Beautiful shots, Sue.
One nursery I used to shop regularly had roses with those spots. They called them "iron spots" and said it was from their well water.
Not sure if that was baloney or not, but the roses didn't get blackspot after i brought them home. The new leaves didn't have the spots with my water, either.

No Zuzu, no visible rust on it, that's Graham Thomas by the way.
I'll have check into Cindi's iron suggestion.

One bloom yesterday, two today! I love April!

As usual, these photo's ya'll are posting are making me salivate ! LOL

I still think that re-purposed satelite dish gazebo at Sue's is the most clever thing on the planet and should be given some kind of award !!!

LOL, thanks Mike! My reward will be when I finally get some vine coverage to the top! I have the right side that has the huge Graham Thomas and clematis Ramona, I like that combo.



But the two vines on the left are growing painfully slow, think I'll add fertilizer and compost to them.
Cross Vine (Bignonia capreolata) Lavender Trumpet Vine (Bignonia callistegioides)


I think I will add this clematis to the front right pole to join Graham Thomas.

Ooh where did you get that clematis, Sue? It looks more like a columbine.
Zuzu posted a link to a clematis sale a month ago, and I bought several. I can't remember what all I ordered, where they are supposed to go, or when I asked for delivery.
I bought Diamantina locally. I also bought 3 Sweet Summer Love clematis, and I can't quite figure out the best location for them. I am afraid they would overwhelm any rose, and most of my lilacs are still only 4' tall or so.
What I ought to do is build an arbor. If I could just finish all my other projects, that is.

Sue you have accomplished an amazing amount of work in just a few years. Wow.

I got that one locally Cindi, we have several very nice nurseries around here!
I asked hubby for just a few simple poles placed here and there with wire mesh attached, those green poles like the ones supporting my satellite dish just not as tall. I want to attach a climbing rose to one or two and then clematis. We'll see if that gets done anytime soon.

Sue - LOLLL.. if I asked my DH for something like that, I'd be waiting a VERY VERY long time.. like, forever? That's why yard stuff is 100% my domain and he can't complain about plants I buy & stuff.

Mike - My parents made a "strawberry fountain" many years ago with 4 different sized satellite dishes. The biggest was a monster 6' C-band dish, then a 4', 3', & 18". Each one was filled with dirt and then the smaller one was stacked on top of the bigger one. Strawberries were planted in each one so that it was a cascade effect. Unfortunately, didn't get a single strawberry as the birds found out about it before they were ripe & would demolish each berry as they grew. I wonder if they still have those old dishes.. probably.. my parents don't get rid of anything.

Sue: "...a few simple poles with wire mesh attached..........to attach a climbing rose to....."
All well and good, but your DH is an engineer, correct ? He's thinking more along the lines of "long term and stability".
Be patient and let him construct something that won't rot or collapse in three or four years.

I have a Clytostoma callestigioides on an arbor and I love it. They bloom heaviest here at this time of year and then sporadically for the remainder. Very easily controlled and does well in shade, too.
My Ramona clematis has it's first bud on it which should open soon. Got it from Brushwoods two years ago so it was very small but it's actually doing quite well...for here anyway. LOL

Toni: That strawberry fountain sounds very cool. I wish I could find one of those old "dishes" around here but I never do. I can't grow anything "edible" because the raccoons, possums, squirrels and birds will decimate whatever it is.

That rose that Zuzu posted a photo of with the unusual colors (Dark Night ???) I "think" it's a florist rose. I see it at the flower stands around here but have never seen it in a nursery. Is it a hybrid tea ?

Actually he's a retired HVAC guy but he is a very handy dandy guy & can pretty much engineer anything! He built my Mom a beautiful trellis that I am still jealous of so whatever he comes up with I'm sure will work great.

JD, Dark Night certainly looks like a florists rose, but it grows beautifully, unlike most of the temperamental florists roses.

You may have seen it sold as Eddy Mitchell or Garden Director Bartje Miller.

Rose (Rosa 'Garden Director Bartje Miller')

I first saw it in an Edmunds' Roses catalog and I ignored it because I assumed they had photoshopped the picture. Then Sue saw it at a nursery and called me up, all excited, to say it really did look like that. She bought it for me, and I'm so glad.

