How cheery! Anna and Alexander are both lovely. I can only imagine how they will look at maturity!

I wonder why Alexander Hill Gray isn't grown more? That's a handsome flower. My Anna Jung has one bloom at present. I repotted her into a large (maybe too large?) pot, and then the temperatures started fluctuating, which slows most roses down to varying degrees (oops, no pun intended)...

Ha, that gave me a chuckle vmr423. It still cracks me up that puns became the "in" thing amongst the teenage set.

Lisa, your 'Victorian Lady' Abutilon is quite lovely. Mine has some buds, but with our temperature fluctuations, I can't blame her for not opening them. I got 3 new abutilons this fall, but this 'Red Glory' is the only one of them that's been brave enough to bloom:

Hmmm... I don't celebrate Christmas, but this might be a good poinsettia alternative for folks in a warm climate... isn't it festive?

Virginia

Marlorena, I hope to hear more soon about the changes you're making in your garden. I remember that some of the changes were required by building work, and may not have been altogether welcome at the time, but I think of you as a garden artist who likes a bit of blank canvas to work on...

I was intrigued by the OGR's you recently aquired., and hope they'll be settled in soon enough that they'll bloom for you this spring.

Virginia

Virginia, you have a good memory,... I'm not sure about the artistry but yes I enjoy a fresh start here and there.. and hope to have a good result by next summer, but one or two spots might not be quite recovered in time, however camouflage is my game here...

I haven't planted those new OGR's yet, they're heeled in waiting for the moment. I'm not sure they'll bloom this first year though. I have at least 3 more roses to order by next Spring.

Thanks for asking about this. Love your Camellias by the way.

I have family arriving in the morning for Christmas lunch - I don't normally do this, and they invited themselves, so I'm not going to tell them I've already cooked the Turkey, a bit of hot gravy poured over and they won't know any difference..

I'm hoping they 'nod off' after lunch, otherwise they will have to sit through 3 hours of 'Oklahoma' repeated from earlier this year at the BBC Proms - unmissable -. A bit of alcoholic pudding and cake should send them on their way. Hope you have a good day - preferably a quieter one than mine.

Marlorena, I hope your turkey dinner and "matinée" performance of 'Oklahoma' went well (i.e., not drowned out by snoring guests).

Yes, I guess spring blooms from your not-yet-planted OGR's might be overly optimistic. I have every confidence that you can camouflage any of those imperfections that go along with new plants/ new schemes. Looking forward to seeing more in the spring.

Virginia

thanks Virginia.. all went well, I watched the musical in peace and they are gone now.... I have just found a little 'gift' left behind, which was a nice thought, but I am told it's for me to buy a rose of my choice. How wonderful ! I wasn't expecting that. Now I don't know which one to choose.

Hope everyone had a good day. We have some bad weather moving in for a short time, torrential rain that may turn to snow and strong winds, so I shall watch 'Pack Of Lies' for the umpteenth time, as I've been fascinated with the story from the Cold War period 1960, of what became known as the Portland Spy Ring, which tells the story of Peter and Helen Kroger, two Americans spying for the Russians, and the friendship with an unsuspecting English family. It stars Teri Garr, who now sadly has MS, and Ellen Burstyn, along with the late Alan Bates.

There is a gardening connection here, as the young daughter belonging to the family, in real life, and who was befriended by Helen Kroger, later became a well known t.v. gardener alongside Geoff Hamilton in the 1980's..

She has told her story of these events from the perspective of a teenager, how Helen [Lona Cohen as she really was], used to wear trousers a lot and sang and whistled down the street, unusual for a woman of the time. She seemed to be in awe of her. I'm not sure the wearing of trousers was that unusual though, for younger women at least, I have photos of my elder sister, albeit she was a young model back then, wearing fashionable trousers as long ago as the early 1950's.

Hope you all have a good day.

I also look forward to seeing your revisions, Marlorena. Your pictures are always so beautiful!

Virginia, I kinda like that red abutilon. It IS very festive. Lisa

Marlorena, 'Pack of Lies' sounds like something I'd like. I'll put it on my watch list. We're also in for a spot of chilly weather, but nothing on the scale you're expecting.

Lisa, 'Red Glory' is a dark- not orangey- red, and it blooms in flushes. I first got mine in September, and it's on its second flush, despite some rather chilly temps in the meantime; impressive for a small (I'm guessing 14"?) plant.

I got 'Victorian Lady' and 'Talini's Pink' from Annie's Annuals in October, and am looking forward to seeing them bloom when we get a long-enough warm spell (not anytime soon, looking at our forecast). I need to move some plants onto the porch...

