@rosecanadian The top right is definitely my favorite of the colors it's shown me. I'm undecided about it, like I said it's a very poor bloomer for me. Hopefully getting moved to a better spot will help it, but if not... ☠️ In the two years I've had it, it's given about 10 flowers total. For a grafted rose, I expect much more. Many of my roses, including Strawberry Hill, are due for their "3rd year leap" this coming spring, so I'm really excited for that. It will give me a lot of information, and hopefully a lot of flowers.

My Strawberry Hill is not doing that well, first year. I purchased it from Hortico along with Chandos Beauty. I'm waiting to see more blooms from both of these roses.

Today is beautiful and clear and will be 50s so Im going to trim and prune a bit. I still have a couple of pots to change out and a Brigadoon to plant.

I have a feeling my Palatine order is coming this first of March so I could also dig a few holes.

Oursteelers 8B PNW, can you or anyone else give me tips on potting bare root roses? I have word from David Austin that the first 6 of my roses on order from them will arrive on Tuesday and it is much too cold yet to put them in the ground. We have at least an inch of snow on the ground and have had a week of temps in the teens with more cold forecast for next week. I will pot them until the ground has warmed enough for them to settle into.

Diane, sorry about the demise of your roses by gophers. Such a disappointment. I think voles killed my Lady Ashe which was just reaching the stage of gorgeousness that a 3rd year rose does. Your Olivia is/was beautiful! I have two of them in pots that will go out to the garden this year. Imagine my surprise when I saw your photos of Rosemoor clematis and read about Rosemoor in Britain! I have called our farm "Rosemoor" for several years and had not known about either of those two famous examples! Our farm is "Rosemoor", my rose garden is "Petals." Do any of you name your homes or gardens? I name everything - my garden cottage is "Crow Cottage." I'm in my second or twenty second childhood!!!

sultry_jasmine_nights, I have ordered Fighting Temeraire and am excited to grow her! I saw her in person when I took my daughter to visit the Portland rose gardens and she took our breath away! She was at least 6 feet tall, the blossoms were at least 6" across and every color of the sunset. She is stunning! I think she was our very favorite rose of the day, out of the many hundreds there. I will be interested to hear your experience with her. I cannot wait for warm weather! It's almost here, new roses arriving!

Our steelers & Crow, Thank you! This is helpful info on Fighting Temeraire's size!

I better put her towards the back lol. Those large blousy blooms & sunset colors are stunning on this rose! Crepuscule sometimes gets a little pinkish coral in certain conditions too so I think they will be good bedfellows. I am getting really excited for this bed. I am going to put up some lattice behind them..see if I can get away with attaching it to the posts on the RV carport.

I just went out and did a light trim on all my potted roses. I planted my grafted Sally Holmes in the back row. I found a few scattered blooms around the yard. I even found a fat bud on Fighting Temermaire that I hadn't noticed before.

FT

Rosette Delizy looking all cute & quartered♡

Fire Opal..5 inch blooms and one of my best bloomers ever!

James Galway

Pat Austin..shes a hot mess due to the storms and freezes we had but she will still reliably bloom.

Teasing Georgia

Penelope from Heirloom still in its pot just put out all of these sweet little buds.

? Should Penelope go in the middle or the back row?

This is a Hibiscus that forced her way into my cart (I swear) at Lowes recently. Its warm pinks with lilac pinks and a blush of lavender. Very hard to capture in pics. Giant cupcake blooms!

Just a short post. Sultry, is that a tropical hibiscus? Is it a double? I love Cajun Hibiscus and wish we could grow them here where it's too cold. I love the above peek at what is popping up in your garden. You've made me interested in Fighting Temeraire, which reminds me a lot of Morden Sunrise, though FT has some pinkish versions and may have a few more petals. I highly recommend Morden Sunrise, a lovely nearly continuous blooming rose that makes lots of beautiful hips. Anyway, my twisted brain thinks Austin should name a rose "Old Ironsides" for US customers. Fair is fair.