Dark Night is on either Star or Weeks' regular list this year, so it might be easy to find. Henry Fonda has rotated back into the main list, too.
The roses that Edmunds sent me this year are huge! They came about a week after I ordered them. Just when I was starting to get antsy for communication, the box appeared on the doorstep.
One garden I toured used hog fence panels and rebar to make sturdy arbors. Also, I saw an "M" shaped series of bars at Longwood Gardens. I don't know how to describe it, really. It made a semi-circle around a seating area, and the roses were trained to follow the bent poles. The plan is to eventually do that in my circular rose bed, and so far I have planted the roses but have no way to support them. Ok, here's a link to the Longwood rose arbor:
http://longwoodgardens.org/gar...

Couldn't this be built on a smaller scale? I'm just trying to figure out a good top support because of our winds.

That looks really nice! We have a local nursery that has rebar arches, some only a foot wide. I have one that's about 5 foot wide, it has my Aloha Hawaii on one side a Teasing Georgia on the other along with 3 clematis so far, a fourth being planted soon.

Tonight was the "Night of Wine & Roses" at our local nursery (Tagawa Gardens). I actually walked away empty handed. There were 2 roses I wanted.. Gingersnap & WWII Memorial, and both were Star Roses & I don't like Star Roses. But I did get some pictures of some of the roses.

AngelFace, Darcey Bussell, Heirloom


Cherry Parfait


GingerSnap (interesting on how it faded to pink.. mine never did that)


Ketchup & Mustard, Perfect Moment, Preference


Sparkle & Shine


Stormy Weather, Trumpeter


Vavoom! & World War II Memorial


Amazingly enough, these are all true-to-color, no color touchup or photo editing other than resizing/cropping.

Some tempting roses! I am intrigued by Stormy Weather. - And what is it you do not like about Star Roses? I guess I've never heard of them...

I was sorely tempted by Stormy Weather, but I don't need/want any more climbers!!

Star is like Weeks or J&P. I've personally found them (here) to be weak grafted and rather puny roses. That's why I don't like them. The few Star roses I've gotten to actually survive have never been big boisterous roses like Weeks.. that's why I try to get them exclusively if I'm paying $30+ for a stinking rose. LOLL

Star and Weeks are all we get out here. It's interesting that a nursery in an inhospitable rose climate puts on such a big event to sell roses, and here, where everyone grows roses, none of the nurseries do anything. Does Tagawa put on seminars on growing roses or anything like that?
That Stormy Weather would have tempted me, but then I cannot grasp the concept of walking out of a nursery empty handed. That just doesn't happen.
Hope you find something irresistible at another nursery!
Sue, I can't remember how wide the arbors were at Longwood, and I can't tell from the pictures, but the way I was thinking of building them was just one bar. Two bars, spaced a foot apart would definitely be more stable. Glad you pointed that out.
Guess that's why I don't build too many projects by myself!

Nice picture Toni, and good will power!

Cindi - Nope. The local rose society will have a thingie on Mother's Day weekend at Paulino Gardens (clear across town), but I've found that they don't really encourage people to try hybrid teas or "modern" roses. They're mostly for OGR. In fact, High Country Roses is now based here in Denver I just found out today. I had spoken to one of their reps a few years ago, but wasn't impressed with his offerings because they were teeny little own-root sprouts that would have taken forever to get going here. About half the size of what Roses Unlimited sends out.. about on par with what Burlington sends. And they'd never even heard of BlueGirl, which is a pretty old rose!

And it's nothing uncommon for me to wander around a nursery & not bring anything home. I have to be very careful of what I buy now.. I'm desperately running out of room and so I have to be very very picky of what I'm purchasing. I foresee me not buying much this year.

Star Roses is the trade name for Conard-Pyle which has been the US agent for Meilland roses for decades. For example, "Peace" is a Meilland rose.

The names "Star Roses" and "Weeks" are just brand names. The quality of the plants really depends upon the growers the nursery buys their roses from.

There are three nurseries in Redding that carry roses and only one of them carries roses that are well budded. If they don't have a rose in their inventory that I might want, I just don't buy a rose that year.

The nursery up here never carries quality roses. I don't even check their inventory.

Smiles,
Lyn