Lynn....... I think you are making the overwintering of these roses too hard. I know you are a planner, but sometimes you just have to wing it. I started my rose life in San Diego and was given the same advice as above. San Diego is also considered to be Rose Heaven. Note the ARS giving that advice in San Diego gave that timing so that the first flush of perfect roses would be ready for the rose shows in early April. It takes about six to seven weeks for a rose once it has set bud to bloom, so if your timing is early April you work back from there. You do not have to follow that timing if you are not worried about having roses ready for a show, but are just growing roses for your garden and don't need perfect roses, but need healthy roses. Cooperative Extensions and Master Gardeners have been parroting the advice given by the local rose societies for more than 60 years. That's because they do not specialize in roses and figure the ARS must know what should be done for their care. In San Diego, we stopped dead heading our roses in October and then began our pruning in December to be completed by Valentine's Day, so that they would be ready to show. My experience and personal opinion is that you stop deadheading in October, allow the rose to set seed and then the rose will go as dormant as nature will allow that rose to go dormant. When we dead head, we are interrupting the plant's natural cycle of getting pollenated and then setting seed, which stimulates the rose to re-bloom. If you don't dead head, the plant will complete it's natural cycle and rest. There is no need for dormant sprays unless you have a serious disease problem or unless you want perfect foliage for a rose show. I believe in leaving the leaves because the rose will abandon them when they no longer perform the function needed for the rose. Studies show that the photosynthesis process stops when temps reach around the 70 degree level. So you can take them off or not. I think they provide a larger mass for the top growth and leaving them on helps protect the canes from the colder temps. Cluster your pots on your patio and surround them with bags of leaves or mulch and stuff the same material in the gaps between the pots to make a bigger mass and to protect the outside pots from the colder temps and to keep the temps within the mass as constant as possible. If you feel you need to protect the top growth from freezing temps, you can cover them just as farmers do with their crops. These are small roses, they don't need to be pruned for the first year except to clean out the rose and shape it. (Note: I don't even shape the rose until it's been in the ground for at least two seasons, but I live where temps get colder.) You want it to grow out of those gallon cans, so you might as well just let it grow. Cutting them back/pruning them when they are small just slows down that process because the roses are storing nutrients in their canes. I now live in a climate with temps lower than you have reported. I over-wintered roses outside for six years in containers before I got them all planted. None of them died. I should have replaced the soil in those pots, but I was too busy digging rose holes in rock. I had to over winter the pots in a totally unprotected yard and I did not go out in the rain or snow to cover them. I also had to maintain those roses in direct sunlight in high temps that lasted for months. The key to my success was the larger mass. Not taking off leaves, spraying or taking off leaves. It kept the temperatures and moisture more consistent. In my best year, I could only get about twenty out of over one hundred roses planted. The only thing you need to do differently than I have done, is to make sure the pots don't dry out while they are resting on the patio. I've been told watering once a month is sufficient, but it doesn't hurt to check and see if you need to do it more often in your climate. Once I got them in the ground, they my roses took off even better than I expected because they finally had a chance to spread their roots. So your choice is to go by the book or wing it. Smiles, Lyn PS ... this rose, 'Kim Rupert', looked horrid in the pot, this is how it looked the first year I got it in the ground.

LOVE that chorus- "Before the breathin' air is gone....before the sun is just a bright spot in the nightime..." I can't believe the posters' note about this peaking....in 1970?!!?!?!? Yikes! Faron (jeeeezzz....was I even alive in 1970...;-) )?????

Thanks Teresa. I've doing Sail Away, and I added the island, boat, and sun last night. I ended up hand embroidering the rays, since I didn't like the way it came out by machine. I removed the tear away stabilizer, but ripped out a few of the wave stitches while doing it! I found a border fabric and possibly binding (or will do pillow case method). It's looking good. Thanks for teaching! --Amy

Oh, all of your stories brought tears to my eyes and I decided to share mine. We lost our black lab about 5 years ago and decided we weren't going to have anymore pets. Well, as time went on (1 year at the most) I was looking for a white lab mix when I came upon this picture (with the chain link fence) He was so adorable I had to have him, so off we went for our 70 mile ride in a downpour of a rainstorm. Once home the potty training began, this little one had more accidents than I had when I was young. We were buying puppy treats every other day, finally decided on a box of cheerios's which were alot cheaper, after a few weeks the accidents were minimal. I called home from work daily checking on our little "Nuckles". Someone gave me a used secional couch and I went out and bought a rug to go in front of it thinking no more accidents we're good to go! I received a call from DH and he tells me "Wait until you see what your baby did" and laughed-he wouldn't tell me. When I got home Nuckles had chewed off the whole corner of the rug and don't ask me how- chewed a hole the size of a dinner plate right in the center..... Oh, it gets better........a couple days later we decided to leave him at home with the run of the house, which he did love to run, he would come around the corner from the kitchen, through the dining room, leap onto the end of the sectional and run across it like he was running a marathon! So off we went only to come home to a puppy at the door so happy to see us (and probably proud of what he'd just accomplished) EVERY cushion on the couch was destroyed! It looked like someone was digging for gold, the foam stuffing looked like popcorn - it was everywhere, from one end of the room to the other. I laughed so hard, turned around and got back into the car drove to the pet store and brought home a kennel! Now 3 years later he still loves to run but does so outside, he is one of the greatest dogs I've ever had, I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world! I don't have any pics handy of the "mess" he made but will post them when I do find them.