Kristine, you're making me feel guilty. We're having similar weather, and I don't know if I have your energy. Then the weather turns rotten for the rest of February. Bah.

Crow, how interesting to learn about Rosemoor, your farm. You should subscribe to English Garden Magazine, which is a good source of Brit garden info. I grew Rosemoor clematis a long time before I learned about Rosemoor in England. They have a rose garden there, too. Diane

Morden Sunrise

Lots of color change with this one.

Crow, do you have any pots you can temp place your bare roots in while you wait for it to warm up a bit? Some nice potting soil will be a good place for them to rest until you‘re ready to plant. Where are you located again?

February is always so up and down for me (about an hour south of Seattle) in regards to temp. For example last week and this coming week I can’t do anything because the ground is frozen but once I’m clear of this last bit of winter I will plant my bareroots.

Even if March throws some surprises my way I’ve always found that the plants take it in stride

Sulty that is the best picture I’ve seen of Rosette Delizy in a loooooong time. Fingers crossed that is what mine looks like! My Penelope is in the back-I’m hoping she will cover the chainlink fence.

Diane, Yes this is a tropical hibiscus. It is kind of a semi double. It has single flowers and then also throws out these semi doubles like in the photo as well. Often it will have the singles & semi doubles on the bush at the the same time! They also have a kind of shimmer on the blooms. I had this sme variety about 5 yrs go and lost it. So when I saw it at Lowes, I snatched it up lol.

It is a zone 10 plant. I have to protect tropical hisbiscus in my zone by putting them in the greenhouse or bringing them in on freezing nights. They bring me so much joy that they are way worth it! Too bad they aren't fragrant.

Mordrn Sunrise is charming! She reminds me a little of Crepuscule (a Noisette) too!

lol@ Old Ironsides David Austin 😅

Our Steelers, Rosette Delizy is a complete doll of a rose! I don't have one complaint about her. Her colors start out brighter when she first opens then mellow to more pastels.

Just for you!

Here's the tag for the hibiscus from Lowes. I think it was like $24 for a 3 gallon.

Color on a hot day..a little warmer pink

Crepuscule Rose..a climber

Thanks for the info, Sultry. And I agree that Rosette Delizy is a doll. I wonder where she got that cute name. HMF, here I come. I knew that hibiscus was out of my hardiness range by a long shot.

Kristine, I stink. I applied Holly Tone to all the front yard roses and hibiscus and peonies. Phew. I thought I'd asphyxiated myself when I opened the bag. Nothing like a cloud of dusty stench for an old person's lungs. What we do for out roses. Diane

Hardy hibiscus. I'm sure you've seen at least some of these photos before. I've grown them for many years, and the big roses are really crowding them out, plus I need to divide them--can you do this?

Those hibiscus are beautiful, especially with the Echinacea! I do have a few hardy ones. They can be grown in N FL and get just enough cold to come back reliably. I don't know about S FL. I find that they must stay fairly dry here in the winter to avoid root rot which is wierd because they love to suck up water the rest of the year. I am in an 8b & further inland now, so I think they will do a little better here than at the old place. I will have to look for my hardy hibiscus photos.

As far as I know, hardy hibiscus doesn't make root divisions. I could be wrong lol.

I think they will spread via seed and can be propagated by cuttings as well. If seeds dropped or branches dropped and rooted, then there could be several plants all growing together which then could be divided. Same for the tropical types.

I have no clue how Delizy got her name and I should probably know haha. I need to look it up as well.

I had trouble getting hardy waterlilies to return in my zone 9a. I had better luck with tropical waterlilies even though we were almost too cold for them. I am thinking about trying to plant some cold hardy Waterlilies in the cypress pond here. Hopefully the darn ducks dont eat them. Our ponds got a thin sheet of ice on them several times this winter.

Well done Diane! Sounds like you got a lot .

We're supposed to have lousy weather starting tomorrow and for a week so I wanted to get something done.