Virginia

Virginia, my ‘Victory Lady’ is nearly a year old from the same source. They do come small! It waited until this fall to begin blooming. It’s now about 2’ High.

Remember my huge Baronne Prevost bloom? It was a cluster of three, and the final bud is open. This one is smaller, but still so very beautiful.

Hmm... on closer inspection it’s larger than I thought, but not quite as large as the first one. Those are thorn strippers for size.

I need some lotion. Every time I see my 50 year old hands in pictures, I’m horrified. Who’s old lady hand is that? Lisa

What a beautiful bloom ((and hands), although I understand. I always try to cut mine out. A few on here have lovely manicured nails, but I'm lucky to keep mine clean! Could you give more info on the thorn strippers? I think I need some. We celebrate all twelve days of Xmas, so it's not too late for me!!!

Sure Vap! I can’t remember where I purchased mine, because I’ve had them for a long time. I only remember to use them when I’m cutting more than a few stems. They are quite handy when I’m cutting lots of roses, or other flowers. They remove the leaves and thorns in one firm downward motion. I like mine, as it’s made of study metal and still looks brand new in spite of having used it for years. I believe I paid around $10 for mine. There are lots of options on Amazon. I’ll take a picture of mine, so you can see the brand.(hopefully) I think you ought to get them, Vap. That way when I ask if a particular rose does well as a cut flower, you might have tried it in the vase:) Lisa

Clotilde Soupert had to get in here, too.

Thank you! That's so cool! Here's something to return the favor. I think everyone needs this. I got mine at St Vinny's for about $1, but it's worth more. there are quite a few places selling them, but this is just for the visual. ; )

http://www.leevalley.com/us/garden/page.aspx?cat=2,50560&p=10205

P.S. Your new vase looks pretty with CS!

Vap, that’s so neat! I had no idea there was such a thing. I’m always frustrated cutting underwater. The stem slips out of my snippers and the whole procedure is just plain awkward. You’re lucky to have found one at a thrift shop. I wouldn’t have recognized it for what it was. LeeValley shows “unavailable”, but perhaps I can find a less expensive one somewhere. Thanks for that. I like! Lisa

I had to laugh about your "old" hands Lisa, because I always have the same reaction when I see mine in pictures. The "manicured" nails" can't be mine, but mine grow so quickly that I'm constantly cutting them. I like CS in the vase. I rarely see it fully open like that, but I really like that look. Baronne Prevost looks huge to me, and I imagine the fragrance must be divine. I'm impressed with how many roses and other plants you're accumulating. You're going to be sadly disappointed with how little my garden has to offer in contrast, especially since quite a few incorrect roses were sent and I have too many young roses, or irritating roses like Plum Perfect that stubbornly refuse to grow. I think your garden next spring is going to be awesome.

Thanks, Ingrid. It will be if I can drum up the energy to do some work on it. Our lack of rain has me pretty much just watering things. I need to rip out the old annuals and do a lot of cleanup work, but the mood hasn’t struck me yet. You’ll notice there haven’t been any full garden shots lately. I keep telling myself that rain must surely be right around the corner and the ground will be nice for weeding. I can’t believe we haven’t had a drop, yet! Your garden always looks so neat and tidy. I can always find plenty of flowers to cut, but I need to dig through a jumble of growth to do so.

Vap, your stem cutter seems virtually unfindable. I can’t seem to locate one, so I’ll just keep my eye out. Nice find for $1! Lisa

Lisa, I meant to say earlier that the atypically dark buds that you showed of Lady Ashe look exactly like my Aloha buds. I wonder whether they changed back to their Lady Ashe look once they matured. I keep wondering when my Aloha will look like more than a bunch of spiky sticks with the odd flowers and a few rather ugly leaves. Right now she gets very little sun, so I hope this will get better by spring and summer. My poor soil and not fertilizing doesn't help, I'm sure. Leaf mulch is all the poor things ever get.

Media exaggerations -

As is so often the case, all the news here in England today has been that we are going to have temps tonight of -13C / about 8F. Of course, what they are doing is applying the worst case scenario [like halfway up a Scottish mountain, or the northern hills] to the rest of the country.

Although Shropshire, just west of Austin rose fields, can be one of the coldest places in England, and might get near that, but for me here in the East, -2C/ 28F is my local forecast, yet if you only read the news you wouldn't know.

This sort of thing does annoy me. Anyone else get this too where you are?

Looks like we are in for some cold weather the likes of which we haven't seen in a number of years. Goodbye to any more winter blooms!

