"Cass" wrote:

Great idea. It's filed for future reference. For now, I've done three
things. I've used stranded wire for the ones that saw through
everything else but already have support. Wonderful idea and thank you.
I've pounded rebar right through the middle of big shrubs and tied a
few canes to it. And I set a tee pee pole set in a 5 gallon paint can
in Quicrete, painted the pole dark green, and then buried it below the
rose hole for a new climber I just interred. I'm still looking for a
retired, leaky, dark green hose to use secure the various roses to
these uprights. The rebar rusts right away and disappears into the
landscape. Crass but effective.

Well love, I believe in rebar with all of my heart. I just yesterday discussed
with BH an idea I got to secure a couple of climbers to the back fence.
Said fence is a pain in the butt and it abuts to the state park, so there is
little you can do without having to get involved into the never ending
bureaucracy that that would entail. So, I suggested that we place 2x4s
about 6 feet apart in front of the fence, buried in quickcrete. Then
run lengths of rebar arched atop the posts burying them about 6-inch
into the posts. Once that is done, go behind the fence and secure it
to the posts with big, and I do mean big lug bolts. I plan on painting
the whole thing flat black and leave the rebar alone. Once it oxidizes it
looks just like another cane. Been there, done that. And let me tell you
that any soft pink rose as New Dawn or Celestial, even St. Swithun
can look out of this world against a black background. How do I know?
The new part of the fence towards the front is now black and the color
of the greenery around it is nothing short of breathtaking. veddy British
although the British are into a vibrant blue these days, enough of it around
for me not to use it.

I wish I were as smart. There was a huge pallet of Weeks 2 gallon roses
at the local Despot, and I bought two: Iceberg and Granada, if you can
believe it. It has already flowered and demonstrated that the blooms
can both take the wind and last in the vase for 4 or 5 days.

I'll stay out of this. Discretion being the better part of valor ;)

Didn't I hear that it is almost impossible to grow? Puh (French, doncha
know), I should talk, with Mme. Driout. Who, for the second, looks
pretty good, probably because she hasn't bloomed yet. She can surprise
me, for all I will see of her. She is so sheltered that she's almost in
the neighbors' back yard.

Nigress is a pain unless you keep her in a pot. Little sister to the other one
that doesn't know how to behave outside the pot, EdeB. I shouldn't complain
since the bad boy is budding again. But with the colder weather we are
having I sincerely doubt I will see any of the gorgeous blooms again this
year. Nigress hated the ground. She was a pampered diva from moment
go. In the days when bringing roses from Europe wasn't a problem a fly
attendant (we used to call them stewardess in those days) friend of mine
brought a couple from Germany, one for her mother and one for me.
Her mother's died almost instantly, and mine linger in the ground, sulking
all the time.

Rose real estate being what it is even then, I decided I love the two or three
blooms she maliciously put out for me to forget all about SP her, and got a
big pot and just planted there. Like your Mme. Driout she could have been
a block away from my garden and an eerie repetition of what EdeB did in
that same garden, she bloomed her little - I do mean little - head off that
summer. So I become a nurse maid for the next 10 years. Finally we had
a serious problem in the county with wilting, everything was falling like leaves
in Autumn and one by one some of the most delicate roses disappeared.
I don't know if you remember the problem with Oleanders they had in
Florida. Well it was sort of like that. Nothing and no one was able to
stop it, and from voodoo dolls to Clorox I think we tried it all without
any success. As mysteriously as it appeared, it disappeared. But the scar
was deep. I was lucky, I only lost about 40 roses. Some friends were left
with nothing but a scarred soil. In those days there was nothing to help
fight, and of course it was devastating.

Word of caution: she also may be related to Mme. Driout. If you take a
look at her in bloom, you are history, toast, finita, kaput. So if you want
to keep your sanity walk around her and pretend to be looking somewhere
else. That rose is perverse. Some times I think they all are.... I will root you
a couple of cuttings. Why should I suffer alone?

Allegra