Today all I did was spray the new chemicals from Primary Products to combat the spider mites. They are a spider mite specific insecticide Kelthane and a pheromone Stirrup M. If I can, I may try and run a few leaves out to Charlie Anctil for him to look at and try to diagnose this crud affecting my leaves and foliage. It may just be a chemical burn--I hope anyway.The weather has been thankfully cool so my late arriving bareroots stand a good chance of living. We continue to have a bit of rainy weather that let's me off the hook of having to water from the garden hose.

Wow, I didn't realize it had been this long since I logged in!!!
Just to catch up a bit.... I received from Park Seed and planted two new bareroot floribundas named Ebb Tide which are a dark purple. I transplanted the Pinnacle R/W flori and the ET's into a 3-bush planting in the front yard. The Pinnacle had really yellow sickly looking leaves in the pot but they really took off and greened up and the plant bloomed when I got it in the ground for a few days. One of the Ebb Tides took off breaking dormancy very quickly and looks really good, knock on wood. The other is still very green caned and I am sure it will break soon.
I also planted a Full Sail and The McCartney Rose from Park Seed in containers and a Zepherine Drouhin pink climber in front of the back shed so it will climb the wall. The Full Sail wasted no time in breaking dormancy but the other two are still coming to life slower.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed what I believe to be a sport on one of the new DayBreaker bushes in the front yard. It has same great foliage as DB but the bloom is bigger with more petals and a little different more rounded form. The color is sort of a creamy white. It's very pretty all in all and I hope it is stable enough to try and own root it and maybe have it budded to R.Multiflora by Steve Singer. That's very exciting.
Speaking of Steve, he has budded four plants from the budwood of the 35-40 year old Peace I got from Bob Teschner across the street. I will send more budwood later and hope he can get some more done for us.
I have been really fighting thrips and spider mites lately. I sprayed with a mix of malathion and another insecticide I can't think of the name of right at the moment. I misted the buds only and I think the thrips are conquered for a while now.
For the spider mites I have been spraying just plain old water up underneath the bushes to dislodge the little sucker from the underside of the leaves and make them starve to death when they can't climb back up the bush.
I still have some sorry lookin foliage on some and I am not sure what it is other than it could be sunburn or chemical burn from all the spraying being done. I really think it is the chemical burn. I really don't water the leaves during the heat of the day which is how they would get sunburned. I may ask Charlie Anctil to come over and tell me what the problem is and how I can remedy it.
I sprayed Messenger 6/9 and I sprayed funginex/mancozeb/malathion combo this morning, 6/21.
I noted that many of the bushes are gearing up for their second flush. Our Lady of Guadalupe is already finishing her second flush of very pretty pink flori blooms. She just recycles so quickly.
I did some cross pollinating a few weeks ago. I think the Crystalline X Liz Taylor, Gemini X Moonstone, and Gold Medal X DayBreaker took okay but the other ones I don't think took. Maybe the Chihuly X DayBreaker might have taken but it is a bit too early to tell. With this next flush I will probably try some more.
I need to start working on sticking some cuttings. I have been a bit slow getting that program started.
We have finally got all the new 16' X 16' backyard deck done except for the rails on top. I need to figure out how I am going to plant the miniature roses around the deck. I won't just make it straight lines as that would be too boring. I will try and curve it and give it a distinctive shape. I probably should rent the sod cutter to make the job easier to do. I don't think I have the muscle to dig it all up by hand!!
I am sorry to report that Jackson & Perkins goofed on my Hybrid Tea Test Panel. They sent me a Julia Child yellow floribunda by mistake in place of the ligh pink that was supposed to be in the grouping. I notified them and got the replacement yesterday along with a new Heirloom, Rio Samba, and Wildfire bareroots. I put them to soak. I hope it isn't too hot for them to survive long enough to break dormancy for me. I will transplant the Julia Child to somewhere else and put the pink in it's place with the rest of the test roses.
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I couldn't do much as it rained really nicely for most of the daytime hours. The garden really needed the moisture from Heaven. Abby came over and looked around at the roses. She wants me to supply most of her flowers for her June wedding next year. I should be getting my roses from Almost Heaven and Pickering this week. I ordered mini's from Nor'east last week for delivery asap so I think I'll get them next week.

I finally had to spray for those darn thrips as they were just devastating my lighter colored roses blooms. I used Bayer's Rose Defense that I also have used for cucumber beetles with good success. I hope this works.
I also started collecting pollen from some of the roses for cross pollinating later in the week. I collected from Moonstone, Liz Taylor, and of course DayBreaker, my favorite. I am going to use the DB pollen on Marmalade Skies and Chihuly to start with. I will use the Liz Taylor on Crystalline. I will use the Moonstone on Veterans' Honor. I would like to get some Hot Princess pollen and use it on Gemini if I can.