Jim, Grandmother's Hat is a splendid rose here in Southern California. I grow three of them here in Encino; I had two in my Newhall garden and there are two GHats and one Larry Daniels (lighter sport) in clients' gardens in the Santa Clarita Valley. It's a very versatile rose! It performs wonderfully kept pruned as a taller shrub and can easily be trained up over an arch or pergola as a friend in Old Orchard, Valencia, grows it. It flowers nearly year round here and is wonderfully fragrant. The new growth has a sweet pepper-cedar scent and the flowers are intensely sweetly fragrant. Many shoots can be entirely prickle free while others have scattered prickles. For me, there has never been any mildew and I've only seen black spot on new, young, un established plants. I love pruning it at home and in my clients' gardens because it scents my hands with its wonderful plant fragrance, just as Mutabilis does when I trim it back. Another you may enjoy here is Gloire des Rosomanes, the old Ragged Robin as it is very much like Grandmother's Hat in many respects. The flower is less double, not quite as large and a deeper red, but it carries the same wonderful plant and flower scent, and it is as shade tolerant at Grandmother's Hat. Mutabilis, I guess, COULD be termed "messy", depending upon your definition of the word. If you're more in to tailored "rose gardens", you probably won't like it. But, if you like shrubs which flower incessantly, you'll love it. Nothing makes as beautiful a bank or shed cover as Mutabilis! It's a remarkable landscape shrub in these parts and it's (thankfully) becoming more well known and used. I found one gallon, own root plants of it for $10 at the Green Arrow in North Hills on Sepulveda last week while out searching for peat pellets to plant my rose seeds. The flower colors vary daily and also by temperature, light intensity and location, so in some places, they'll be more intense, while others will show them more pastel. It's a trait of the China rose color shift, just you see in roses like Double Delight, the variegated Teas and Joseph's Coat. Cooler temperatures and less intense light cause them to be paler. Increase the light and heat intensity and the colors saturate more completely. Mutabilis can be pruned with hedge clippers or simply trimmed to maintain it where you want it. The new foliage is a wonderful bronzy red with darker green mature foliage and it will literally flower twelve months of the year. I use it here between the house and the awful white vinyl fence the up hill neighbors installed when the huge pine fell and took out the old chain link. It's allowed to do its thing and fill the space, reducing the reflected light off that fence and it is gorgeous with Dalechampia tangled in it. Like Banksias, it is totally trouble free, here. I use both Mutabilis and Grandmother's Hat in my rose breeding efforts and love them both. Scents, total plant as well as flower, are important to me. I honestly don't care for plants which don't provide me some sensual pleasures when not in flower. There has to be either scent, or enjoyable texture or beautiful foliage or plant architecture to it when not blooming or I don't want to use my resources on it. I will tolerate light infections of fungus on plants which, otherwise, give me what I seek. When the infections seriously detract from the enjoyment or weaken the plant, the shovel comes out. In my seedlings, I am far more ruthless. You might also take a look at Comtesse du Cayla. She makes a large shrub, flowering all year and is one I'm using with Mutabilis for breeding. Polyanthas you and your daughter may enjoy are Pink Pet, White Pet, Lamarne, Verdun, Lauren, Sunshine, Werner von Blon, Lullaby and, particularly the bush form of Mlle Cecile Brunner and Perle d'Or. I honestly wouldn't grow Cl. Cecile Brunner unless you're trying to slip cover your garage. The bush or Spray Cecile are much more satisfying and will literally flower year round. J&P's Wild Dancer seems immune to any disease here (Santa Clarita Valley and Encino). Louis Lens roses do rather well here, too. Walferdange, Bouquet Parfait, Jet Flame (NOT a "mini", just smaller flowers), Jacqueline Humery are gorgeous as is his Plaisanterie. Sean McCann's Smiling Jean has been absolutely trouble free here in Encino. You honestly should also investigate Secret Garden Musk Climber for scent (plant and flowers), perpetual bloom and ease of growth. Sally Holmes is nearly as ubiquitous as Iceberg here for the same reasons...perpetual flowering, bullet proof plant, sensual appeal. Just like Camrys and Accords, they just WORK. I grew an own root plant of it in Newhall for 18 years, keeping it pruned as a free standing, six foot shrub. It was enormous and looked like a huge, white Hydrangea on steroids. Friends used to tease that it looked like it found the septic tank! Linda Campbell is the only hybrid Rugosa which performs with as few problems as possible in my experience. There can be a bit of blackspot on young, un established plants, but she quickly out grows it (unless you live in the fog belt) and flowers year round in large, brilliant clusters. She really IS Ralph Moore's masterpiece. Even he thought so. Lamarque is gorgeous here. I grow Mme Alfred Carriere at a client's home in Valencia and will replace it this year. There is just too much mildew and the prickles are too sharp and numerous for anything I have to be so up close and personal with. Unless the area is huge, so you can have the too large plant required to provide the flower quantity you desire, I would put her on the second or third choice list. Reve d'Or is gorgeous when established. Duchesse d'Auerstadt (again, once established) is gorgeous. Cl. Maman Cochet can't be beaten. Mons. Tillier, General Schablikine, Rosette Delizy are all beautiful flowers with decent plants under them. Unless budded, they will require a few seasons to strut their stuff, but patience will be rewarded. Souv. de Pierre Notting, William R. Smith and the bush of Maman Cochet are very nice. The first two were the most disease free Teas we ever grew at The Outdoor Room in Pacific Palisades, two blocks from the surf at Gladstone's. Social Climber has proven itself to be a tremendous, smaller climber in the SCV and here in my experience. It flowers all the time and is very disease resistant in no spray gardens. It remains inbounds and flowers repeatedly, particularly if dead