On Sun, 05 Oct 2003 15:38:21 GMT, in rec.gardens.roses you wrote:

On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 07:26:14 -0500, dave weil
wrote:

So, I just went outside to find ice on the windshield of my car. The
low was supposed to only be 38 and it's 38 now, but apparently we've
had some icy fog here. I've been in Nashville for almost 7 years now
and I've *never* seen ice this early.

Poor thing. I imagine it is not far away for us. It was in the forties
the other night. I still have potted roses I have not planted, grrrr.
I think I might put them in larger pots and keep them on the porch
until spring.



I just hope that the tropicals I
have outside didn't freeze (I've got a ficus and schieffileria and
rubber plant still outside). There's also some frost on the ground.
Unbelievable!

I still have a ficus outside that I am afraid I am saying sayonara to
. It is at that "too big and gangly" stage that they never get over if
placed in a house without enough light every winter. It is a shame, as
I love the leaves and general shape of these trees.

Heh. It's funny, this ficus had a BEAUTIFUL shape when I bought it. Of
course, in the days folowing the transport home, it started shedding
most of its leaves. Usually they come back, but I found more and more
dead branches having to be cut off. Finally the top shoots started
dying and I literally had to top it off. There were only a couple of
live branches left and it looked stunted and ugly. It looked about
dead.

It took most of this summer out on the porch, but it actually looks
great again, and the topping has actually thickened the trunk. It
looks really cool now. Of course, I will have to move it inside soon
and we'll go through the whole thing all over again. I don't have
great indoor light. However, I'm really impressed with how it came
back after chopping off the top two feet.

If you're going to dump it anyway, maybe you can try a severe topping
as an experiment. Consider it a bonsai-type experiment...

I guess I'll see later whether or not I've got any damage to tender
growth (I've got a lot of it at the moment).

Me too. I hate to admit it, but I am beginning to see the draw of the
rose massacre for the prune-happy. I had to cut so much canker off,
and the pruning brought great new growth. I suppose I will hard-prune
this winter to see if it helps them in the spring. Plus, less cane,
less surface for canker.

I'm leaning that way as well. My Felicia is a good example. Now, the
bottom supporting growth is really woody and I'm not happy with the
shape. I now wish I had been more aggressive the first two years. The
consensus here was that I shouldn't prune. I'm not expressing sour
grapes or anything, but I'm thinking that it actually *did* need some
pruning to keep growth on the lower part of the bush.

In general, looks like the early frost didn't do any significant
damage. Fortunately.