Hey Jamie! Deb says hi :) We went by your place a couple times but didn't see the Garfield truck so didn't stop. Half expected to see you drive by sometime. The roses are looking great this spring. Could be the best year ever. We have a few yard pics from last year: Yard pics at the album site. I pulled out those monster arbor vitae along the drive and planted.... more roses.
Congratulations on the marriage. Bring your husband by sometime, unless you think it will warn him of impending doom for letting you plant roses, LOL. Aw, bring him by anyway. Won't be much to see until June. It is great to hear from you!

Glad you're still around!! I thought about driving by a few times, but I didn't want to torture myself too badly since my husband tends to move a lot slower making decisions than I do (I would have dug up half the yard right away, he wanted to wait a few years - heck, he waited a good 7 years to marry me!). Not that that's a bad thing...because we have the money to "garden right" now, rather than slapping things together like I did at the other place. But it was a long wait to get going on landscaping again...call me impatient! We live up on Sunnyview now, between Colton and Poly, with a bit more space than I had at the other house. And the Garfield truck is parked in the driveway, of course...we just use it for hauling stuff now, since it's sort of "feeling" it's age. :-)

I need to email you and get your address again - hubby *loves* flowers, so I bet he would really enjoy a tour around your garden when everything is blooming! I keep telling him about the fernleaf peonies too, and every year when Mom and I go to the Geranium Fest at the Zoo, we see the fernleaf's coming up in thier garden, and it makes me think of you and Deb. :-)

Looks like you had a really gorgeous year of rose-growing last year...what a great album! Hopefully I can get the alyssum started under the roses here, I just adore the way it looks in your beds, and I never could get it started at the other place with the dogs running through the roses. Our garden is fenced off from the dogs now, so I won't have that problem this time. I've posted pictures on my blog if you're interested (click the "gardening" tag to the right for more entries about my recent adventures). Everything is empty now, but hopefully that will change soon!

I'll be in touch soon...but in the meantime, what did you do (if anything) to thwart the leafcutter bee damage on your roses? Last year our HT's out front were munched on by those things, and I thought I'd see if there was anything I could do to minimize that this year?

Thanks, and good to hear from you (both)! :-)

Don't have time to check the blog much this morning. We are still on a slow dialup connection. The greenhouse looks good :) If you want seed from our alyssum, let us know. The stuff we have reseeds with a vengeance. We have to thin a couple of the fernleaf clumps this year. Deb says if you can wait until they go dormant (late August) you can have some. I still can't believe how much those things sell for.
Leafcutter bees? The rascals think our roses are the local Home Depot. They hit some of the roses pretty hard. We don't do anything to discourage them. I love watching them. The suckers are fast! I wish they could read. Experts say they only collect building material a short time each year. The ones around here take bits of leaves almost all season. The scallopped leaves are not very noticable for long. I'm guessing you saw the leafcutter damage pic on the next page of the album. That was Double Delight foliage. We have photos of the DD bush taken at the same time on that page. Nobody notices the damage or even mentions it. I can see it. I know where to look.
I'll check the mail and the spam filter. Believe it or not, there are jealous, nasty people that like to send emails talking trash about our roses and other flowers. They bore me and the spam filter is set to stop everything except those on the approved list. Buchanan is only one block long, between Jackson and Van Buren. (a block south of State.... Deb is laughing, she hates it when I give her directions using compass points)
If the construction between the Chamber of Commerce building and the Post Office (and between the Chamber and the women's prison to the north) gets in your way, don't get too mad at us. We are having lots of fun and everyone has something to say. Honk if you drive by :)
Look for Deb if you stop at the west end Walmart. She thinks she was working at Heights Target the last time we saw you.
One other thing... Rio Samba is Deb's #1 favorite rose. I got her another one in 2005. RS was the first to go in the bed where I pulled the arbor vitae. It is doing great too. Geez she loves that critter.

Hey Dave...thanks for looking! We just finally made the "leap" to DSL internet a couple months ago, and it was hard, but we found a way to do it for $25 a month, so not too bad I guess (we don't have/want cable or cell phones, so we had to work around all those "bundle" offer things to just get digital internet). It's still not the fastest connection (we're on the slowest DSL there is), but it's faster than the dial-up was.

