc. have the well-earned reputation of being little better than annuals unless grown in pots filled with rich compost...even then they hardly thrive. I know of a few lush rose gardens in the area based on the thirsty Fortuniana rootstock: one enjoys academic exemption from the watering restrictions that homeowners must abide by else face very daunting fines, and the others belong to VERY upscale people who can afford the Tier Three water bills they generate monthly with their elaborate watering systems. And they all rely heavily on pesticides that I could not be paid to use. So I am thinking of trying an experiment....I've not done any budding/grafting since the 70s and 80s when I was obsessed with euphorbias and cacti and had fun making chimeras.....I can't help but notice over the last decade or more that 'Seagull', "Pink Cracker Rose", "Barfield White Climber", 'Cramoisi Superieur', R. bracteata and R. laevigata, 'Mermaid' and 'Francois Juranville' all seem utterly immune to the nematodes and years of drought and my VERY scant use of water here. It might be a worthwhile effort to try using THEM as root stocks as see how modern roses budded to them might fare in the drought when not indulged in the lavish amounts of water given to most rose gardens based on R. fortuniana. A shortcoming of R. fortuniana is that it fans out an admirably WIDE root system, but it tends to stay in the top few inches of our sandy soil that holds water so poorly....perhaps those other roses that have laughed at all these years of drought send their roots down deeply? That's part of the fun of roses...always new things to learn and try if we have an open mind and don't succumb to dogma and habit.

An article from my old St. Pete Times gardening column that ran eight years until the paper hit hard times:

http://www.sptimes.com/News/121501/Floridian/Roses_for_noses.shtml

Susan Johnson all those panty hose you gave me to train my rambling roses are coming in very handy.....I use half an entire leg to attach main canes to the rebar, thin strips for thinner canes plus my tomatoes. Thank you! My 'Francois Juranville' is now retrained to its rebar arch using them and scavenged telephone wire.....I'm re-doing it from a young runner that survived after my monster rose 'Mermaid', which was magnificent for ten years, choked out the original and consumed my front yard to the point that I could not get in for two years! In the 90s a Florida rosarian announced that 'Mermaid' does poorly here but his plant was on Fortuniana and given vast amounts of water and chemical input. So in 1999 I planted an own root one here and it took off and for about 6 years it was manageable, a real show stopper that made people hit their brakes when they'd see the vast number of lovely yellow 5-petaled flowers. Then I simply lost control no matter how much/often I pruned due it suckering maniacally. It was useless as a breeder for me whereas 'Francois Juranville' gives me great seedlings so a friend and I used power tools to cut dowm 'Mermaid' and take a few truck loads to a local brush dump. I am still re-creating the front rose gardens ravaged by 'Mermaid, so it does my soul good to see that surviving cane of 'Francois Juranville' back up on that rebar.....attached is a pic of a portion of it before 'Mermaid' began to encroach on it....the salmony pink blooms smell of Granny Smith apple skin and Old Rose. Thank you!

I've neglected the poor thing for years yet it grows and blooms non-stop, thriving in a buried 4 gallon Water Wise Container Garden in my hot DRY west street bed. But the blooms have gotten much smaller and with far fewer petals. But now that the autumn cool down is here I'll give it a 50% cutback, a lush feeding of fish emulsion, chicken poop and Epsom salts plus a couple of deep waterings per month...by late winter/early spring the blooms should be lovely again. Of course I will try to root cuttings to share as this rose deserves to be in plenty of Florida landscapes. I agree....it really IS a drought resistant Tea Rose.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.3967

"Jo An's Pink Perpetual" from Denver's Fairmount Cemetery is budding up even more, with this new bloom open this morning. The fragrance is intoxicating Old Rose. On one of Fred Boutin's two visits to Denver the parent plant was in bloom.....he agreed with me...best guess on the ID was 'Champion Of The World'. This own root organically grown plant is 5-6 years old in an 18 gallon Water Wise Container Garden on the north side of my home. Lovely Victorian form. I'll be sure to use its pollen on 'Seagull' and 'Dr. Grill' and 'Teasing Georgia' next spring. This and other roses of mine are enjoying the autumn cool down...55 tomorrow night!

