saki wrote:

Speaking of roses, I just picked up my Ashdown order yesterday: Secret
Garden Musk Climber, Mary Washington, Lady Ann Kidwell and Niles Cochet.
All lovely large plants...bareroot!

OOOh, I don't know Mary Washington (a beautiful, fragrant white
noisette, I see), but the other 3 are darned nice roses. Niles Cochet
is the single cleanest rose in my garden, or maybe ties with Sophie's
Perpetual. Slooooooow to build, at least my budded plant is. I've heard
of vigorous OR Niles Cochets, but I don't have any. The NC hardwood
cuttings I stuck haven't done much. Lady Ann is so very cool,
especially once you've seen it budded at 4 feet so that it is 12 feet
tall at Ralph Moore's nursery.

I'm not used to dealing with bareroot this late in the year (for So Cal)
but they're well potted up now and I'm misting them twice a day. They're in
a cool part of the garden where the sun won't hit for another couple weeks,
so I'm hoping they'll break dormancy soon.

I made cardboard collars for my BRs so that I could stack up the
compost to almost the tops of the canes in 5 gallon pots. I lost a
bunch of BR's one March, so now I'm really systematic about mulching
them. I recommend it. That way you can put the pots where they get some
sun to heat the soil.

--
-=-
Cass
Zone 9 San Francisco Bay Area
http://home.attbi.com/~cassbernstein/index.html