I pruned 9 more roses and prepped 6 planting holes and found that I have 2 more spots to plant. Yippee!

Sultry, I am a sucker for hibiscus, hardy or tropical both are gorgeous

I wonder if I could overwinter in a heated garage with a grow light?

Diane, you have some beauties!

This is what I did while it drizzled cold rain most of the day:

I made signs for all my newly acquired roses, mostly potted or recently planted:

My mom’s garden club is having a sale in April. I started a tray of Tumeric, thought it would be a fun thing to sell since you could 1. Make a exotic southeast asian dish 2. Use it a medicine with antiinflamatory and nutritional value 3. enjoy its wonderful scent, which rivals a jasmine or gardenia. It’s easy to grow like a small canna

Very cool, BenT! I've never seen a turmeric plant in person, but I use it in cooking pretty often.

It was warm today, enough to melt most of the snow, so I did some garden clean up, mostly cutting away the dead tops of my perennials. Sadly, 4 more inches of snow expected on Wednesday... It's never ending! But I shouldn't be complaining about moisture.

Diane, I do subscribe to English Gardens, it is at present my very favorite gardening mag. I always get a thrill when I see it arrive in the mail and never throw an issue away. I have a huge library of gardening books and mags and that's how I spend my winters - immersed in pages of my dream gardens!

Our steelers, thanks for the tips on potting bare roots! I have some pots but not big enough to keep from crushing roots so Hubby will go to Portland Nursery which has a great supply of pots of all sizes. I have plenty of room to hold them in pots for a while until the soil warms enough to plant them out. Also, thanks for letting me know about when you plant - you are 8B as I am - we live about 20 minutes north of Vancouver, WA. I have been a bit nervous as I have never before planted bare root roses until last year and now I have 60+ of them on order to be delivered before long! Most years we are mowing grass by the end of February but not this year or last for that matter. Lots of work ahead!

Bent,

Once the Turmeric/Curcuma longa is established it goes crazy. I had it by my garden fence (I had kind of an Asian themed veggie garden at my old house) about 25 ft from a bunch of raised veggie beds.The beds were 18 inch high 4'x16') After the 2nd year that turmeric snaked its way underground to the nice rich soil in those beds and popped up through the tomatoes lol! I didnt really mind that much but in fall we had a lot of turmeric roots in there to harvest.

Is anyone else behind on. pruning? It has been so cold here that I either haven't been motivated to go out i haven't wanted to prune a bunch before nights in the teens and low twenties. Maybe I'll be ableto finish next weekend. I'll need to start preparing beds for the Palatine roses I have coming mid late March.

Pruning?? Haha. I never prune until mid March, and I'll be lucky to get started then. Last night we had a late (for us) snowstorm, and our temps are well below normal. I'm still working on cleanup because of all the weather interruptions we've had since November, when we had an abnormally early start to winter. Truly the weather here has been crazy since 2021. I'm happy I got Holly Tone on about all my roses and other plants just before rain and snow started up again. I like it to get pounded into the soil by the elements. So that's over with at least. Diane

I’m mostly done with pruning, it was a light year since I was running out of time with all this crazy weather. Like Diane I was able to get my Holly Tone and Plant Tone down but now the dogs are quarantined to the house because they keep trying to eat it!

Neither rain nor snow have been able to hide it from them. Sometimes I wonder how good my roses would look if they actually got all the nutrients intended for them!!!

Librarian, I am usually done prunning by now so feeling the pressure with about 70 to go. Geeze, I did 9 on Saturday and on Sunday I couldn't even move my hand. This is going to be a challenging year.

You know what they

" We make plans and God laughs "

That is particularly true for gardening .

I have 3 roses to plant in front of my window but we are getting a new roof and I'm afraid that there could be some clomping around in that area .Hopefully they will get us done before my Palatine order arrives but what are the odds of that happening?

