Rita: That's a plethora of tomato seedlings. What will you do with all of them ???

Lyn: I've done the same thing...watering potted plants when it's raining. If the plant is really big, the rain never gets to the roots. I've had to explain that to people (non gardeners) when they see me doing it.

I'm supremely impressed with the 3 roses I recently got from Regan's. It's only been two weeks since I planted them and they're leafing out like gangbusters.

Calsurf73 said:Rita: That's a plethora of tomato seedlings. What will you do with all of them ???

I sure have way too many to plant them all. But since this is the first time I have trued to grow my own tomatoes from seed I put up too many as I wasn't sure how many would actually come up. As it turns out just about all of them came up.

I will have extra plants for anyone local that wants them!!

@zuzu Two questions for you, or indeed anyone else:

Do you know of any ATP thread about the grafting of roses?
and
I seem to have lost the thread you started on roses and clematis - I don't have any relevant photos, but do grow clematis with roses. The combination I really like is clematis Perle d'Azur with a noid yellow climber we have; I think the slightly smaller blooms of the clematis work really well. I'm very interested in seeing what other people do and what else works well.
Thanks

Lyn had a link to a really good video on chip budding. It's somewhere in the rose forum....Lyn?
Perhaps she'll pop in and post it again.
Regarding watering potted plants in the rain...what I do is set the plants in a tub or small pool. They'll end up getting watered from the bottom, the leaves get washed off, and I collect rainwater at the same time.

@cliftoncat, zuzu had written an article about roses and clematis, perhaps that's the one you are thinking of? You can find it on her profile, scroll all the way down, but here is the link:
http://garden.org/ideas/view/z...

Thank you, Calif Sue! It's not the article I was thinking of, but it's great and will definitely help.

I love any of the purple/blues with peach and yellow roses!!

You can see the tiny Rose (Rosa 'Sweet Dream') rose behind this one.


Most of my big climbers have two clematis planted with them.
With Rose (Rosa 'Teasing Georgia') I planted Clematis (Clematis florida 'Sieboldii') and Clematis Josephine™
They are still small plants, you can see them both at the base in this shot taken last year. (oh I adore that rose!! )


My orange Rose (Rosa 'Westerland') rose has the dark purple Clematis (Clematis viticella 'Polish Spirit') planted with it. I still have to get a good combo shot of that! I need to add a second clematis to that rose.

Yellow Graham Thomas has newly planted Clematis (Clematis viticella 'Venosa Violacea') on one side and Clematis 'Ramona' on the other.


I need to plant more, spring is almost here!!

Cliftoncat, you might be thinking of a thread I started in the Clematis Forum:

The thread "Clematis/Rose Combinations" in Clematis forum

Fabulous, Calif Sue - glorious photos! I have Teasing Georgia but not nearly as well integrated as yours - definitely something I'll be working on this spring. I also have Graham Thomas, but mine are standards and in a more formal part of the garden. I get really excited about planting combinations and there is a lot here to spark the imagination - thank you!

Thank you, zuzu - yes, that's the thread I was looking for There are so many wonderful discussions here that it's easy to lose track!

Cindi ... I usually post the link to Kim's blog because he has a lot of photos, when asked about budding.

http://pushingtheroseenvelope....

Mika ... Kim was writing about chip budding in 2014.

Keep in mind there are a always a lot of variables and you may need to tweak the process a bit. Kim is gardening in a warmer and more arid climate than yours.

The whole blog is full of great rose info.... enjoy.

Thank you, Lyn, thank you Cindi - it is indeed a great blog and full of interesting information. I've starred all these posts so I won't lose track of them again!

@Calif_Sue i your clematis and rose combinations. The Graham Thomas pictures look like a piece of heaven!

Changing the subject here - PRUNING: who is finished, who's busy and who is waiting?

The forsythia isn't quite blooming yet but the forecast for the next two weeks predicts no night frost so I started this afternoon. And I can really feel it in my wrist! I pruned about 40 but spent the better part of an hour trying prune my two NOID (maybe John Hopper's) according to the Sissinghurst method. Has anyone ever tried it?

Thanks @Azgarden, I am enjoying it! This garden is only 5 years old, the side with Teasing Georgia is only about 2 1/2 years old.
You can see it's progress in my blog here, going back to the earlier pages (scroll to the bottom for the page selections) I haven't updated since last Oct. so I am in need of a new posting soon.
http://garden.org/blogs/view/C...

I've got one more to cut back, but what little I needed to prune is otherwise done. Last year everything got pruned back hard because of an extra cold winter and lots of cane die back. They all produced healthy canes last year, and this winter was fairly mild, so I'm mostly letting them be. There were a few that needed a touch of shaping- mostly because a thorny cane kept grabbing me Sunsprite was the only one that appeared damaged by winter, but a lot of the canes I thought were dead started sprouting. I was concerned that those black places on the canes may eventually impede its ability to support the growth, so I went ahead and pruned it back pretty hard.

Suzanne, that clematis has such a lovely blue cast that I love with Graham Thomas- I'm gonna have to copy that combo in the sky garden!

Suzanne, I have just had a look at your blog - you have a really lovely garden, a wonderful variety of plants and it is amazing what you have achieved in 5 years. You have created a paradise!

Neal, I have Sunsprite as a standard along with Edgar Degas and Samaritan but I haven't unpacked them yet. I hope they are ok, should be - will see when I unpack them on the weekend.

sunnyvalley, how do you pack and store your standards for winter?

After a few days of temps around 80, I removed the mulch from the roses, fearing they would get steamed and moldy. Tonight, we're expecting snow flurries and temps in mid 20s. Same for tomorrow, with daytime temps of 50s. Should I go back out and cover the lower portions of the hybrid teas and new plants? Actually, the ones I planted this past month are still covered, even the ones that have broken dormancy. My doctor has warned me to not do any raking or repetitive bending until my back and shoulder heal from the overuse injury from clearing the beds earlier this month. Yeah, right.
The good news is, the kinesiologist was able to help with my motion sickness!! I mentioned to him that it had progressed to where watching fast scenes on tv, or water moving on the pond made my head swirl, and he manipulated points on my neck and arm, and I was able to watch the WSU game last night without any dizziness! I don't know that I'm ready for a bus ride through mountains, but I'm not afraid to watch the wind blow the trees today.
Our peach trees are absolutely stunning this week. Lilacs are in full bud, daffodils are perfect and bright, and the tree peonies have big fat buds all over. I'm going to take lots of pictures, because I don't think any of it will survive the freeze tonight. But I sure enjoyed the show while it lasted.

Cindi, if you can get some mulch back onto them without hurting yourself, I think it would be a good idea- at least for the hybrid teas. Mid 20s can go either way as far as damage is concerned depending on how much moisture is in the air. Seems if it snows I don't see as much damage.