The folks are back from the beach, so I can finally email rose links to my MIL...

We were wondering if anybody had a recommendation for a light pink rose, preferably a full and fragrant one like 'Sweet Surrender' (although we might just look for that one locally in spring).

Has anybody grown 'Party Dress'?
http://www.palatineroses.com/r...

I guess another question might be... if it's a Palentine introduction, does that mean it's likely to be a fairly sturdy plant & a good bloomer? Or does it just mean the Palentine folks liked it for whatever reasons, not necessarily because it's "easier to grow?"

I'm not really one for pink roses, but of Palatine's selection, Bride's Dream, Pink Promise, & New Dawn are all very nice roses.

EDIT: I don't know why they put Harliquin (Harlekin) in the "white" rose section (http://www.palatineroses.com/r...) but I *highly* recommend this rose. It's GORGEOUS, HUGE HUGE HUGE blooms, smells WONDERFUL. Too bad they don't have California Dreamin'.. I highly recommend that one too.

I've never grown Party Dress or Bride's Dream, but I have Pink Promise and it's a very tall and very healthy rose.

Harlekin and New Dawn are climbers and I'm not sure you wanted any climbers.

I think Beverly looks like the best of their pink roses.

New Dawn would definitely be on my list if we had a good spot for a climber!

Thanks for the input... we'll likely get 'Beverly', and i'll have her look at 'Pink Promise' & Bride's Dream.

Actually, I think I'm going to get her one climber, but that's Zepherine Drouhin, and I want to put it on the other side of the bed, in part shade... it's pretty much the only rose I know that will bloom well without full sun, and I've read (probably from one of you, LOL) that it can be grown freestanding, with a "fountain" form, and it'll send out lots of blooms as if it's been pegged.

Heya! I realized I never reported back -- and I really appreciated all the input & advice!

Here's what I ordered for my DMIL's garden:

1 "Red Intuition"

1 "Double Delight"

1 "Charles de Gaulle"

1 "Duftzauber 84"

1 "Valencia"

1 "Beverly"

1 "Zepherine Drouhin"

Since we weren't planning to be down again until Christmas (sometimes I can dig there during the holiday season, sometimes not!), Dad hired a guy (the person who provides the "muscle" for a local landscape designer) to plant them. When we arrived just before Christmas, I discovered that they had been spaced about a foot apart and had their graft unions a couple inches *above* the ground. (I emailed Dad the planting video link from Palatine and told him to make the guy watch it; guess that didn't happen LOL, and Mom just wasn't even up to supervising last fall.)

So... I called Palatine, and they were very helpful! Following their advice, I went ahead and replanted. Even the couple of plants that were placed in an OK position got replanted, because they weren't deep enough, and their roots hadn't been spread out. The roots on those roses were fabulous! I probably dug holes about 2 feet wide, and even so I barely got the roots spread a bit. (I pretty much pretended they were a non-rose bare root perennial, and then I felt like I knew what I was doing LOL.) They got moisture crystals and a little time-release fertilizer in their holes, and they got planted deep enough to cover the graft unions. Then I screwed my courage to the sticking point and pruned them back pretty hard. There's a soaker hose running between (I put that into their previous garden several years ago), so I know they'll get watered... Dad is good about that... and Mom established a schedule years ago for spraying/fertilizing the roses, I think, so he just does that. We told Mom her job would be to cut the flowers and bring them inside!

We probably won't be down that way again until June... those roses had better live AND bloom! Dad promised to take photos of them, both in the garden and in the vase.

Jill - LOL, unfortunately, sounds like my MIL. For 4 years in a row, I got her roses for mother's day. For 4 years in a row, she killed them. Roses for her are annuals. So last year I got her petunias in hanging baskets. That way she can kill them to her heart's content & I don't feel so bad.

Well, these won't die. Palatine plants are so good, and now they've been re-planted with loving care and they'll thrive.

Too bad about the extra work, Jill.

