Hi
I live in VA Beach and here too is has been wet and cooler. On average week we have had 3 days of sun to every 4 days of rain. Yesterday it was sunny and almost 80, today it looks like it will rain any minute and 60. All my roses are looking great. I have 2 that have been in the gound for over 4 years and both are blooming non-stop. The other 7 I bought as own-root last year and they have all double, all have buds, and 3 have blooms. I haven't purchased any this year but I do have 6 roses being shipped that I ordered last fall. The only real thing I changed this year was change what I feed them. I switched over to the Peter Beales Natural Rose Care Program and I have never seen so many blooms on my Prairie Princess or Am Beauty Climber as this year.

I know by typing this that I am probably inviting disaster but here goes....my roses have never, ever looked better. Simple as that.

I walk around the yard and am awestruck with the amount of flowers, buds and new basal growth. And the size of the blooms are almost double what I've seen in the past. I am also using the Peter Beales All Natural Rose Care Program and it is worth every penny I spent on it!

For the most part my roses all are healthy, with minimal blackspot. The aphids seemed to have dwindled and I'm seeing more and more ladybugs and their larva. I thought there might be an issue with thrips but I sprayed with insecticidal soap and they are gone (who'd have thunk?).

I have already picked up six new roses at Ashdown and probably have three or four more coming from them. I ordered Wedding Cake this year as a project rose from Sequoia. I also just placed an order with Vintage this week. I just had to have Grandmothers Hat...ordered another Marchessa Boccella to give as a birthday gift and filled out the four with Léonie Lamesch and Lundy's Lane Yellow (thanks y'all for the input). I also ordered my first real Clematis this...Betty Jordan.

I have been spreading mulch everywhere and filling in a few shady spots with Fusion Impatiens, Mini Impatiens and Autumn Ferns. My New Zealand Delphs are all up and growing. A couple even have buds on them. I also sprinkled some California Poppy seeds around and they're coming up.

Life is good!

Carole

"I know by typing this that I am probably inviting disaster but here goes....my roses have never, ever looked better. Simple as that."

carole, I said that last year before the freeze! But I think we are safe now, even though it may get down to 39 for me tomorrow night. But that's ok.

I am finally getting blooms. Some of my roses that were budding out early were slowed by a cold spell a few weeks ago, so they are catching up. My climbers Iceberg and Golden Showers, that I pruned heavily are loaded with buds and now in bloom. I may have lost most of the bloom on my QE climber from that cold spell, I'm not sure. It usually doesn't put on a 2nd bloom, but has some new buds coming in.

I have noticed that my buds look incredibly fat this year. I used alfalfa a lot last year and we had a lot of rain this winter/spring.

This week should be THE week.....

After an extended, cold winter (well, cold for US) we had a record spring bloom building until the HEAT struck two days back.
95-97-deg temps, and dry desert winds have reduced our coastal garden to potpourri.
Still there's a lot of buds waiting to open.
We'll deadhead, and water, and wait.

To see what WAS going on until the blast furnace started, see the link, below, to a slide show.

Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful: April In Camarillo, CA

:::I know by typing this that I am probably inviting disaster but here goes....my roses have never, ever looked better. Simple as that. :::

Wouldn't you know it....I'm at work today and I get an email that a tornado has been spotted in the area and headed for Tega Cay! I just knew that my roses were doomed. Luckily....we just got about two inches of rain. All is well. But the first thing I thought of those words I innocently typed.

Carole

Thank the Garden Spirits, you dodged that bullet!

Jeri

It's still really early in the season, but so far I can honestly say that it "looks" as if I'm going to have a good first flush. (knock on wood - don't want to jinx myself in any shape or form)

This is only my third year with roses, and I did purchase some new ones this season, 10 of them, to be exact. I've also taken the plunge into intermixing perennials with some of my roses, like salvias, nepeta, clematis, various other perennials and many delphiniums.

It'll be an exciting season, and I am thoroughly looking forward to it.

---
Wendy

Mine are just starting to leaf out. This year was about average or better for winterkill, as we had a lot of snowcover and it never got below 0. Although surprisingly there are a couple roses that seem to have taken a hit, specifically Wildeve, Perdita, and Evelyn. Have had winter issues with WE & Perd., but never Evelyn.

Planted a new rose bed the other weekend. Several OGRs, two Barden gallicas, and some DAs. The gallicas were bands I got last year, and Marianne is about 3 1/2' tall now. I hope she blooms this year!

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is fighting the JBs again. I have to keep at them on a daily basis to keep them under control, and I'm sure last winter's weather did nothing to dimnish their population.