Kim Rupert just e-mailed me that Burbank himself gave plants of 'Burbank' to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford for their Florida homes! This along with Jack Holmes selling for Mother's Day 1933 a pink rose that it time got the nick name "Cracker Rose" could help explain why it was once so common in Florida! Kim likes the idea (as do I) of DNA mapping of 'Santa Rosa', 'Burbank' and "Pink Cracker Rose" to try to sort all this out.

NOW I see why some folks say there is confusion about 'Burbank' and 'Santa Rosa', both of which came from the same hip. BOTH remind me a GREAT deal of "Pink Cracker Rose".

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.5615



http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.872

My hyper-vigorous Mystery Rose "Barfield White Climber" has never been eager to set hips, either open-pollinated or from controlled pollinations, which is one reason I had stopped breeding with it. But maybe because of the first rainy summer in south Tampa in eight years it set quite a few this fall....it will be fun seeing what seedlings come from these, especially since 'Seagull', "Maggie" and 'Abraham Darby' are very nearby. Maybe a dozen years ago, Patty Barfield called me from her nursery in Dover, Florida to say she'd bought unknown unlabeled roses from a travelling plant salesman who said they made white blooms. Long story short...was initially a once blooming rambler, in year three became a remontant climber I named with her consent. Fred Boutin says it is thriving out his way, but Bill Grant's plant and Lee Sherman's plant in Albuquerque sulk...here it grows SO well I jokingly refer to it as Rosa kudzuensis! 99.999% prickle free, and opening buds teased open exude a POTENT anise/fennel scent that reminds me of David Austin's 'Proud Titania'.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40593&tab=1

Way back in the mid 70s when I was an art major at the Ybor campus of HCC and I was not into roses at all (though nuts about other plants) I noticed stunning specimens of this beauty here and there in Seminole Heights where I lived and elsewhere. I used a bike vs. car for seven years and so really got to know yards well .While I am overwhelmingly an own root man when it comes to OGR in most climates, here in Florida it seems that most moderns DO languish then fail own root. But Fortuniana is a VERY thirsty rootstock and this has become a very dry state since the 1970s. So I will root some Pink Cracker Roses and try budding moderns to them as this enigmatic China I have been looking into since 1982 utterly thrives for many decades even in conditions of total neglect. It can become a pillar rose or made into a dense hedge. It VERY rarely sets hips, has been a VERY poor parent for me (dammit!), is very remontant and disease-free, seems to FEED on nematodes (lol!) and I learned years ago was introduced to the area by Holmes Nursery for Mother's Day of 1933. Investigating it is what, literally, turned me into a rosarian. I have bought MANY pink Chinas over the years to compare, and after MUCH research I feel it is very likely either 'Burbank' or its sister seedling 'Santa Rosa'. It is very much NOT 'Old Blush'.Here is a link to my page about it at HMF.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40071&tab=1

Half the fun of rose breeding, which I began doing in 1993, is the anticipation....while emasculating the blooms, choosing the pollen parents, applying the pollen, tagging and bagging the boinked bloom, watching the resulting hips enlarge and ripening, and, like today, sowing the actual hybrid seeds that result. Today I sowed into 4 inch pots the seeds from the 5 remaining hybrid hips of 'Seagull'....the pollen parents (Dads) were: 1 unknown, Louis XIV, unknown red Hybrid Tea, Duchesse de Brabant, Easlea's Golden Rambler. They were watered, have drained, now each 4 inch pot goes into a clear produce bag for 3-4 months in my fridge to induce cold stratification. If all goes well I'll have my first blooms on hybrid seedlings of 'Seagull' by late spring or early summer. The anticipation is delicious!

My rambling rose 'Seagull' continues to ripen a very large number of open pollinated hips whose seeds I'll be germinating playfully these next several months. With this batch I'll sow the seeds directly into a flat and skip the usual couple of months in the fridge to see what germination rate I'll get.