You chose a wonderful selection of roses. Bravo!

Palatine is sending me TWO Red Intuitions! and Summer Song, Orange Veranda, Summer Sun, Aloha Hawaii, Jasmina, Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale, and Rosanna.
I had a wish list a mile long but I listened to the advice from many of you!
A few years back at the District Rose meeting I was outbid on Red Intuition, so it's doubly sweet to get it now at a reasonable price. I thought only daylilies commanded ridiculous prices at auctions, but roses do also, when there's a blooming specimen sitting right there on the auction table.

Critter, you are one generous daughter in law! And to go back and replant the right way...wow.

Ohh Cindi, you got 3 of my favorites! Summer Song, Aloha Hawaii, & Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale!

And Jasmina is so gorgeous!

well you know you two were the enablers that made me want those roses!

It's our pleasure, Cindi.

Just doing our job!

I told Mom that 'Red Intuition' seemed to be the "must have" rose this year! I know she's never grown anything like it.

She has grown roses for years, and very well... but I think Dad has done most of the planting, especially the past few years... and I think some of her plants survived in spite of it!

Actually, replanting them at Christmas worked out pretty well, as the roses were our early Christmas gift to them... they looked nice all freshly mulched!

I put a trio of Knockout roses down near their front walk, too, when we visited at the end of September... talk about blooming & blooming! I underplanted them with some bulbs when we went down for Christmas, and the blue anemone blanda are blooming now. When they went home Sunday, they were greeted by some of the new daffs I put in last fall, too. Tulips are coming up all along the edge of the new rose bed, too... :-)

Mom has had wonderful gardens for years and really loves them, but she's just not up to planting any more... so I try to help keep her in flowers! My niece has helped me put in annuals a couple of times, and this June I know Joyanna will be helping also.

I'm grateful that I learned about Palatine from you all! I knew it had to be a special source to have its own thread here. Thanks!

You're right about it being a special source. It might be the best source ever!

I was delighted when I saw Red Intuition on their website this year because it has only been available as a budded maiden rose from Wisconsin Roses for years. The maiden roses are really nice, but they're trickier to grow and they take a long time to get big. I'm overjoyed about having one that's grafted onto Palatine's good rootstock.

The first half of my Palatine Roses order arrived and is in the ground. They were kind enough split the order in two - though it involved paying twice for shipping. The roses arrived in exemplary condition, though some were more developed than others. Graham Thomas was very well developed, but Europeana was a little bit spindly. I'm hoping the 14F weather this weekend won't freeze them to death: Hoping an application of Freeze Pruf today during the 70F sunny afternoon will be enough to keep them well.

Mulch? You know that's my answer to everything. LOL

Yes. I really need to apply mulch. About 30 yards of it. My back gets sore just thinking about it.

If I order 10 or 20 yards at a time from my local guy, I can usually convince him to send the kid with the bobcat along with the load... I've done this with compost.. really helps if you're spreading it around a big area, but I'm thinking it would even save your back a lot if you could have 30 one-cubic-yard piles in strategic locations rather than 1 enormous mountain of mulch...

That's a great idea, Jill.

The garden is on a level 5 to 8 ft below the driveway. This season I've been tossing bags of potting soil over the rail into the garden, then carrying them to amend soil in new rose holes. I wish I could get it to work. I see that I would spend the rest of my life carrying bags of mulch if I do the whole thing by hand. By the time I finish mulching the garden, the mulch in the area where I started will have completely decomposed.

The way my garden space is set up, however, getting a Bobcat into the garden would require building a road across a neighbor's property ... or something about as difficult. Had a contractor bid on a nice concrete ramp (along with an improvement to the retaining wall ( to ameliorate the problem and dress up the garden) and it was about the price of two or three nice cars. So I'm trying to figure out how to get there from here another way.

Perhaps there is a small landscape company that has lots of 22 year olds who could move it with wheelbarrows. Gotta find out.