Thanks for the alyssum offer - I'll have to check with hubby first (I've found it's a bit more complicated gardening with someone else, since our tastes are a little different in plantings). But I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the directions...I can find it from there, just couldn't remember the exact street. Anywhere but Billings, I'm completely lost with compass points, but here with the Rims, I can generally get around pretty easily following them. The Rims are always North, Deb! :-)

I'll bring you both something super-special for a division of the fernleaf's...my goodness...I "can't" wait but I will, for something so special! Thank you, thank you, thank you...what a generous offer! I'll get a special spot ready for it this summer, somewhere it will get "shown off" like it deserves...last time I checked, they were $84 each! Very steep, but I'll admit, I did consider it...

Yep, that picture of Double Delight is the one I was looking at, and my Peace rose is the one that was damaged the worst this year. I probably noticed it more because my roses are currently out front, where they get about half a day of shade, so the foliage doesn't come in real thick. So I notice all the very neatly cut edges when I'm walking by to the front door. This year they'll be in the back with better sun, so hopefully the foliage will be thicker, and we'll get more blooms.

I'll have to check out your handiwork on S. 27th it sounds like. Making a mess, are you? ;-)

I don't normally shop Walmart (merely because I hate trying to shop with all those people in one place...I'm kind of "needy" as far as personal space goes), but on the rare occasions I do, it's very late at night, so if she's ever there between 11pm and 1am, I'll definately look for her! I adore Rio Samba - had one at the other house, and I've been kicking myself ever since for leaving that one in particular behind. Between the intoxicating spicy scent, and the "rainbow" of colors, it's probably my favorite as well. Deb, if you get one in at Walmart, let me know, and I'll make a special trip to buy it from you... :-)

I can't remember if you two grow veggies or not, but I'll have extra from the greenhouse this spring if you're interested, so just let me know. I went a bit crazy starting stuff in March, and don't have nearly enough room to plant it all at our place...

Hi Jamie, nice to meet you. If you're a friend of Dave's your a friend of mine too.

About where to locate some of those roses, do you want something local or mail order? Don't know your local nurseries but I know I saw Sally Holmes at my Home Depot here this week so maybe yours might have it too. The best selection and best looking roses I saw this week were at Walmart. They have them inside the greenhouse and someone actually took the time to water them. HD, Meijers, Lowes and K Mart all had them outside and we're still getting freezing temps at night so I don't know how well they'll do. But if you are willing to order roses (Dave won't, I know) you can find sellers listed at HelpMeFind.com/roses. Most of the ones you listed should be fairly easy to locate. I don't know of any "Arctic" roses though. Do you mean the Brownell roses? Miejers has those and they call them "Sub-zero" roses. Hope this helps.

Your garden blog was great, btw. I loved seeing all your seedlings. I have a jungle growing in my basement too. Can't wait to see your roses in bloom!

Oh, and about those 3 roses you have, if that one is an old Peace, not a newer one, hang onto it with both hands and treat it with kid gloves. They're rare and are usually much better plants than the newer clones. On the other 2 post some pics when they bloom and let us see if we can help you ID them.

Seil, nice to meet you too! :-) I think I ordered the Brownell (couldn't remember the name - thank you!) roses from Springhill. I used to order Mini roses (and the three I'm getting this spring are some my mom ordered and doesn't have room for). Thanks for the tip on sellers, though, I'll check it out. I don't like to shop with lots of people, so I definately do a lot of "shopping" through catalogs and online, though we do have a lot of decent places to buy roses around here too.

I'm headed to HD for more greenhouse benches this weekend, so thanks for the head's up on Sally Holmes! That's probably my second favorite rose...the scent is just incredible to me. Hopefully I'll find her this weekend...our HD usually keeps thier roses in the "outside greenhouse", so they normally have some protection from freezing temps.

Yes, the "arctic" roses were the Sub-zero line from Brownell. We don't have a Miejers here, but I'll look around the link you gave, and some catalogs I have to see if I can find the yellow one again. I really liked that one, and it grew really well for me.

I'm not sure how old the Peace is...it came with the house three years ago, and there are Lily of the Vallys planted all around the base, so I imagine it's been here awhile. I don't know if you can tell from the blooms, but I'll post pictures when it blooms this summer, and maybe someone can tell me. It's a strong plant, and blooms well despite being deprived of sun for half a day, so I'm excited to see what it will do in the back beds. I get lots of compliments on it all summer long. I'll definately post pics of the other two as well...one I've had a hard time getting to bloom, because it's shaded out by a huge rambler-type rose (that doesn't bloom either - shovel pruning for that this year). I think I got one bloom total off of it last year. It's a solid dark fushia pink, and the other is a solid dark coral. Hopefully this year they'll do better after I move them.

