Emil wrote:

Out of curiosity...How did everybody start with their hobby, more like a
passion :-) of roses? Did you learn by watching parents plant roses? Is
growing roses your occupation, any of you own a nursery? Etc. Etc.

My family have been gardeners for many generations, with stories going
back to my grandmother gardening with *her* grandfather. I had my own
garden from the time I was 5 YO.

We bought this home 9 years ago on a sunny, windy knoll, completely
unlandscaped. That's when the rose thing struck, around the same time I
retired. My landscaper suggested there was a good location for a rose
garden, and I started buying books and asking questions here. Heh heh.
That was 214 roses ago.

Because of the rigors of my site, I started out looking for bomb proof,
wind proof roses, and I've never changed that objective. I was
irretrievably hooked when the first roses I planted, a hybrid musk,
Iceberg, an Austin and a rugosa, took off and grew like weeds.

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