Fall Gold is not a very productive raspberry and no one I know has kept it after trying it except a client that planted them in the relative shade. For some reason they are better producers here with less sun- at least in this one case. I have found, by the way, that mowing canes for a larger fall crop is a mistake, at least if you are not pampering your berries. The canes are stronger, more drought resistant, and better able to out-compete weeds if you allow them to grow naturally. This is as grown in the northeast. I am one of the few remaining fans of Heritage. No other raspberry has proven to function longer and better under adverse conditions although I haven't given Caroline a fair shot. I have to admit to being only a moderate fan of raspberries, however. They are way too much work here for too little fruit. Blueberries and to a lesser degree, black currants, are the only small fruit I consider really worth growing because you can easily exclude weeds. I spend too much time in other peoples orchards to grow anything I consider inefficient on my own property. Small fruit takes so much time to harvest it better not take much time to care for. Now if I lived in coastal CA I'd grow lots of brambles. They are much more productive under a cooler sun.

No, it's not normal. As Rodney explained, raspberries don't need to come inside in the winter. That's why you have that pale straggly growth. They were too warm so they tried to grow. But they didn't have enough light ergo pale thin stems. Take them outside for an hour or so then increase the time outdoors each day until they are out there all day and all night. The leaves will green up and the stems will become more robust. Don't cut anything off. They can't afford to lose any food making machines ie leaves.

Hi vesfl, reports of La France's parentage remain speculation, from "seedling found in seed bed", to "suspected seedling of Mme Falcot" and "possible seedling of Mme. Victor Verdier X Mme Bravy". This opens that old Pandora's Box of how a rose should be classified. Should it be by breeding or how it appears or performs, what someone should realistically expect from it? Where do those lines begin? Using Weigand's Symphony as an example, from breeding (HP X HT), it should be a Hybrid Tea as they were generally accepted as Hybrid Perpetual X Tea or HT, but if you bought it, expecting a Hybrid Tea, you would be disappointed as it doesn't LOOK like nor perform/grow like one. How about Lady Hillingdon? It's generally accepted to be more cold hardy than the average "Tea" and it strongly resembles the "Tea look". 1910 is quite late for a Tea to be bred and released, but if you bought it expecting a Hybrid Tea, you would probably be disappointed because it LOOKS more Tea-like. Charlotte Armstrong and many of her descendants looked more Tea-like. Compare how Lemon Spice and Lady Hillingdon look and grow and you see strong similarities between them, as well as strong differences. Had Lemon Spice appeared half a century earlier, it may have been introduced as a Tea because it doesn't "look" like the post Peace HTs. Peace, for that matter, reintroduced more of the Hybrid Perpetual look into Hybrid Teas. I propose had it been introduced forty years earlier, it could well have been marketed as the long sought after yellow HP. How about Sally Holmes? It is a floribunda crossed with what we call a Hybrid Musk, but the Hybrid Musk (Ballerina) in question is by all appearances a Hybrid Multiflora, as the vast majority of them have been and are. We call Sally a shrub or climber, depending upon how she responds to where and how she is grown, but in strictly breeding lines, she should be a Hybrid Musk or Hybrid Multiflora. The same is true of Iceberg. Robin Hood (hybrid musk/shrub, but also from performance in many places, simply a polyantha) X Virgo (Hybrid Tea). Breeding should have it called a Hybrid Musk, but if you bought one expecting that type of rose, would you be satisfied? La France looked and performed differently from what came before it, therefore it was something "new". Many other HP X Tea or HT crosses had been raised and a number released before it, but nothing else LOOKED differently, looked like La France, therefore La France was the "first". Guillot reportedly considered it a "Hybrid Bourbon". There is always that bleed over when different lines of anything, from plants, through animals (including Humans) are inter bred. The accepted "breeding" traits of an organism may or may not express themselves in a generation under scrutiny and may not for a number of generations. That fouls up our practice of classifying or pigeon-holing what ever it is into groups so we can figure out what to expect from them. Pragmatically, La France "quacks like a duck"... so if you want a Hybrid Tea appearance and performance, you buy it as a Hybrid Tea. If you want something that looks and performs like a Hybrid Perpetual, you buy Symphony.

I don't have current pictures of Rockwall yet - I still have two or three years of photos to sort and catch up in my system, but here's a picture of her in her first year already being pretty enthusiastic to bloom. This is September and she's still fully foliaged, with no BS that I can see. I really like the form of her blooms too, though they're relatively small and no more than blush pink in hot weather. We still get plenty of BS enough that most HTs defoliate, so this is definitely in the top 10% of disease resistance for me. It has stayed a small compact rounded bush, no more than 2.5' high and wide. You can see the 2' green fence in front of her and she's just peeking over it. As for other Pioneers I grow, I've started to collect them as I discover how well they do in my zone. Here is a list of the ones I have so far with reactions, in addition to Cole's Settlement, and I've got another 5 or so coming for this spring: Doreen's Centennial - planted near Rockwall and initially as floriforous but last year she just barrrrely survived the winter and she's trying to regrow beyond 6" still. Sweet Frances - another nice light pink rose that's pretty trouble free near Rockwall, hardy enough in zone 5, not as frequent a bloom but larger flowers Thomas Affleck - one of the best known Pioneers, hot pink, has survived winters OK and blooms occasionally. He's in part shade and not best conditions, so he's a survivor Star of the Republic is in pretty harsh conditions and even more shade than Thomas. It's not big and sort of a pale blush buff at best, but I respect a survivor and like Thomas I'm sure it would do better elsewhere Gypsy Sue trundles along in an average zone 5 spot for me. Mostly cream rather than apricot blooms but survived one winter and looks to be settling in Ones that didn't survive well in tough part shade dry conditions that I'll try elsewhere: FJ Lindheimer, Nancy Gay. Houzz is being stubborn about posting pictures so I'll try this one before I continue with my original message Cynthia