Thanks for poking around my blog...lots of other stuff there, so glad you found the garden stuff okay! I bet you're going through the whole transplant-seedlings thing too...that's what part of my day tomorrow will consist of! Great to have good strong plants this summer though...I hope you'll post pictures this summer as well. :-)

I rarely go to Walmart because it is so crowded. We don't buy roses there. The roses at that Walmart have been in sad shape for quite a few years. We check them every year and they just aren't taken care of. I'm trying to remember when the change happened. We got several there back in the 90s. Most of the roses were pretty healthy. The manager asked Deb to run the garden center last year. I asked her not to :) Don't want her using all her magic there.

Don't know how you would keep leafcutters away since they don't eat the leaves. Turning a blind eye to them is the only solution I have.

Village Gardens on 32nd just south of King is where I got another Rio Samba for Deb. They are great people there, take care of the roses they sell and have the best selection.... a very dangerous place. I still go by Volly Gayvert's each year. Haven't bought any roses there in around 5 years. They used to be my favorite place to buy roses.

We grow a few tomatoes but all the sunny areas are taken by roses and clematis now.

Deb says the rimrocks are the only way she remembers which way is north.

Hey Seil :) Should have known you wouldn't pass up welcoming Jamie.

Thanks Dave - I might take a look at some of the nurseries this year, but normally they're a bit expensive for my tastes (could be that's changed...it's been awhile since I set foot in a real nursery - too much temptation). I normally buy as cheap as possible...which probably isn't such a great plan, but it leaves more money for soil amendments and such. Last year I found some gorgeous roses at Jim's Jungle where Gibson's used to be, didn't buy any, but they were inexpensive and in good shape.

No Sally Holmes at HD this weekend. They had Tropicana, but all of thier bagged roses were inside the store, and leafing out all over, and I didn't want to have to keep them potted until the weather was stable, so I didn't buy any. I can be patient, when necessary. I did buy a couple grocery store mini's on Sunday - Kordova series, and they're in really good shape. I put those out in the greenhouse to wait for warmer weather.

I spent all morning and part of the afternoon yesterday digging the new rose bed out, planting the two bareroots and moving the other three hybrid teas. I'll post pictures later this week...one of my HT's from the front already has a few small leaves, and all of them are budding. I was pretty bummed at pruning the peace rose...it had very little winter dieback, and would have started with lovely long canes this summer, but I just couldn't figure out how to move it without breaking those long canes off in the process (it was pretty heavy). It has a huge rootball, and I managed to keep most of that intact, so hopefully it will recover well. The other two had somewhat scrawny rootballs, so hopefully they'll do okay with the transplanting. Everyone got fresh compost and Superthrive to start them out in thier new home...

Nothing like sore muscles to let you know that gardening season is back again!

LOL, for goodness sake... don't go to Billings Nursery on Poly. I get sticker shock when I see the prices there :) Village Gardens isn't bad. I think they were around $17 last year. We only get a couple roses each year. Back when we had more room, we didn't hesitate to get discount roses if they were healthy. Some of our roses came from Jungle Jim's. They pissed me off a few years ago. I don't even check there now. Come to think of it... we got Lucille Ball at Gibson's.
All 3 Tropicanas only have tip damage this year. I think they are gonna do the monster thing this year. Why did I plant 2 next to the driveway??? Both our Peace don't have much damage. They grow back well in normal years when I have to prune them way back. They get too tall for where they are if I leave all the green cane on them. I'll be pruning them back this year. Can't leave all that green cane on the roses that have it (almost all this spring).
Looking forward to seeing pics :)

Yeah, we learned that shortly after we moved here - Billings Nursery is just two blocks north and one block east of our house, so we checked it out because it was close. We didn't actually buy anything, just wandered around, picked our jaws back up, and headed off to more "reasonable" pastures! I think they grow many of the geraniums for the Geranium Festival at the zoo every year, and I always buy those, but way too expensive at the store.

I'll check out Village Gardens - $17 isn't bad at all. I won't be buying *too* many more this year, but maybe a couple. :-)

I was super-surprised at the canes on Peace...I can't say I've been very good about protecting anything lately, so they just got a few fall leaves around the base, and that was it this year. Unfortunately, Peace seems to be pouting now, but hopefully she'll settle in soon. That one and the two new bare roots are still dormant, but still looking pretty good, the trauma of planting notwithstanding.

Ironically, the two that were just barely getting by out front are doing the best in back so far. They're both breaking dormancy, and have buds all over thier canes. I was going to try to grab some pictures today, but we'll see if the weather is nice enough by lunch or not. Tomorrow for sure...what a lovely weekend we have coming our way! :-)