I have tons of buds and blooms. Its very exciting. I also have more BS than normal....but we have had tons of rain.
Spring means taking the good with the bad.

My garden suffered many days of late heavey frost. It takes a few days for the tips of new growth to turn black. Mostly the garden really does look good but when I see this damage it is heart breaking. Every year I work towards our huge garden party at the end of May. KNowing that many people are coming to the garden makes seeing stuff like this worse for me. We haven't really been affected by the economy yet. I'm sure amendments will be going up.

The roses are looking good so far. We're about three weeks away but there's tons of buds starting to fatten up. No blackspot yet to speak of, but of course it's very early here and the leaves are fresh. Lots of aphids but I've seen ladybugs doing their thing which is a welcome sight.

I only added 5 new roses this year. I'm being frugal not because of the economy but because I have enough to take care of and I'm just replacing a few that died or got shovel-pruned without increasing the size of my garden. I have a garden of mostly mature roses.

This year is strange.
First bloom is just happening and danged if the order of what blooms when isn't a total kerfuffle. I've got a Centifolia blooming four weeks early and oriental yellows blooming three weeks late.
But I do have blooms.
And roses that are growing happily as if letting loose after 2+ years of drought.

(Are youall sure it's 'real' black spot ...still cool for that here....and not the roses abandoing the first smaller leaves of the season that are now overgrown by larger leaves shading them out? )

So far, so good. Like Ann, I've noticed some of the repeaters that are usually later are blooming now with some of my early risers like Harison's Yellow (who is sulking from a rough move) and Rosa primula. I have many more blooms that what I normally see this time of year. Many of my bushes are really filling out nicely. This is my fourth year at this house, so it is really starting to look like a GARDEN.
I have definately scaled back on the rose shopping. Like Lori, I have enough to deal with and can't really handle adding more roses right now. We'll see how long that last because it has never stopped me before.
-Stephanie

I wailed and moaned all fall, winter, and spring about how we weren't getting any rain and weren't getting enough chill. Who knows whether this helped cause my tulips' having virus this year, and bloom on a lot of the narcissus was unprecedently poor; but the roses look WONDERFUL. 'Blush Noisette', which is in a bad spot and grew and flowered very half-heartedly all last year, has a lot of new basals and is loaded with buds--I wonder if it could have gone own root? 'Old Blush', 'Mme. Antione Mari', 'Général Schablikine', 'Isabella Sprunt', 'Safrano', 'Mme. Lambard', 'Jaune Desprez' have large, full, very handsome blooms; and most of the roses are growing well and looking healthy. Spring is of course our time of lush growth, and the grass and the wild poppies are flourishing; and I've never seen such fat bindweed, unfortunately. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that we don't get a hot spell for a few weeks. And I hope the roses have some time to ripen this abundant new growth before the summer drought sets in. Right now everything is gorgeous, including the bugs, but we have a lot of birds and wasps, too, which is hopeful. I saw signs of disturbance in the mulch on the Rose Road a few weeks ago. That was where I saw the ?cranefly? larva earlier. I'm hoping that a hedgehog got busy and ate them all. I know we have one up at the house.

Melissa

Ann, I have notice that there is a 2nd set of leaves coming from the same spot as an older pair of leaves and the old leaves have 'black spot' or have black spots on them and appear to have black spot. I would agree that it's been cool, but we have had some warm days so who knows.

Tonight we have frost warnings, so keep your fingers crossed.

Mlle. Chaos de Slacker didn't prune. Everything looks like mid-September overgrown forest. I have buds. I did trim off a lot of dead stuff last weekend, but left most of it pretty tall. I'm waiting for the mail person to come through with a machete.

Didn't start spraying until last weekend, so I have blackspot on some, but none on Marchesa Boccella. Can't find Heritage, it is hiding in the lilac. Either the lawn mowers or the new neighbor have gotten to Cardinal de Richelieu, I have to do a better job of getting some fencing (I like that "girdle" idea of Dr. Tommy's that Jeri posted) and pegging it.

Good times!

We are in an active state of Bloom Watch. We go and look at R. primula, no it hasn't opened yet. Then we walk around to the front and look at R. hugonis, no it hasn't opened yet either. Both have terminal buds showing color. So we walk around the house to the backyard, and no, R. primula hasn't opened in the time we went to look at R. hugonis. Iris season did start today with a couple of little purple things and slightly larger blue things.

