Have your soil tested for pH and amend as necessary to bring pH to between 6.7 and 6.9.

There are so many variables that can impact the color of the bloom of a rose in your garden vs another rose garden. Things like temperature, how many hours of sunlight the plant receives, reflected heat and so on. An excellent example is 'Brown Velvet'. In some gardens, this rose truly has the brown tones, while in others it can appear very orange.

Here is a link to Paul Barden's site to an excellent article written by Kim Rupert on "coffee colored roses"

http://www.rdrop.com/~paul/main11.10.00.html

Smiles,

Lyn

I too am curious about pruning roses at this time of year. I am particularly interested in how to prepare
rose standards (trees) for the winter in NOrth Caroline.

Roses have always been grown for their medicinal properties, in a herb garden. The greeks and Romasn were very fond of roses and used them extensively. By 1200AD there were 5 groups of roses cultivated. Napoleon's wife Josephine, made a large collection of old roses and help to encourage people to put them in their gardens as shrubs.