Hi rosefolly, Calfornia 'Lamarque' is one of my cleanest roses, even now in Febraury with last years foliage on it it shows no sign of any disease. Because it is a large climber, I would suggest giving it more space to climb, by putting an arbor over the pathway to allow more vertical height. These two roses failed in my garden and at Morcom park. 'Clothilde Soupert' gets moderate p.m. here, and balls badly in spring and autumn, during rainy weeks. my 'Ducher; defoliated entirely from powdery mildew and hardly ever produced a bloom, not a rose for a cool coastal area. Roses that I recommend for your plot; I've grown the bush form of white 'Maman Cochet; as a self supporting bush kept to c. 5 feet tall or under for the last 7 years. It is a very beautiful Old Garden Tea. 'Westside Road Cream Tea' is one of the smaller sized Old Garden Tea rosebushes, that matures here, at a size of c. 4 and 1/2 feet tall by just as wide. However, I'd want, if it were my place, a larger plant as it's such a great focal point. To fill a space such as yours, as fully as possible with fragrant pink roses, I would peg a Hybrid Perpetual. These are the most disease resistant H.P.s grown at Morcom park and in my own no spray garden: ;'Souvenir du Dr. Jamain' disease resistant, fragrant, easy to peg, which increased bloom production per bloom cycle, wonderful crimson-purple plum hue showing some stamens. a heartbreaker of a rose. Needs a little shade to keep from burning where I live. the rest of these H.P.s are pink and disease resistant in our no spray gardens: Plus all reliably bloom in spring, summer and autumn in the east bay area of San francisco Bay 'Ullrich Brunner fils' I'd rate this as ff. out of 5. 'Glendora' syn 'Portland from Glendora' the most disease resistant H.P. I've ever grown, and it is very very fragrant and a pleasant hue of pink. It is valentines day and my Glendora already has rosebuds upon it. FFF of damask rose. 'Grandmothers Hat' early bloom in spring, one of the first two of our H.P.s to bloom in spring with the Tea class roses, today it already is setting rosebuds with Glendora' on valentines day, I like Grandmothers Hat' grown as a 5 and 1/2 foot rosebush because it re-blooms more rapidly. I plan to grow a row of them bordering my fragrance garden, where jasmine and honeysuckle bloom in summer with the pink roses, and daphne odorata and narcissus bloom in winter. If you must have a fragrant white rose 'Prosperity' is very fragrant but it was borderline for health in my no-spray garden , showing more blackspot than I am comfortable with though it never defoliated from that disease. Let us know what rose you choose, please Luxrosa