Approx. 300 seeds from open-pollinated hips from my 'Seagull' rambling rose now sown in an old Tupperware tub filled with damp potting soil, all slipped into a clear produce bag for 6-8 weeks of cold stratification in the fridge. Based on past experience, I might have seedlings in bloom by the end of January.

Funny...some open pollinated hips on my 'Seagull' rambling rose are doing the usual color change to a yellowish olive color signalling me to pick them, others are bypassing that and just going straight to the shriveling ripe stage with brown stems, just picked more for processing in my blender today. In the past, open pollinated hips of 'Seagull' have given me some very interesting, repeat-blooming dwarf shrubs, but it is the controlled crosses I did last April that I am VERY excited to see the results of!

Woo hoo! Found hybrid hips on my breeder rose 'Seagull', one of which I have VERY high hopes for from the seeds within....(Seagull X Graham Thomas)!!! The other is (Seagull X John Paul) using John Paul pollen given to me by Norma Lopez Bean. My hope for both is Florida-friendly, large flowered repeat blooming climbing roses.

Sad news.....Bill Grant just called me from his hospital room where he has been for two weeks now...while hanging his humming bird feeder he fell on his deck and fractured the left side of his hip, which has been pinned. I met Bill years ago at one of Mike Shoup's Fall Rose Festivals, hosted him in Denver when he gave his Species Roses talk at the Denver Botanic Gardens and took him to Fairmount Cemetery, and in 2002 I believe he and Miriam Wilkins flew me out there to give a talk at UC Davis about the Fairmount Roses plus he took me to San Juan Batista and the Old Roses Celebration and Miriam's lovely jungle of roses. He authorized me to share this news and his room phone number, which I will here and later at ChezVibert once my Outlook Hotmail stops acting up. I thought Bill was 84...he is 88! His number there is: 831-428 2374

I bought this 'Chromatella' rose from Ashdown Roses easily 8 years ago, but it has never bloomed. So today I did a version of the Victorian technique called "pegging" by using strips of panty hose to tie long canes back to itself. IF this works it will trigger a geotropic response that will cause blooming laterals to form.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.1174&tab=1

I discovered "Fairmount Proserpine" in October 1999 when a student who'd taken one of my Old Roses classes at The Denver Botanic Gardens walked with me all over the vast cemetery looking for fall color as the vast majority of the Old Roses and Mystery Roses there are once bloomers that peak June into July. My own root plant here in Tampa is 4 years old in a buried 5 gallon Water Wise Container Garden, organically grown...it hangs on year after year vs. being VERY vigorous in Colorado gardens. Here the petal count is much lower, the bloom form flat vs. buxom, with blooms much smaller, the color much more pink. The night I found it I curled up with The Old Rose Advisor and felt that 'Proserpine' is a likely ID. Fred Boutin has a plant and he was inclined to agree. Here it is quite dwarf, but in Denver it made a vase-shaped shrub about 6 feet tall. Attached are pics of two blooms from this morning...use the link below to see Michael Mowry's pics of the original plant at Fairmount Cemetery.

http://johnstarnesloveofroses.blogspot.com/2010/08/fairmount-proserpine.html

Wow....what heartbreaking pics...it looks like the powers that be at Fairmount Cemetery, despite all the lip service about "caring" about the Old Roses and Mystery roses, have removed EVERY rose from their Riverside Cemetery where I spent years studying the roses there discovered by now-deceased Denver rosarian Toni Tichy....the pics at the link break my heart. I am so glad that Toni cannot see this.

http://fairmountheritagefoundation.org/riverside-cemetery-revival/#comment-382

Girija Viraraghavan, guess who has approx. 40 seeds from a giant hip of Rosa gigantea growing in India? Thank you!!