The good thing about moving is you whack your roses back to nothing and keep them victimized in pots in enough shade to recover, then you dont have to prune that much lol. The bad thing is you have to dig lots of holes instead :/

It was cool and windy today. Hubby helped me put in a bunch of roses. We got in Fighting Temermaire, Rosette Delizy, Tangerine Skies, Penelope, & Pat Austin. The other day I got in Sally Holmes, Crepuscule, Jude the Obscure, & Cecile Brunner Spray.

I wanted to plant my Maman Cochet Climber but heck if I know which one she is now! She isnt blooming and I have a bunch of 5 gallon roses about the same size who lost the tags grrr. Some do have tags but the nursery ink has faded off of them. I pulled the one that I *think* is MC over to full sun where she will potentially be planted. I am gonna fertilze her and hopefully she will bloom. Its pretty thorny so I am not planting her untiI know for sure because I don't want to deal with digging it back up lol. In the middle of planting all this, of course, it started pouring rain out of nowhere.

I have room for one more climber between Maman Cochet CL & Sally Holmes...would something purple like Quicksilver be too tacky? Should I do a lighter pink to contrast w MC and Sally? How about Spirit of Freedom?

Is Sally Holmes really a climber? My friend grows three of them as big shrubs. I read on the forum about those who are trying to grow Evelyn as a climber. Ugh. She's so stiff and thorny. I wouldn't even try her as a "climber", which I don't think she is.....Don't worry about your colors--Quick Silver would be nice, but isn't it pretty short for a climber (I don't grow it)? How about Golden Celebration, which can be a true climber and goes well with pinks, and certainly the near white of Sally? Diane

Golden C with Augusta

Golden C with Boscobel and Wild Blue Yonder

Sultry, I like both Quicksilver and Spirit of Freedom but what about something with a softer look to blend Sally and Maman Cochet?

Maybe Florence Bowers Pink Tea?

My GC and FBPT are both in the lost tag section of roses somewhere 😅

Quicksilver is not that short here. It can get 15 ft easy. Even Posiedon did! Its supposed to be narrow and tall (7ft or so) but mine from Heirloom, was wrapped around the post and up and over a gazebo on its own roots lol.

Spirit of Freedom gets really big here.

I bet she would be stunning with Niles Cochet (not a climber- but maybe next to it). I'm not putting Niles in this area, just saying. lol

I have Sally Holmes a ways outside a 20ft high post, right where the RV Carport begins. So she can climb the post (if she can) or just get real big and kinda poof out. She is out from the roof dripline so she can go in a few different directions. I am thinking of securing some trellis to the outside of the rv carport posts so I can secure climbers to it. MC is gonna be on the other end of the rv carport from Sally..She can go in 2 different directions from there. The other climber (yet to be determined) will go between these two.

I also have fence line from the carport all the way to the front of the barn doorway, where we put in some gate posts..Down that fenceline is where Crepuscule, Cecille Brunner Spray & Fighting Temermaire are. Right next to the gate post is Tangerine Skies. Then there will be a 10ft metal Farm Gate. I might erect some sort of arch over the gate so it can climb over it. As long as our truck and hay trailer can get underneath it and to the barn, it should be ok.

The naughty goats cant get out the front of the barn, only the back so they can't eat my stuff 🥀🐐

Next, I will have to figure out some perennials to plant with oranges. whites, pinks, etc. that are hardy to zone 8b.

I wish poppies did well here. I love Diane's Dark Purple Lauren's Grape poppies! They never return here though. I have some Milk and Wine Crinums I could put in there.

Diane your photos with GC, Wild Blue Yonder & Boscobel are stunning! That reminds me how much I want to get WBY!!

Your Boscobel is a nice Pink. Mine is only pink on the coolest days after that it is very bright Coral pink. I still like it. I ordered another one for this year because I am paranoid DA will quit selling it.

Sultry, there was a poster here in Canada, I think her name was Tammy? She had Sally Holmes trained as a climber over an arch. I'll try to find the thread with photos.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6137406/i-love-sally-holmes-my-2021-garden

And another stupid storm dropping snow.