My house faces roughly N/W, in the morning, as the sun comes up over the back of the house, the house itself, and the porch, shades part of the front yard. If you look at my graphed drawing, the area that has Kramer's Supreme camellia, ie about 5-6 feet out from the porch, is shaded until noon, during the summer. At around noon or 1 pm, the sun comes up over the house and the shadow moves back. So roughly, from about 1pm to 6 pm, there is no shade in the front yard. The exception being the area right next to the garage that has Marie Bracey Camellia. Rita Sammons gets sun, but Marie Bracey gets very little due the the garage shade. >> early HTs for your front yard, preferably Vintage Type 1, 2 or 3. Sherry. I have no idea what a Vintage Type 1, 2 or 3 is. :) :) Do you mean the growth habit types Vintage Gardens list ( http://www.vintagegardens.com/classhabits/HT.gif ) ? I'm not sure where to find more information on early HT to see what I like. I have La France cl., that's about all I know. :) If that's true,... then I really like stuff like Mrs. E. G. Hill, Hermann Lindecke, Jean Cote, Reichsprasident von Hindenberg, Reynolds Hole, Surville :) Sherry, do you have any photos of your trained E Veyrat? :) Ingrid : I like Rosette Delizy... but the coloring is a little too red-yellow for me. I'd prefer red-cream or pink-yellow, etc.. if that makes sense. Berndoodle - I'm so new, I don't know how nepeta looks later in the season, so I guess I'll find out! Right now I'm trying one or two each of a few different perennial ground cover plants to see which can tolerate the situation best. and then I'll try repeating them all along the sides of the beds and sidewalks interspersed with other companion plants and short groundcover-like roses. Or at least that's the plan. I'm starting to get the hang of watering the lavender properly and which varieties I like better, but I'll probably wait until next year to get more of any sort of repeating ground cover like this. I want to make sure it does well all year, like you said, and that I like it all year. re: Rita Sammons, that's great! That basically was what my plan was, to keep Rita at about 4-5 feet wide. So that the camellia behind it is taller, and then something short and soft at Rita's feet. I thought it would be cute in the front on the walkway, too. I've always thought of Cecile Brunner and it's babies as something you pop the flowers off and put in your hair for fun. elemire - It's probably a smaller arbor, I haven't bought one yet, but around 4-5 feet wide, I'm guessing. So... are you saying I should remove/move Gloire de Dijon and just have one rose (sombrieul) climb up over the arbor. Will it cover both sides...? (assuming I have something smaller at the feet anyway...) ----------- UPDATED DEEP AND MEANINGFUL THOUGHTS: :) :) I'm inclined not to get a large tea at all. Instead... I'm thinking about doing: ---- Putting Grandmother's hat in the 7-9 foot corner in the backyard with the arbor in front of it. It could get as tall as it liked here and that would be just charming. The arbor has Sombrieul and Gloire de Dijon on it. I may have to move those two back just a tiny bit to give Grandmother's Hat some more space. But if Grandmother's Hat is beautiful most of the year and has a lovely bush shape,... then it seems pretty perfect for me. I already own it and I know I love the smell and bloom look. Not sure whether I should remove the tiny Gloire de Dijon band... it might be too hard to train with Sombrieul on a small/medium-ish arbor. ---- inclined to see if the HOA will let me remove one of the western redbud trees so that I can have less eventual shade in the front. I'm wondering whether I could put it on that strip of land on the other side of the garage (which currently has nothing). But I'd have to add some irrigation there...? ---- finding out what camellias are low and tolerate both sun and shade and considering planting a couple pink ones as the lining of the porch (inbetween the two Madame Alfred Carriere). That would give me a different shape than all the roses and would give me blooming in winter. ---- for along the border of the two properties, considering adding some more agapanthus, or just researching more evergreen low-ish shrubs and see what I like there. Not a hard line, but some soft groups of them along the property line. Not truly evergreen, but I suppose I could try a daylily, too? ------------ for the "A" spot, I'm considering: Curious about what a mature bush looks like, whether it tolerates pruning and whether it holds onto spent blooms poorly. I'm asking AntiqueRoseEmporium about what they think the size would be on the mature bush. I like that it blooms in winter sometimes, too. color change. (YAY!) ~~~~~ Archduke Charles. again, I'm asking AntiqueRoseEmporium about what they think the size would be on the mature bush. I'd love to see more photos of the mature bush and what it looks like post\-flush, etc. I've heard several accounts of it doing well in heat and drought. color change. (YAY!) ~~~~~ Bermuda's Kathleen Really not sure on the size of this one. I'm guessing about the same as Archduke and General. Perpetual blooming, probably. color change. (YAY!) ~~~~~ Ghislaine de Féligonde (or a Noisette or Cornelia or Felicia) If I need to be concerned about shade tolerance, then I was thinking about going with one of these. I liked that Ghislaine de Féligonde has the color changing aspect. It's fragrant and isn't covered in thorns. It can apparently take hard pruning, too, in case it gets out of control. I already have a Felicia that I was trying out. I'm also partial to older\-style Noisettes (like Champney's Pink Cluster and Narrow Water) in pale pink since I'm from Charleston and I like the style anyway. Or I could go with the Lavender Pink Noisette that I already have. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-OTHERS\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- ~~~~~ Tipsy Imperial Concubine plan to shove her in a very pretty pot. ;) ~~~~~ molieux maybe get a couple so that there can be some balance of yellow. ... I'm hoping if I can work some yellow and white companion plants in, then the yellow won't be too much. Or I could put it in the backyard somewhere where I already have a couple Jude the Obscures and some yellow daisies. ~~~~~ SdlM somewhere in the back. I have a couple spots for a medium rose. :) ~~~~~ Yves Piaget smaller footprint, I have a couple spots I could fit her. ~~~~~ Mme. Berard The idea with this would be to basically let Mme Berard trail over a short decorative fence. Would Mme. Berard work for this? I already have Mme Berard, but I could just leave it in the back climbing the house as it is. ~~~~~ if I get any climbing tea, I'll have it climb up the back of my house where I can appreciate it, but won't have to deal with cleanup. ~~~~~ I still have for placing (already own, but are in the pot ghetto): Lavender Lassie Lavender Pink Noisette Maman Cochet cl Alchemist Eden cl Madame Joseph Bonnaire Eventually I wanted to get a pergola, so some of the climbers, whatever I don't find other places for, could go there. Mme Joseph Bonnaire is probably a normal HT size, so that won't be too hard to find a spot for. I have a couple more small climber positions, too. ~~~~~ and then for mini and front\-of\-bed roses, I was considering: Kosters, Pink Rosette, Sweet Chariot, The Faun, Pomponella, Gruss an Aachen (I already have Compassionate Friend and Duftendes Weisskirchen)

The best part of lavender to use for a sachet or potpourri is the flowers, although every part of a lavender plant has scent and I suppose could be used if you want. A lavender flower has two parts. There is the calyx, which is the part attached to the stem, that people may call a "bud," and that later holds the seed. This colors up first and stays on the plant longest. Then there is the corolla, which opens up and attracts bees. I'm giving you a link to a site that has a good picture of this. Click on the "Advice" link and you'll find pages about lavender and also some information on other dried flowers. For the best fragrance, you want to harvest a stem of lavender when corollas have appeared on just one or two flowers, but it's ok if a few have bloomed and even fallen off -- just don't wait until all the corollas have bloomed and the stem has gone on to making seeds. My guess is that in a garage in Visalia a bunch should dry in 3-5 days, certainly no more than a week. You shouldn't have to add oil to your lavender if you're making a sachet, and I don't think time of day makes a big difference as far as harvest goes -- the bulk of the fragrance is in essential oil that's inside glands in the plant. For a sachet, strip the dried flowers from the stems. If the stems are long enough to be worthwhile, you can gather them into a bundle and tie with a nice broad ribbon -- we sell these as "lavender logs." They can be used as fragrant kindling, but I think they're much nicer just kept in a living area and occasionally rolled between your palms -- they'll release fragrance. I just looked at what comes up on Amazon.com when I search for "dried flowers," and I don't recognize anything -- books on the subject come and go. Maybe someone else can recommend a good book that's easily available these days. Here is a link that might be useful: Goodwin Creek Gardens

Thanks for all your hard work Karen! Can't wait to read it in its entirety. Jodi-