Want fast, agonizing and copious blood loss? Try training the Cherokee Rose (Rosa laevigata) to stay OUT of your garden path and to go UP rebar. Even more fun while sweating in the heat!!! Prickles of death! I'd kill but want to try for a couple more years to breed with it.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.5335.12

Interesting discussion about the rambling rose 'Seagull'!

http://www.heritagerosefoundation.org/discus/messages/2/5207.html?1213482151

I finally decided how to try to root a large number of cuttings of "Pink Cracker Rose" now that afternoon rains are kicking, so today I'll make a few trays and line them up along my north wall.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40071&tab=1

Like many/most roses in central Florida, in the summer heat "Pink Cracker Rose" sees its petal count plunge and the colors get harsher, with most blooms flat and shapeless vs. the buxom lovely ones that are produced in the cooler months. Looks like two different roses!! After having loved this Mystery Rose since the mid 70s when it was common in Seminole Heights and other older Tampa neighborhoods, and after having tried since 1984 to ID this iconic survivor that has unfortunately always refused to be a breeder (though this year I DO have a hip of [Seagull X Pink Cracker Rose]!!!) I still feel that 'Burbank' is my best guess. The lovely perfume is classic China, with a slight touch of Tea. In 1984 the Tampa Rose Society said all those plants in central Florida were descendants of roses sold for Mother's Day 1932 by the once legendary Holme's Nursery with Kew-style glass houses north of Tampa. It roots readily from cuttings and can be grown as a large bush or tall pillar rose.

In 1999 I planted my little own root 'Seagull' in my west bed even though I had to continue living the bulk of each year in Denver until November of 2002 when I finally escaped that icy hell hole of a state. So it got very little care for three years, one of which saw a record breaking drought. Until 2 years ago, 'Mermaid' and 'Cherokee Rose' blocked all entry into the front yard for two years, so no watering or feeding. But it has gone nuts this year, with a very nice spring bloom phase that is giving me a nice set of hips from my pollinations and open pollinations. It is now sending out LONG new shoots that I need to lash to the rebar. It is a vibrantly healthy rambling rose for me. Thankfully I did not listen to the Florida rosarian who told our meeting in the early 90s that neither the Multiflora class to which it belongs, or the Wichuraiana classes could live in central Florida else I'd not have my beloved 'Seagull' or my hulking Wichuraiana ramblers 'Leontine Gervais' and 'Francois Juranville' in 2013, all planted in 1999! The few he tried were budded to Fortuniana and drenched with water plus chemical sprays and fertilizers, which led to conclusions and pronouncements as myopic as "there is no such thing as 'Pink Cracker' rose". These here are own root, grown organically and get a few deep waterings monthly. I am thankful to rose friends like Bill Grant, Fred Boutin, and Miriam Wilkins who we lost a few years ago, who cultivated endless curiousity decade after decade, and encouraged me to do the same vs. buying into baseless dogma (you HAVE to spray and you MUST bud onto Fortuniana) that discourages rose growing here in Florida. 'Seagull' is a once bloomer, but past germinations of open-pollinated hips gave me repeat-blooming seedlings that reminded me of bushy minis and Polyanthas, most boasting lovely perfumes, so I am PSYCHED to see the seedlings from my first ever controlled pollinations using 'Seagull', mostly as Mom but a few times as Dad. If I had to choose 6 favorite roses for Florida, this would be one even though it was MUCH more vigorous in my Denver yard. Thanks to Susan Johnson for all those panty hose as they will be invaluable in training this rampant growth up onto the rebar trellis!

The first trellis for my 'Francois Juranville' rambler, planted own root in 1999, was sunken wolmanized 2 X 4's topped with rebar. But the sheer weight of the 'Mermaid' rose that swallowed Francois and killed all but one rooted cane, pulled the whole structure over three years ago. 'Mermaid' has been gone a couple of years now and I have 95% regained and recreated my front yard. That big regrowth of a surviving 'Francois Juranville' cane as of this morning is now off the ground and up on the rebar for further training across the horizontal rebar so as to make a lovely rose arch over the garden entry. A year from now it should be beautiful, 2 years it will be stunning. The last two pics are of Francois in his heyday before 'Mermaid' consumed him and much of my driveway.

