Sue,

Thanks for replying. I'm totally fascinated by the deep pink coloration on the roses in the close-up photograph. I would never have guessed that they were WOS. I see the fading but not the rosy color in the row of roses, but that could be my eyes (not the best) or my monitor (a very good one but there are lots better), which is why I wondered if another photo accidentally got uploaded in the batch. I've made that mistake more than once. ;)

I've seen weather related changes in the color of roses... usually fading when it's extremely hot and dry or the effects of mild infection with botrytis when it's wet and cold (spring here can be very wet and very chilly). But I've never seen this... it's quite lovely, actually. Our climate is quite different from yours - we currently live on the northeast coast of Massachusetts where summers generally are extremely hot and humid and winters are cold, windy, and very harsh. (We still have a foot of snow on the ground; spring is coming late this year. By now, the magnolias are usually budded and blooming and the snowdrops and crocus are usually in bloom.)

We have several of these roses -- 4 I think - in a couple of different rose beds and it's interesting to see how climate/temperature affects them. Here on the east coast, we see some fading in the hottest heat of summer (late July, August) but not the rest of the gardening season. In fact, I find that this is a rose that maintains it's vivid color better than a lot of other roses we grow. In May, June, and September, we see only minimal fading of the outer petals if we see it at all.

We are moving to Napa in 6 weeks. We love to tour botanical gardens, so I'm sure that we'll find our way to San Jose. We have an enormous garden (our entire yard is a garden) where we live now, with 280 roses at least count and nearly a thousand perennials. While we're sad to leave it, we will be building a new rose garden in Napa. My guess is that we are going to find many difference in how things grow here vs. what we are going to experience there.

Thanks again for replying!

Cathy Rose