Marlorena, I envy you for that kind of media exaggeration. Sadly it's not an exaggeration here. The local news say 9F (-12C), feels like 2F (-17C). The thermometer on our front porch, where it's warmer than in the open areas, shows 5F (-15C). I've been trying to feed the birds with suet but they don't seem to like this kind and I'll have to go to find alternative suets tomorrow. Chickadees, a downy woodpecker, even a red cardinal, and sparrows were all summoned here yesterday when I hung the suet, but didn't stay for long. Poor little things in this freezing weather...

All those chilly temps! Brrrr, the forecast is for 80F tomorrow and still no rain in sight. Marlorena, I do notice quite some exaggeration about the weather here. I thought it was only in So CA, because they rarely have cold temperatures or a big rain storm to talk about. I figured they hype it up here because our winter weather is hardly newsworthy. By oh my, yes they exaggerate things as if we will all freeze to death and be washed away in a flood. Then, hardly a drop falls or the temperature gets down to 31F for an hour or two just before dawn. I’ve learned to take the forecasts with a grain of salt. I’m tired of dragging in tender plants and setting out buckets to catch rain water, for false alarms.

Ingrid, here is the same Lady Ashe bloom today. They did indeed lighten up to the normal pale pink. I think mine is younger than your Aloha, but it is in full sun. Lisa

Now that the sun is almost down the light is better for pictures. I did accomplish a few things outside today. I pruned Duchesse de Brabant back, just lightly. And put some of the Italian Ranunculus into the ground, that I had presprouted in recycled 6 packs from buying annuals. I can’t wait to see them, especially Cloni Success ‘Hanoi’ and ‘Felicidade’. I have a few others too, but only theee of each because they were pricey. Because they were so pricey and I want them to increase every year, I’m planting them in gopher cages. The gophers have been terrible lately. I think it’s because it’s still so dry. Normally they’ve left my garden by this time of year, but with no rain, they stay to eat whatever gets watered. Those gopher cages make planting the little bulbs SO much more work, but hopefully they will provide beautiful cut flowers for many years. My sweet pea plants are about 6” high now. I really should have started my ranunculus and sweet peas about 4 weeks ago. In my defense, it was still very warm then. I’m always just a little late or behind with everything:) The story of my life......

Here are the rose pictures I took just before dark, and it really was JUST before dark because it’s totally dark now. Lisa

A nice bright Duchesse de Brabant bloom, or two sort of:)

Darcey Bussell is extra dark and petal packed in this cooler weather. She’s a real blooming machine, year round.

Mary Rose actually blooms like crazy too, but she’s so heavily virused that she’s susceptible to every ailment around:(

Leveson Gower has a lone and lovely bloom today.

Love Song is looking very dark mauve today, but this photo doesn’t quite capture it.

Mel’s Heritage is still blooming up there with Canary Island Lavendar in the forefront. The Canary Island Lavendars are all due for a trim, but like many roses, it’s hard to cut them back while they’re still blooming so enthusiastically. Lisa

It's almost like seeing a southern hemisphere garden in your photos Lisa, quite extraordinary to me. Beautiful roses for this time of year.

needmoremulch, I shall keep an eye open for reports from Texas, I'm always interested in that sort of thing, even though it's not nice for you. I hope it's not as severe as thought.

vesfl, I hope you've managed to find some better suet for those fussy birds, which surprises me in such cold conditions, although I expect you're familiar with it even colder. Let us hope the winter is brief.

Well, it's been snowy up country here but quite mild where we are, we got no worse than 27F for a few hours, then it rained heavily. I'm going to put some roses in this week.

I have cabin fever!!!! I'm tired of winter. I went to Lowes today to see if they had any spring shipments in yet.They have all their seeds in,and a ton of clearance plants in the garden center.I got some seeds and one clearance plant. The clearance plant had a tag with the name and pic and clearance sticker,but no bar code.Cashier said she couldn't enter it without a bar code. She began looking something up on her phone.Then I said this had happened once before,and in the past the cashier called the assistant manager to figure it out.

She got on the phone,I thought she was calling the assistant manager,nope she called a lawn and garden associate to come to the registers.This was the only clearance plant of its kind,they weren't going to find another with the barcode. I waited a while,by now it had been 20 mins.A line was forming behind me,there were only 2 registers open. I had enough and just walked out and left my items behind. I contacted corporate. Just tired of it,I always read posts about people buying clearance plants from Lowes on here,and it has never been straight forward at my local Lowes.When I got home,I looked at past clearance plants from Lowes I have that still had tags,and they didn't have any bar codes either. Blech.Rant over.

