Lavaglut - one of my absolute favorites. Mine must have a hundred buds /
flowers right now, just covered...



"Kim" wrote in message
...
Almost as soon as I'd sent off the earlier message saying the container
roses
were on the way, I heard a van pulling up in the driveway. Who might it
be but
Airborn Express....and I could see a couple of VERY LARGE BOXES through
the
back windows of the van!

I can't tell you how excited I was -- my first real "bunch of roses"!

Shiva asked me to let her know my impressions of S&W's container roses, so
I'm
going to end up rambling on and on, since I don't know a heck of a lot
about
this business. So if I say something that's actually a stupid thing to
have
said, you'll understand. :-) I will also be asking a couple of questions
before I'm done, too.

I had ordered 8 roses -- 5 floribunda, 1 polyantha, 1 climber and 1
miniature.
I'll describe each one in turn.

"General things"

They are all Weeks roses.

Packaging: The two large boxes were actually made up of 4 smaller boxes
each
that were stapled and taped together. Each was 30" tall and square, just
a
fraction bigger than a 3-gallon nursery container. I figure they were
sized
that way to avoid rattling around without having to use cushioning
material.
The mini was actually inside a second, barely smaller box, since it was in
a 2-
gallon container.

You had to literally cut the boxes off them to get them out. The only one
with
any "damage" was the mini, and I shouldn't even be calling it damage --
one of
the staples that held the boxes together had penetrated the container just
a
little bit so it "snagged" as you took it out.

Pot packaging: The pots were closely & carefully wrapped in heavy brown
kraft
paper and taped up so there was no chance the paper would slip around or
tear
in transit. I say carefully, because each was wrapped up to just snuggle
up to
the main cane without bothering leaves.

I am trying to decide how to "go on" about each plant, and not sure how
to. So
for now, I'll comment that upon initial examination the leaves on all
plants
looked fine. Some of them had dried water spots on them from their last
watering/misting. Soil was moist in all cases. I couldn't tell if they
had
been shipped on Monday or Tuesday, so I don't know how long they had been
in
the boxes.

I'll now give you comments about each one. Bud count is what I could
easily
see w/o digging around through the leaves.

Intrigue: Plant was 31" - 32" inches tall, so the top stem was slightly
bent
over. There were 6 buds on that cane and 1 on another. The bud that was
alone
had already bloomed and was almost ready to drop petals...but boy, was it
"smelly"! LOL

The Fairy: 2' tall with bunches of delicate "baby budlets" (for lack of a
better term to call them?) that appeared to be not yet fully formed.
There was
a lot of active growth (that's what I'm calling how "new leaves" look
since I
don't know if there's a particular term for that appearance) on most of
the
cane/branch tips.

Baby Grand: Large for a mini - 2' tall. It had 7 flowers that had
already
bloomed and one more bud that's getting ready to open.

Easy Living: 27" tall, 2 buds.

George Burns: 30" - 32" tall, with 7 buds. Like Intrigue, it was a
little bit
tall for the box so it drooped a bit.

Lavaglut: 31" tall and at least a dozen unopened buds. One bud that was
1/3
to 1/2 open, and boy, is it pretty! :-) A little droopy like *I* and
*G.B.*.

Margaret Merril: 29" tall with at least one bud. Active growth on the
end of
some canes/branches.

Berries 'n Cream (CL): One obvious bud. Canes look very healthy and
almost
like they are getting ready to run a race to see how big they can get as
fast
as possible!

I don't know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I couldn't wait
to get
them planted. They are all in the ground now. Never having gotten mail
order
container roses I don't know if I was supposed to let them "rest" for a
while
or something.

That brings up a question. Once they were all in the ground I noticed
that the
ones I'd mentioned earlier that were a bit tall for the boxes, and had a
bit of
droop because of it, were looking somewhat more "droopy" now. They hadn't
been
watered at that point.

I watered them very lightly for now for a couple of reasons -- one, the
bed
area is in full sun and I had always heard that you shouldn't water during
the
full heat of the day because it can hurt the plant, and two, we're
expecting
rain/thunderstorms over the next few hours and I want to see how much
rainfall
we get. It's 81 - 82 here today with about 40% humidity.

Is the "droopy appearance" something to be concerned/worried about? Are
they
in distress in some way? Do they need water, or what? Advice here,
please!!!

Another question -- In looking over the plants to see what needed to be
pruned
off, I noted that a number of canes that I would have chosen to "prune"
had
new, active growth, some even with buds, too close to the end of what I
thought
was a "dead" cane. Some of the healthy looking shoots with buds were
hardly
1/4" or so away from the end of the bigger, "dead looking" cane end. Is
that
usual?

Not knowing which of the roses are grafted ones versus own root (mini I
know is
own root), and not having found a site (yet) that lets you search a
database on
"own root", I don't know if any of my new babies are "own root". Can a
rose be
found in both an "own root" and a "grafted" form, or are they only one OR
the
other? Of the ones I got, are any of them "own root"?

In any case, to wind this up, this novice is very happy with the container
roses from S&W (unless someone tells me there's something grossly wrong
with
something I've described here).

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

--

Kim

"We have done so much with so little for so long that now we can do
anything
with nothing." -- Dave Marcis