Kristine I’m not even that upset about the snow-it’s all these nights in the 20’s that are killin me. I’m DONE with the cold!! I have stuff I need to get done!!!

@sultry_jasmine_nights (Florida-9a-ish)

Sallie Holmes is young, but actually pretty good here. She does get some blackspot but kept most of her foliage last year without any care. I hope you like her.

Sorry I should have taken better pictures. Showing behind Teasing Georgia

Sally Holmes was a large climber in northern California. Here, I have a new one so I don't know yet on size.

Crazy Blue Yonder one more time. Diane

Diane - I like that Sue Grafton's will stipulated that no one could finish her alphabet series. It wouldn't be the same. Chip, Chip Hooray....man, that's a cute name for a cookie place. :) :) Wow!! I bet that widdle cookie must have been great! I've been gorging on Lindt chocolates. Oh my!! Especially the double chocolate ones. YUM! As to the badgers, I just googled "How to attract badgers." LOL Yeah, doesn't sound like the best idea...ringing the dinner bell for the deer. That makes me angry/sad, too, about the Fish/Wildlife killing young animals...they're so easy to discourage...young and impressionable. Oh, Diane!! SWOON over your roses!!! Happy, happy smile. :) :)

Magpie - yes...the wonderful 3rd year leap! I'm excited to see how they do for you. :) :)

Crow - that's delightful that you name your garden, house, etc. I love that. The only thing that we've named is our car...white...we called it Avalanche.

Sultry - I absolutely love the color/shape of your Teasing Georgia!! Talk about gorgeous!! Your Rosette Delizy is pretty wonderful too. :)

Ben - those are great signs! Well done. Tumeric has many attributes (didn't know that) and is fragrant too? Cool.

Oursteelers - lol about the dogs. :) :)

Kristine - oh no! Clomping boots and new Palatine roses. Ugh. We'll cross our fingers.

All this talk about pruning...(I showed this on another thread...but it bares repeating LOL) We just shoveled on Sunday.

Carol, good old snow. We got a bunch last night and will get more in the next week. I guess if it's going to be cold here, and and temps are well below normal, we might as well have snow because we can always use precipitation. I would hate to see talk about the drought, now over, come back. Spring is not really on my mind right now....If you think Idaho Fish & Game's handling of young bears and cougars is bad, you should hear their wonderful proposal to kill off excess wolves. That starts getting political, so I won't go into it right now, but it's appalling to me. Thanks for the swoon, Carol, I needed that.....I did make a hog out of myself with the gourmet cookies--then Jemma got home, and the remainder disappeared somehow. She should respect her Nana's needs more....Oh, your dinner bell statement reminded me that I used to clang a dinner bell at the invading deer while chasing and barking at them. Somehow, that bell got misplaced.

Oursteelers, your doggies would have loved me the other day. I was bathed in clouds of Tone stench--hair, coat, etc. I could smell myself and it wasn't nice. I went through almost 100 pounds of the stuff, and will start on another 36 pound bag when the weather clears up. I Tone all peonies, hibiscus, hardy geraniums, and clematis, at least, in addition to roses.

Kristine, if you think the snow now is bad, at least you didn't have a freak snowstorm in May like we did last year. My favorite tree is still a broken mess because of it. And as I mentioned, the last now in May we had in this area was 1964, the year I graduated from high school. That's like a century ago, I think.

Crow, I love that you name your garden and cottage, and that you're a fellow subscriber to English Garden.

Ben, you are the neighborhood tumeric pusher. Joke, joke. Old person joke. I admire your skills in starting all kinds of plants, not the least of which is roses. You are a master gardener. Diane

Ascot and nieghbors

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b), I do remember Tammy! I remember seeing those photos and especially remember her doggie wuth the little bistro table all set up in the garden. Her garden videos are gorgeous. I like Sally as a climber that way..very

fairytale-esque! Is that a word? lol

Thank you for posting that!

