Nothing wrong with liking him, he's just one of those that people either love or hate, not much middle ground. Barry used to be like Dick Clark, never seemed to age. Now both of them seem to have aged 40 years in about two weeks. All those ageless years caught up all at once. Missed him on AI.

Thanks Luis, these both seem like good & plausible reasons. But, I think we can rule out pruning after bud set; the only pruining I did was very early, as soon as I could tell which was dead wood from last year & which was viable. (One set was brown and sticklike and dead-looking, and one was green and pliable and young and growing...then again, maybe the brown sticks had potential. But I pruned the brown sticks off the blomming one, sigh.) In terms of winter protection, if anything, the little bloomin' guy hard a slightly harder time, as he is by the corner of a fenceline & has to deal w/any west wind that may wrap around (tho it is just a 4' picket,) and the big ol'foliage guy is a teeny bit more protected, being about 8' further in. Other than their relative location in front of the fence, both have gotten the same treatment. Could I have pruned out all of the bearing stems (when they were still 2" tall) on 1 plant and none on the other? Thank you for the references on winter protection. Just when I thot I knew something about gardening, I plant something new and start at the beginning! Donna in stormy NY

Except for the 3rd one down, that's definately a caerulea. The third pic tho looks like a caerulea held up in front of a quadrangularis or 'ruby glow'... In fact, given about 10 minutes to move my ruby glow over by my caerulea (and granted a blooming caerulea, mine isn't at the moment) I betcha I could recreate that pic. Are those really it's leaves? If they are, I'd be suspect of that one... But all the others, yeah, that's caerulea. ("blue-crown" to it's friends) The leaves vary with the age of the plant & where they are- I've noticed the 'fingers' tend to get thinner out toward the end of the vine. There's also some variance between the flowers, often hard to see unless one from each plant is held next to the other. I have one from southern california who has 3" flowers, and one I bought here locally with 2" flowers. They look almost exactly the same, with the smaller one's corona being a bit lighter.. Just looking at the leaves tho I can tell no difference between the plants. Lots of variance in this particular plant.

Hello there :o) Sorry it took me so long to get back. You are correct, YOUR new rose will be a different rose. For me, that is the fun part, not knowing what you will be getting... climber, single bloom, color... plus you can name your rose. I have had a blast giving my little ones a name of their very own :o) Okay, as for the hips:"they" say you should gather them when they have turned an orange or red in color. Some take them if they are still green and have had germination(s) from green hips. The same day I gathered the hips ( red, orange and even some green: I believe you can gather the hips until the 1st freeze, as late as the end of October, for my zone that is), I removed the seeds. I made a batch of peroxide and water in a large measuring cup: 9 parts water/one part peroxide. I then cut the hip open with a sharp knife, removed the seeds and placed them in the water/peroxide solution. This process took me a little over 2 hours, thus the first seeds were in the water/peroxide for approx. 2+ hours and the last seeds only soaked for about 15 minutes or so,(it is said you should soak them for 12-24 hours, I didn't know this until after the fact.) Next I got out plain white paper towels. I used 3 of them layering one on top of the other. I then used them as a strainer, pouring the water/peroxide and seeds onto the towels. I then folded the towels over the seeds and gave it a good squeeze to remove the excess water/peroxide. You want the towels/seeds to be damp but not soaking wet. You don't want to let the seeds dry out. I then placed the seeds in the towels in a plastic container with a air tight lid. From there I placed the container in the bottom drawer of the fridge. I made up a spray bottle of the water/peroxide solution to use when the towels got a little dry, do not allow the seeds to dry out. Check on them from time to time. In about 3 months you should start to see germination. Not all seeds will germinate. I still have seeds that have not germinated but I have kept them. A germinated seed will get a little white tail. Once you have a tail place him/her in a seedling potting soil with the little white tail pointing down... it is the root not the top of the plant. I found this out the hard way :o) Regular potting soil killed a bunch of my babies, I think it is too heavy for them. You don't want to place too much soil over the top of the seed. I used a pencil to make the hole for the seed, not making the hole too deep. I set my heating pads on med. at night and low in the day, if the day temps got down too cold I left the pads on med. I purchased large plastic planting flats (kinda looked like a plastic cake pan) to set the pots on and then sat the flat on the heating pad. Light: They had approx. 16 hrs of light. I would turn the lights off at night before going to bed and back on in the morning. I purchased all of my lighting from Walmart. I couldn't find bulbs for plants but did find aquatic bulbs. They are pretty much the same thing and worked just fine. Watering: After trial and error, I found misting them with the water/peroxide solution 1-2 times a day worked the best. You want the soil moist but not too wet, the peroxide helps prevent the seedling from dampening off. After they got a little bigger I use a tab. spoon full of water/peroxide 1-2 times a day. Transplanting: After they got around 3-4 inches tall I transplanted them into a bigger pot. With pots hard to find, I found the large plastic pic-nic like cups worked well too: The blue cup in the back: Also cottage cheese/sour cream, containers work well too. I used a cork screw to make drainage holes in the bottom of the cups/containers. They then went back to their spot on the heating pads and under the lights. From there May finally came and out to the garden they went. For your rooted cuttings you might want to post your question if you have not done so already. Let me know if you have any questions. I will try to find an answer :o) Good luck, The Lioness, Cheri