You're welcome Susan! It sounds as if it should be quite pretty!

You DO know Cardinal Hume roots VERY easily and makes a very good root stock, don't you? I have a quadruple budded Baby Faurax standard I created using him as the trunk. The thing has to be at least fifteen years old by now and it's still pushing like mad.

Huh? Ya mean break my commitment to "own root" roses? Learn how to bud my own roses? Wow.... You are just full of challenges, aren't you.....

Own root is great, no question, as long as the variety is suited to it and own root is suited to where you grow it. But if you want standards, own root is very difficult. It is a whale of a lot easier to pollinate small blooms when they're in your face than when you have to lie on your stomach in the mud! LOL!

I really like purple buttons. I bought two a year ago and they seemed to handle the summer heat just fine. I love the blooms and didn't have room for cardinal hume. I'm growing blue mist and really like it also.

Kim, can I cut bits of Cardinal Hume now to get rooted? I'm on my way out there with pruners in hand if it makes any sense to start them this late/early??? I'm not particularly fond of standards (those are tree roses, right), BUT could it be a good way to get some of my weak crummy roses to behave better??? For example, would something like Julia's Rose do better if it were grafted onto CH? Hmmmmm....

Sabalmatt, I see we share similar tastes. Blue Mist just knocks my socks off; I pointed her out one day to a visitor who claims not to like roses (huh? ) and she said: "That's a rose???" LOL.

Susan

Never mind about Cardinal Hume for this season. S/he took rather a hit during a major renovation job on a cottage out back and isn't really hearty enough to be donating any parts now anyway. I just pruned CH and will try to baby it a bit this season....

Sorry Susan, I just got home from the GROTW and "after party dinner of the Virtual Rose Society". Absolutely! If you haven't already destroyed them, root your clippings of CH and raise some stocks. You'll have to debud them all but the very top to prevent suckers, but it should root pretty easily for you almost any time of the year and you can use it for at least a new plant to use for stocks. Yes, standards are tree roses and they can be spectacular, especially weeping standards. They are very useful for covering up ugly scenes and softening spaces. Kim

Oops, sorry Susan, I forgot to add, bud yourself some trees of the minis you might want to use for breeding It is SO much nicer to do it at eye level than kneeling to see them! Of course, make sure they're not patented. I have usually kept my breeders in pots to make it easier to deal with them, but the water stress so easily occuring in pots causes hip loss. Give it a try. You'll love it! Kim

Hope you had fun at the party and that someone is going to post some pictures one of these days so we get to see who is who (whom?) Anyway, grotty as they are, I will run out later this morning and pick up what I pruned off of CH and stick the sticks in pots.....just for grins. And I'll keep you posted.

This year is going to be the year of the gopher basketing. Everything I put into the ground now goes into a gopher basket, but all of the old plantings also need to be dug up and replanted too....Yuckeroo.....It's either that or pave it over, and I'm not giving up to the critters yet. Just in case Campanula is reading this, I should add that I do pay for help with the big stuff like cutting down trees, digging up big rootballs and making rolls and rolls of gopher wire into baskets, but that still seems to leave me exhausted and behind the curve at the end of every day, and replanting all night in my restless semi-dreams.

Susan

Good morning Susan! Thank you. It's always lovely seeing good friends you seldom get to see. Gregg Lowery presented a lovely talk on "Mystery Roses" around the world and the people who have worked so diligently to collect, maintain, identify and distribute them and the importance of their efforts. It was wonderful spending time with my dear friends from the Sacramento Historic Cemetery and from the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden. A few new friends were made and it was fun reacquainting with some of the old Volunteer Group who were also in attendance.

I spent all of Saturday wandering The Huntington, looking at old stomping grounds and enjoying newer additions. The Chinese Pavillion is beautiful. I had known it would go on the site of the old rose Study Plot, though I miss the Study Plot terribly.

The Honoree is a lovely lady who has collected un named roses all around South Carolina and beautifully used them to create gardens in historic homes. Her presentation was lovely, though impossible to hear all of due to her soft spoken demeanor and the unfortunate placement of her microphone.

I completely sympathize with your gopher protection efforts! I have to do that here, too and I HATE it. Add rabbits, squirrels and moles and you pretty much have the "herd" covered! Do give the cuttings a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and glad you did! Kim

I nearly forgot, one of the highlights of the Curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden's talk was on black spot. Eleven strains of black spot have been identified around the world. There are three strains of it in this country. Of the initial cultivars tested against them, only Griffith Buck's Applejack has been found to be very resistant to two of the three. All others tested so far are less resistant to them. It should make it easier in coming years to breed for improved black spot resistance in garden roses, presuming Ma Nature doesn't short circuit the efforts by mutating the strains significantly! Kim