Thanks Dianela & Sheila! I am feeling better about Sally now. I'm glad to hear she does well for you both! Maybe I have a shot.

I found Maman Cochet Cl !! She wasnt the one I thought she was..I am thinking that one is Mrs B R Cant with a faded nursery tag that I Cant read :) So I dug around in the other pots and found a Maman Cochet Cl tag broken and burried. Its a huge thorny beast. I got it wrestled into place & planted by myself so whatever it is, its staying. I went ahead and put SoF in between MC & SH. They can all duke it out. I'm done with that bed!

I got bit to heck by fireants which had taken up residence in one of the rose pots. I pulled the rose out and a zillion fireants with eggs came out to attack. I had to sick my chickens on them and wait a couple hours lol. Chickens love to eat up the white fireant egg babies.

Now to start digging the front bed. I have 4 roses soaking right now so it has to be done.

I have to look up these shrubs in the back of this potential front bed. I think they are Variegated Spirea! They were cut down to stubs when we moved in and they didn't bloom. These ate at least 6 ft tall..I dont really want to dig them all out right now.

Is it possible to just let them be backdrop to roses? The sun is in front so they wont get shaded at all.

Sultry I’m not sure which spirea I have; one of the pinks and definitely not variegated but I don’t think I could kill them if I tried. They are super happy and oh so easy to care for so i think they’d be fine wherever you wanted them

Ok I just looked up the leaves and they may bw a variegated Weigela. It hasnt flowered so I am not sure. I've never grown either of them lol. These do seem tough because other than rain, they got no water! I need to get a hose out there. I am going to post some leaf pictures so someone can tell me what they are & what to do with them lol.

Shrub in question.They are planted outside a very high deck. This is looking down into them lol. There are 9 of them in a 50ft long row. I dont think these leaves are full size yet.

How the stems look.

Habit from above..they are about 5 1/2 to 6ft tall

Diane - Oh my heavens!!! Your Ascot rose is incredibly beautiful!!! What a great color...and there are so many blooms!! The color makes me imagine an older gentleman with a boater hat coming and snipping a bloom off for his lapel. :) Although the bloom would be too large, wouldn't it? :) :) No, not the wolves. Ugh.

Sultry - good chickens!! Good girls!! So strange to think that jungle fowl (later became domesticated chickens) are the closest relation to a T-Rex. Makes you see them in a different light...more respect. LOL Although, I know you love your chickens...wasn't trying to say otherwise. :) :)

haha, Carol. No it's quail who are closest to the T-Rex. They are beasts with topknots, born to torment me. But chickens do have a certain resemblance to the T-Rex, I admit. Is your shovel still in the garbage where it belongs? Most of our snow melted except the area in back in perpetual shade from our tall house. I hope no older gentleman comes by to snip my roses this summer. I would probably snip him.

Sultry, ooh, about the fire ants. They are scary, and I'm glad we don't have them. I do think your plants are weigela. I grow just two spirea which I love. They are perfect rounds, fairly wide but not tall at all. They are called Snowstorm with their beautiful white blooms in late spring. They are totally carefree, and I've pruned them almost never. I've grown them since about 2007. Love the photobombing rooster. Chickens are such a hoot (cluck). I loved to feed my grandma's chickens my peanut butter sandwiches when I was a kid. I got in trouble for that, but still sneaked and did it, anyway. Diane

Spirea which goes nicely with orlaya

Orlaya

Yup, Mr. Shovel is leaning against the garage door...hopefully we won't need it again until next year. Everything else should just melt away...eventually. Although, we are still getting cool weather...-12C/10F.

Don's coming home Friday at 1 a.m. It'll be really nice to have him back. :) :) I feel so trapped being here without being able to drive. The dogs are in a coma because I can't walk them with snowdrifts beside the sidewalks. Can't cross the road if another dog approaches. Please, winter...get thee gone!