We had a mild winter, so even the things that usually die back didn't. I don't think it will be enough to get the own-root Austins and the other slackers over the hump, though. I really should pull them out and either have them as pot plants or get rid of them. Usually, though, I just forget about them because they take up almost no room. They aren't big enough. The pruners and I attacked Robbie Burns, so hopefully it won't try to eat the tractor this year. We have yet to complete the assault on Sea Foam. Usually it gets a fair amount of dieback, so it's a matter of pruning out dead wood and reshaping the rest. This year it's a real pruning with yanking old wood out from the middle of the shrub.

Last year's big problem was deer. If they don't invade, we'll be all right. If they do, we just move one year closer to the deer fence. It is in our future.

My roses are leafing out beautifully, in spite of many leaves on new shoots all dried up from frostburn, but the warm stable spring seems to be here. The roses sure loves temps between 60 and 70 degrees F and it rained all night and day and we are going to get more during the week. and then it is going to be warmer and sunnier again. I can litterally hear everything grow ... everything is getting greener every day.

Of course I shop like crazy these days. I have almost run out of space, but I am potting all the new roses I buy. The new Meilland roses roses arrived from France in the usually very poor condition (all roots chopped off). I potted them in big pots with 3-5 roses in each and hope that they grow better roots during the season so I can plant them in the fall. Also some new Tantau roses are being potted I just want to see the flowers and smell them before I decide whether I like them or not.

I have bought a lot more companian plants (Perennials and herbs) and have planted most of them this saturday. The Iris I planted this spring are shooting new leaves and I look forward getting more during the summer and again in the fall. I have also gotten some ornamental grasses I look forward seeing this year. I sowed more foxgloves, salvias and real opium poppies this weekend. I constantly need many foxglowes seedlings since they do not flower the first year. I have also gotten a few more clematis.

Some of the climbers really surprises me by the impressive new growth they put out, they are going to look great in 5 or 6 weeks from now when they start blooming.

Tomorrow I have to go buy a lot of plants for my clients gardens and plenty of containers. Off course I am buying lots of roses (for one big garden I need many white roses) and they also need to have the presummer pots arranged. I also got a new client today ... he has a neglected garden with bad weeds that needs spraying with herbicides. I hate that! But in this case it is called for, because of very obnoxius perenial weeds. His wife had a stroke and he has not had time to do any gardening since she needs so much care, so he has hired me to improve and replant, and maintain their garden. I can not take any more clients since I have all the work I can handle ... but I made an exception in his case. I will have to hire another gardener to help out if I am going to expand my business more.

So I just have to fertilize the roses in 2 weeks from now and then wait and hope we are going to have very good first flush of roses with warm dry conditions for some weeks.

Oh and Btw one of my roses have canker really bad ... I am not quite sure If I must cut the infected parts away or if I shall wait until the first flush. And one rose against a wall (Gruss an Teplitz) has the worst case of BS I have ever seen this early in the season. Strange since no other roses have it and I did spray it once already. Every season is so unique and have different challenges.

weeel Rosa Mundi is still fast asleep.
Radio Times has been reduced to a stub (rose canker forced some radical surgery. I don't know wether it will come back)
One of my cuttings that I did last year and lasted the winter has aphids which I sprayed for today. Aside from that I am just waiting for the weather to kick them into high gear.

Best, healthiest year so far. I did some things a little differently this season but don't know if my roses are so doing well because of the weather, a decrease in insect population or culture changes.

I'm just getting into roses, I do have a Tuscany Superb that I've had for years; and two roses I bought this spring, Blanc Double de Coubert and Intrigue; and I just today made my first purchase from a genuine rose nursery, I found Heirloom had Royal Blush and couldn't resist it. I'm so excited! Now if they'd only had Lemon Blush too, I'd be too antsy to sit and type here. It will go to anchor a spot with morning and early afternoon sun in a back corner, I just need to go dig up the Himalayan blackberries currently residing there first. I've got a week, they're mailing it next week.

I'm mulling Paul's Himalayan Musk Rambler and how to make it climb a tree. I want to plan that a bit more instead of just jumping into things. Long John Silver and the double white banksia are also tempting.

I'm also getting up my courage to call a local horse rescue farm and ask about their manure. Anyone have experience with this? Should I offer money, or is the labor of shovelling it up and taking it away sufficient? If I do offer money, what's a fair amount? I do have a place to stash it for it to mature, I know better than to spread it on immediately.

Who knows what time will bring but at this point it's my best spring flush ever. Low rainfall had me fretting but it's been a cool spring for us and that has meant a late, slow flush. I like that; more time to enjoy it. Typically my garden peaks for a month starting about April 15. This year the peak started a good week later. I keep thinking of reasons to stay home and be out of doors.

Rosefolly