Marlorena, our local tv station covers three counties, so the predicted lows are usually for areas further inland where it can be a good bit colder. Even if I look at the Weather Underground forecast for my zip code, I usually find that we're about 2 degrees warmer- due to our microclimate, I'm supposing.

needsmore, I think your cold front will be our cold front also. Oh, well. Bundle up!

vesfl, I've never had many takers for suet, but it seems like every bird in town visits our peanut feeders. It's funny to watch the big blue jays try to balance on the smaller feeder, and the cardinals can't perch on the feeders, so they get on the squirrel/raccoon baffle and peck at the peanut feeder from there. Meanwhile the house finches are eating several times their weight each day in BOSS (black oil sunflower seed). I tried the Niger seed that finches are supposed to adore, and they wanted none of it.

Good luck and stay warm,

Virginia

kaleidoscope eyes.... oh I'm sorry about that trouble with Lowes, that's a bummer. I can't understand why she couldn't enter a price manually. When I worked at a checkout in retail, if a plant or other item came without the barcode, and we're all in a hurry, sometimes I would just agree a price with the customer - even knock a bit off, and just put it in manually, and everybody's happy.

Of course you need to be working for a business that's happy for you to do that on occasions... it would be seen as a goodwill gesture for the customer, they go away happy, they come back for more... a regular customer will spend a lot of money over the course of time, so giving back a few dollars or cents, shouldn't be a big deal.

I agree Marlorena.I also once worked as a cashier as at a grocery store. This should have been a non issue. Now that I think about it....they once asked me at this store why was i buying plants when it was raining. I was a little surprised and the only thing I could think of was to say "Because it won't be raining tomorrow."

Perfect answer Kaleidoscope!

don't know what kind of seeds you were after, but if veg., may I recommend High Mowing Seeds, Victory Seeds, or Seed Savers Exchange...yummy stuff to grow! No uninformed clerk to deal with, very viable seed, and huge variety!

cheers

claire

Virginia, thank you so much for the tips. I don't have a peanut feeder and didn't have a chance to look for it today because we had to quickly drive back as the snowstorm was coming down again. But I managed to find peanut suet and hope that will work. I discovered this morning that, besides the suet, the crows were another reason for their reluctance to feed. It appears that crows noticed that I'm trying to feed the birds and several of them flew close by when I got on my porch, wanting to prey on the smaller birds. I had to use the broom trick to repel them. The moment they flew away I heard the chirping right behind me, and little chickadees and a woodpecker flew very close to me as if celebrating my success in warding off the crows. They didn't stay for too long though but tomorrow I hope the peanut version will work. Thanks again!

Here at the house this evening (early morning), it's a brisk -5°F with a temperature of -7°F reported in town nearby.

Stay warm north folks!

Steven

I don’t know how you do it! That’s too cold for me. It’s actually quite amazing when you think about it, roses surviving those temperatures. They’re hardier than we are. Lisa

Virginia, house finches do indeed love black oil sunflower seeds. It's goldfinches that love the Niger thistle seed. I always have both seed and thistle out all year long. Goldfinches are a favorite of mine. Diane

Lisa, our forum member Carol, rosecanadian, is currently experiencing -31F in Calgary, Canada. Now that's cold! Diane

Diane, the goldfinches snubbed the Niger seed also. They come to visit in their winter plumage- usually in February- and leave soon after donning their yellow feathers in March or April. I used to put out shelled sunflower seeds, but the finches waste so much, and I'm not especially interested in watching them feed the squirrels.

vesfl, the crows generally ignore us... we have American Crows and Fish Crows in the area, but I thought crows only preyed on eggs and baby birds; I hadn't heard of them eating birds after they had fledged, so this is news to me. I guess I'm glad they more or less stay away from our yard.

I hope the peanut butter suet is a hit.

Virginia

Here we go again! All ice so far, but it is supposed to snow a bit later this morning. I'm thinking covering my tender plants might have been a mistake this time. The sheets, etc are frozen solid with the ice and rain. Any uncovered leaves also have a coat of ice though. I don't know which is worse. I kept waking up worrying that the outdoor-rated Christmas lights I have strung around the plants under the wet cloth would short out and cause a fire. I can always find SOMETHING to keep me awake at night :D

14 degrees last night. Coldest night we've had since 1996. I hope everyone is staying warm!

I was just thinking about how we had a hurricane and now this.Our pipes froze despite wrapping them.

