On Mon, 03 Feb 2003 05:43:00 GMT, Cass
wrote:

Welcome, Scopata. It's nice to have someone from the Maryland shore in
the group. It's hard to find info online about your area, and there are
a fair number of questions here, usually along the lines of, "Should I
prune my roses now [in October]" and "how do I winter protect."
-=-
Cass
Zone 9 San Francisco Bay Area
http://home.attbi.com/~cassbernstein/index.html



Scopata Fuori wrote:

Hi!

I'm new to this group, and have been growing roses for seven years. Let me
backtrack he I killed everything I planted the first three years, and
then started choosing my planting areas more carefully, and started with
better quality specimens, and now I am up to well over a hundred. Probably
closer to 200, but I don't count miniatures, freebies, unplanted ones, etc.


I have seen Blue Girl mentioned here. I bought that about three years ago
from the old Michigan Bulb Company (before I knew better), and it was a
rotty looking stick, as were the others they sent me. Only two of the seven
I purchased then are alive today, including Blue Girl.

She has some pretty blooms, but it is not as vigorous nor as prolific as the
Stainless Steel, another "mauve" rose, planted right beside her for
comparison. The color and form are fairly similar, that I would not hesitate
to recommend Stainless Steel to anyone considering Blue Girl, at least in
this area, the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The amount of blooms SS gives, and
the form, are tremendous. It's a healthy, vigorous plant, but it does almost
defoliate from time to time...I suspect spider mites, but roses next to it
can be unaffected. It always bounces right back.

In our area, 7b, we usually have moderate winters, although this one has
been vicious. At least it has mostly stayed frozen, instead of the constant
freeze-thaw cycle that is a plant killer.

As nasty as this winter has been, I plan to wait until the end of the first
week in March to prune, unless the weather takes a definite turn for the
better. Last spring, I pruned at the end of February, and had blooms at the
end of March. But it was such a mild winter, that some of the little
reprobates simply refused to go completely dormant. Climbing New Dawn, for
example...never lost its leaves. And it's still got most of them now!

I need to get out there and dormant spray.

Is it not too late to use dormant spray there in Zone 7b? Here in 6b,
I'm already seeing not only swelling of buds, but actual growth in
some cases (slight but still present). I wanted to do the dormant
spray thing, but now I'm worried that I might be too late. Heck, it's
only a week after the nighttime temps hit 0 degrees F. It's been in
the 50s the last few days. I'm sure that we're in for some more
sub-freezing daytime temps and will almost certainly get a couple of
nighttime freezes as late as the first week of April.

So, it's a quandry. Any advice from you (or others) would be well
received. Maybe if it's too late for the canes, I should at least
spray the ground?