This is a rose I bred in Denver by pollinating my 'General Jack' there with pollen I gathered from 'Stephen's Big Purple' from the Cranford Rose Garden when I visited Stephen Scanniello. It is called 'Ruby Voodoo' and is in year two of sales as own root plants at select nurseries in Colorado and Wyoming.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.37590.1&tab=36

While the color and form and fragrance was better in Denver at Fairmount Cemetery, this plant of "Jo An's Pink Perpetual" has been blooming like crazy after four years of being grown organically and own root in an 18 gallon Water Wise Container Garden on the north side of my south Tampa home. I think I will use its pollen on some Teas to see how what might result.

In 1983 I worked at Armenia Nursery in central Tampa, lived in a funky trailer park in west Town 'N Country in my beloved 8-wide trailer I still have dreams about, grew tons of food, few ornamentals, did not care about roses at all, but had a "Pink Cracker Rose" out front due to sentiment for it from my early 20s in Seminole Heights in the mid 70s while an art major at the Ybor HCC campus. In 1983 it was still a quite common sight in older Tampa neighborhoods, and so now and then people would walk into the nursery with a branch asking for an ID due to its extreme reliability in Florida where roses are usually considered very wimpy and difficult. I had no interest in roses then but COULD ID 'Red Cascade', 'Don Juan', "J.F. Kennedy' and 'Sterling Silver' only because I saw them daily. Finally, I called the Tampa Rose Society, they asked I bring to the nursery a bouquet with every stage of growth...they picked it up, then called me some time later. 20/20 hind sight in 2013 thirty years later makes me chuckle...they said it was a China rose (took me until 1989 in Denver to learn what that meant and its significance), and that all the Cracker Roses, as we'd long called them, all over central Florida, were descendants of roses sold on Mother's Day of 1932 by the remarkable Kew Gardens-style nursery in the forests north of Tampa, 'Holmes Nursery' that friends and I visited in the late 70s. My obsessive research into the "Pink Cracker Rose" all these years also leaves me with the feeling that the VERY colorful, wealthy Mr.Holmes, whom I met a few times, a Barnum and Bailey kind of guy who globe hopped for exotic plants for his many glass houses, likely knew Luther Burbank. This link to 'Burbank' pics at HMF so reminds me of "Pink Cracker Rose" and once again I realize why Joyce Demitts from California immediately suggested 'Burbank' when I introduced her to her first shrub...she quickly pointed out traits of 'Bon Silene' and 'Hermosa' in the blooms and foliage...both are suspected parents. Whatever "Pink Cracker Rose" is, it is extremely reliable in Florida, say planted next to a veggie garden or compost bin for a large accent of color and fragrance. One of my missions in my 60s will be to get this wonderful Old Rose back into Florida landscapes...no sprays, no endless hassle and frustration and failure, just year round fragrant blooms, and MUCH more appealing that the soulless 'Knockout' roses. I very much hesitate to make an ID, but 'Burbank' remains my best guess. The pic is of a winter bloom of "Pink Cracker Rose" in my front yard. John

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.872&tab=1

In the late 80s in Denver as an organic landscaper I learned quickly that roses had a terrible reputation for being short lived, either dying after the brutal winters or the 'Dr. Huey' under stock coming up in spring to replace the rose that had been purchased. So I started trying in my yard the then hard-to-get own root roses, both Old and Modern despite being "informed" that was heresy and doomed to fail. By the time I moved back to Tampa in late 2002 my Denver yard had 170 roses, and I planted many hundreds in the gardens I created for my clients. My ex-neighbor Cherrie says many still survive despite utter neglect by two renters and the first two buyers.....pics on Google maps reveal that. July of 2002 my neighbor Charlene and I took pics of each other beneath my arch of 'Hiawatha' rambling rose. Here too are some pics from clients' gardens. For me,the fun of being a passionate rosarian since 1989 is having a curious open mind vs. getting bogged down in dogma.