Sultry,

There are some Euonymous that look similar to your hedge. Eounymous are an endangered species in my garden, I’ve hacked them all out to make room for roses. They might actually finally be extinct. Next, there are some unhappy abelias, vibrunums, and spireas that I’d like to mercy kill. This house is almost an arboretum full of ugly old gnarly shrubs!

And I agree, tumeric is super fast growing, that’s why when my mom said she needed a bunch of plants for a garden club sale in 6 weeks, I thought, ’let’s do tumeric, as many as you need!’.

Carol

Poor doggies, they have to do their business outside.

Diane,

I think that’s the best pic of Ascot, ever.

Carol, I hope Don arrived home safely and got Holly all moved in. We don't have your awful temps, but it's not exactly warm around here, and we got a light snow last night with more predicted in the next few days. I don't see any change in temps in the next 10 March days. We've been stuck in January Ground Hog Day time warp. To quote you: Gah. Diane

Abbaye de Cluny in late Sept and late October. You can see some heat damage in the Sept photo.

Diane & Carol, I do believe the chickens came straight from the T-Rex. If I fell down dead in their pens and they got hungry, I have no doubt they would peck my eyes out! lol.

I love the spirea & the orlaya. I will have to see if Orlaya does well here. A lot of plants can take our heat. Its the humidity that dooms them.

Haha about feeding the chickens peanut butter sandwiches. Reminds me of how my grandma had White Leghorn chickens. I was a naughty kid and I would get bored at my grandmas and throw her chickens over her fence into her elderly neighbor's yard. This lady loved inviting kids in and telling stories and gave us bowls of buttermint candies. My grandmother was very health conscious and we rarely got sweets lol. So I would chuck the chickens over the fence, go tell grandma they flew over and could I go get them? Throw them back over to grandmas then take a detour to the nice lady's living room for stories and candy!

That worked for awhile until my grandma got wise and clipped their wings. Then the next time, I was busted because she knew I was throwing them over lol. I think I was about 5yrs old then.

Thank you, Ben. Deer love euonymous, so maybe you should invite some deer into your garden. They will eat it right down to the ground, just like hosta. Diane

Ascot duking it out with a 10 foot tall butterfly bush in back. Not flattering of Ascot.

Sultry, thanks for sharing that story-so funny!!

Sultry, looks like varigated wigelia. My sister has one in almost all shade is totally ignored and it is so beautiful. It's covered in pink They're not early bloomers.

Diane, every time I see your Ascot I just swoon. What a stunning rose .

I got a few more roses prunned today, mostly the babies so I got moving pretty fast until I stepped in dog poop and I was . !! Dang dogs pooping in my rose garden.

Tomorrow more snow

March in like a lion

Out like a lamb.

Diane - Don's not home yet...but should be home in the early morning hours...1 a.m. or so. Holly is all moved in. :) :) Yeah, we're stuck with crappy weather too...come on spring!!! GAH!! LOL Do you think that your Abbaye de Cluny blooms look like Jude the Obscure? So beautiful...and to me they look almost the same. What??? Not flattering? Are you kidding...that's a fabulous picture of Ascot..I adore the color!

Sultry - no, not the eyes!! Yuck! LOL You were tricky!!! I was very similar to you. I was always thinking of ways to get into mischief in a clever way. tee hee

Kristine - ugh...dog poop. Okay, now that you've said the old chestnut about March...I'm going to hold you to it. And if it doesn't work, I know who I'm going to have some words with. LOL

Carol, Abbaye doesn't look much like Jude, but much more like Just Joey, especially in color. Abbaye is not a tight cup shape, the blooms are a bit loose and do not have near the number of petals that Jude's blooms have. And Abbaye doesn't have much of a scent to my nose. But they are both good roses, each having its strong points. Abbaye is a continuous bloomer and not as temperamental as Jude. I think the quail would go for my eye, too. Diane

Diane - Okay. :) :) Good explanations. :) Well, if you fall, don't be in the process of flinging seed around...that'll attract the quail...and your eyes will be toast. LOL