I don't associate Texas with freezing cold, must be all those old Westerns I keep watching, makes it look always so hot and dusty. Maybe up in the Panhandle area it gets cold, I wouldn't know...

needmoremulch,... you are not alone in worrying about things like outdoor lights, catching fire - I've been given several sets of these and | hope to quietly make them disappear before too long...

Kaleidoscope - I could barely sleep listening to make sure the water was still dripping in my bathtub. I am so sorry about your pipes!

Marlorena - we do get hot and dusty. The western half of the state is hot and dry, the eastern half hot and humid, but even the humid half can get dusty and droughty in the summer. Or, you know, get 50 inches of rain in 3 days with a hurricane, lol. If you don't like the weather in Texas, wait a few hours and it will probably change, as the saying goes. The panhandle has been known to get blizzards, but coastal Texas usually isn't too bad. I do remember it got down to 7 degrees once when I was a kid in 1987 ( I think?) Lots of burst pipes and dead plants. Usually we don't get below 20 or 25 most years down here in zone 8b.

5 degrees here in Z8 too! Kaleidoscope, so sorry about your pipes. I had to keep the water dripping like needmoremulch but it's still worrisome.

I know the northerners here probably aren't too impressed with these numbers but it's quite abnormal for us to have continuous days in a row like this. Supposed to be 70 by the weekend so my roses still haven't decided whether or not to go dormant!

I will be so glad when this weekend comes, and that 70 degrees, so I can get some winter chores done in the garden and start planting out my potted roses.

We also got snow here in Louisiana. Last night I covered my recently planted roses (November) with plastic pots. I hope they make it through this cold snap. Luckily they are mostly HPs. I couldn't cover Duchesse de Brabant and Old Blush because both are sizable. Duchess is still struggling a bit from the transplant and I hope not to lose her with these freezing temps on top of it.

^I like your white fencing, is it painted wood or some kind of weather proof plastic or metal?

We don't see that too much here, mostly dark wood, or now we can get black metal fencing some of which I have recently put in. I like it, but prefer white. If that was mine I 'd want to grow 'Gertrude Jekyll' rose along part of it. It reminds me of what you call a 'picket fence', although that might only apply to wood, I'm not sure about that.

Louisiana is another place I would associate with being deep south semi tropical - I don't know why exactly... I've obviously been watching too much t.v.

Marlorena, the fence came with the house and it's made of vinyl. Yes, it looks like a picket fence and I like it. I'm glad it's not wood because I'm not sure how it would stand up in this humid hot climate (your impression about the weather here is on the mark). I love Gertrude Jekyll rose, but I'm a little wary about the reports of its mighty thorns.

The reason I am delayed in this response is that, soon after I had posted this photo, an outside pipe broke from the cold weather. Water was gushing everywhere. I usually like the cold weather for a change (I'm originally from the north), but I'm looking forward to a return to normalcy now...

Oh JBP, broken pipes are so frustrating to deal with, so sorry to hear this! After I posted yesterday, one of ours froze also but thankfully thawed out before it could break. I think that Northerners have better pipes or they're buried deeper or something!

Kaleidoscope, I am pretty sure I will get funny looks at Lowe's today when I buy bags of mulch (hah!). Tomorrow will be reasonably warm (high of 53), and not even raining, so of course I need to do something out there! I've gotten bewildered looks any time I buy from them and it is not perfect spring weather, lol. If I can even find anyone to check me out at the register, like you say.

JBP, I'm sorry about your pipes, these things happen, a lot here too. Sometimes outside water taps burst in freezing weather. We've just had an horrendous storm, no rain but the wind was in excess of 60 mph. Some people had their fences blown down across the road, but it's been a mild winter so far for us in this area, not so elsewhere, but I've not had anything worse than about 27F so far.

I thought your white fence was vinyl, but couldn't think of the right word. I like it very much.

Well,our pipes ended up bursting after freezing.They didn't crack,they basically exploded with jagged edges.They were PVC.Went to Home Depot for supplies.They have bare roots in.They moved them indoors,so that's good. I cant find any winter gloves in stores.I haaaaaaaaaate cold weather.I grew up in Mo,came down here "hoping" to avoid this.But such is life.Crockett Tx set a record breaking low for South East TX at 10 degrees.

I cant wait for Sat and 70 degree weather too!Hopefully this will all be like a nightmare by then.My rainwater container is still frozen!

kaleidoscope, my parents' had pipes burst yesterday in their attic (grumble, grumble, stupid builder!). This is the second time it has happened. They thought they had everything wrapped sufficiently this time. Had to take out 1/3 of the ceiling in that room. Just glad it didn't burst right over the pool table! Ugh. I hope none of your stuff got ruined.