What a happy reunion. I empathize with the roses buried in grass. That happens here too. I do hope you can find those labels.

I like your roses, Sheila! Possibly Noisettes do better for you than they do for me; they're not the best adapted roses in our conditions.

Some Noisettes look better and better as it heats up. Elie Beauvilain which Vintage called a Tea/Noisette always looks good.

It's new but has great foliage. Hoping it grows up my courtyard wall.

When I learn about roses that can survive and look so beautiful despite their challenges it gives me hope. I've lost a raft of roses but as long as some remain I dare to hope that nature can still be my friend as it has been for both of you, even against some odds.

We hope so too, Ingrid.

Congratulations, Melissa! What a wonderful surprise!! I love it when I'm ambushed by joyful discoveries like that. The universe owes you that refreshing moment-- plus a few more--for all the time, energy and resources you've invested in filling the garden with rare and varied roses, for your persevering wretched weather conditions and for your pushing through a cascade of family health trials in 2016-2017. It's all just a wee bit too much, for gosh sakes!

When you have sorted out tags and plants and holes, I would love to hear what you've got in Serbian Bed #2. Truthfully, I'd love to read your list of roses in Serbian Bed #1, too. I often drift over to the Petrovic Roses website just to gaze at Gallicas and such. Their inventory is jaw dropping and their photos are breathtaking. What I wouldn't give to be able to procure roses from Petrovic! It's no wonder you order by the truckload and are inspired to dynamite through rock and drag buckets of water across miles. Petrovic is a rose lover's candy store!

Is Queen of Sheba one of the Warner Roses that Petrovic offers? I Googled it and saw something along those lines. I have often wanted to indulge, too, in Blue for You and Eyes for You.

I almost clapped out loud when I read that you have a The Pilgrim growing Serbian Bed #2! What a coincidence that you just mentioned how much you missed growing it. I am so happy that you'll experience those buttery blooms again. It really is a lovely thing. Delightful blooms all summer and a really nicely formed shrub. I think you should cut a few blooms for a vase, take them into the house and set them on your bedside table so you can wake up to them tomorrow morning.

I hope your daughter is thriving at university in spite of the dang coronavirus! College has become a new kind of adventure in the Age of the Pandemic. I have a two friends whose kids are graduating this year, one from high school and one from college. This latest worldwide event is likely to become a kind of connecting point for this generation of grads, like the World Wars were or the Depression was for grads in our parents' and grandparents' generations. Carol

Ingrid, roses are reassuringly robust plants, a comfort to the spirit. I don't know how many of them can deal with your soil as you describe it and the reflected heat from the landscape, as well as the ravages of the critters. But it seems a good idea to try and find out.

A joyful surprise indeed, Carol. I would say that we in Europe are lucky in that we can buy a good range of once-flowering old roses; in the U.S., after a boom in the nineties (when I bought numbers of them, mostly from Heritage, and got to know the class), they seem to have become quite hard to find. Aside from a widespread preference on the part of gardeners for repeat flowering roses, I'm guessing that many of them are less well adapted to U.S. conditions in much of the country, making them more difficult and less rewarding to grow than in much of Europe. But thank goodness, some U.S. gardeners persevere.

DD is doing fine. The quarantine arrived with a thud right when her university was due to start the new semester; the school put off opening for a couple of weeks, then started the new semester with online classes. They work fine, with live online video lectures and opportunity for question and answer, and DD does her school projects with her classmates in the same fashion. She was living at home and commuting to school in Piacenza already, so mostly what this means is that she no longer has to travel back and forth every day. She's a homebody anyway and this suits her.

I imagine the epidemic is quite a shock for the young--it is for everyone else, why not for students?--but humans are adaptable! It's not a tragedy; they have a novel situation, and they'll figure out how to deal with it.

I'll keep in mind your wishes to know what I'm growing from Petrovic--their catalogue is in fact dazzling--though the problem is that I have to label the plants in the flowering period, and that's exactly when I'm busy with a thousand other tasks, not to mention pure simple looking. We did have a good many losses, but then, we also had a good many gains. The work never ends, does it? But the RESULTS!