headed. I have it in a large pot on a client's patio, growing up in to her patio cover in Old Newhall and on iron fencing in Stevenson Ranch. At the beach, it was flawless as canned, staked plants. Now for the "advertisement", if you want a climber which flowers all the time, is totally prickle free, highly scented and a true joy to work with, my Annie Laurie McDowell (available from Burlington Roses) is one I am very proud of. Like a number of roses, she will climb faster if started in a can of good potting soil and disbudded until she produces the root system and structure required to be the size of plant desired. Otherwise, she will spend a long time just blooming. Her foliage is the "peach tree type", resembling that of Kathleen and Grandmother's Hat. She flowers toward the cane ends, at many of the leaf axils like Hybrid Musks. The buds are plump and "fuzzy" and the flowers are very double, about the same color pink as Grandmother's Hat and very sweetly scented. This is a plant I gave a client in Old Orchard in Valencia. http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.148224 No, I receive nothing for sales of the plant other than the satisfaction and enjoyment of hearing others report of their pleasure growing it. Pruning her is a joy as she does NOT bite! I put her where she is deliberately as the homeowner likes to sit there, enjoying his evening cigar and tossing the ball for his enormous Golden Retriever. She is the garden lover; he loves her so the garden is tolerated. I explained to him what the rose was and why I placed it where it is...so he would be shaded from the hotter sun in the late afternoons, with fragrance and never any blood letting and now he loves the rose. Annie Laurie was a very dear friend, who, with her husband, introduced me to volunteering at The Huntington 25+ years ago. You should also take a look at Portland from Glendora. I grew it for 18 years in the SCV and friends there still have it. A very nice "Portland" type flower. Jacques Cartier is one I use all the time to fill space, provide continuous flowers and fragrance. Comte de Chambord is another good one where there is warmth without nightly drenching of fog/dew. If Mermaid is off your list, take a look at Golden Wings, and/or Little Mermaid. The former has large, Mermaid like flowers on a much smaller plant and flowers spring through fall. The other is the dwarf root sport of Mermaid, introduced by Sequoia. It's a MUCH better choice than Happenstance as it has none of the die back Happenstance is infamous for. It flowers all the time, also, and is diminutive in all respects, other than eventual plant size as it can make a large mass with time and little to no pruning. Two "ramblers" which have done quite well for me are Paul Barden's Mel's Heritage and Purple Skyliner. I also have Perennial Blue, but it just doesn't flower here. Purple Skyliner flowered all summer last year, it's first year here. I love violet roses, so Blue For You came home and has pleased in every respect. Rhapsody in Blue is pretty, but shuts down in the heat. Blue For You also remains shorter and bushier, flowering all the time for me. Because they were selected in a climate similar to what you're going to be growing roses in, I may also offer more of my own "offspring", Lynnie (named for my favorite Aunt); Too Cute and Little Butterfly. Not traditional HT types, for sure, but each has been reported very hardy, healthy and floriferous in a wide range of environments. I don't know if they're still there, but a few years ago, I sold plants of Mutabilis, various Salvias (including Madrensis) and three bushes of Little Butterfly to the garden designer who planted the area outside the Rose Window at St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica. She was to plant the Little Butterfly bushes under the Rose Window in the Church's new addition. One of these days, I have to get down there to take a look.

Heres my lineup: 7 pot Scotch Bonnet Yellow and Red Fatalli Bhut Jolika Austrian Lanterns Thai red and yellows Poblano I have grown 100s of varities over the last 15 years and these get me everything I need. I tried the scorpions last year, they look cool and are very hot but didn't make good sauce and the Bhut dry better and just as hot for my powder. Am trying the 7 pot/pod for the first time, we'll see if they make back to next years lineup. Bhut Jolikas best for powder. Fatalli makes such a so much better mash for pepper sauces I don't even fool with mashing anything else, except for a few scotch bonnets. Got have a few jars bonnet sauce. Austrlain lanterns made in back in this years lineup, what a great pepper to eat fresh, awsome smell and taste and HOT. Got have my thais. Love taking the to the local Thai place getting the cook in my food, plus i make this soy/honey/garlic sauce with them. Pablanos obiviously for my rellanos. Thats all I need to keep me happy:)

Salviakeeper: On Mar 11, 2010, the Salvia eremostachya in the Pinyon Crest area of Riverside Co. were just starting to bloom. In some places the air was pungent with the scent of the foliage. The plant in the photo is at 33.61379N, 116.41519W, 3301 ft. elev. +- 66 ft., close to Hwy 74. You can see it (and many others) from the road, if you know what to look for. But you shouldn't take your eyes off the road :-) The population of S. vaseyi further downhill is in a natural preserve. There's a tiny parking area off Hwy 74 (west side) for the preserve. It's a breeding area for desert bighorn sheep, and now there are signs posted saying the area is closed except for a small part of the year that doesn't include the blooming period. However, there is no physical barrier to entry. S. vaseyi are scattered on the slope south of the parking area. BTW, I forgot to mention that I also have photos in this forum of S. carduacea and S. sonomensis. Look for "Salvia [insert species] in California." I've looked at the Consortium of California Herbaria for localities of S. dorrii, S. mohavensis and S. funerea, but I would indeed be interested in your localities. A couple of years ago I looked in listed localities for S. mohavensis and S. dorrii in Joshua Tree N.P. I found one S. dorrii but not mohavenis. I know there are other places further north. WRT S. leucophylla, it occurs sparingly if at all in Riv. Co. Fires in Orange Co. swept through known populationsm, but I haven't gone there to look. There's a single record in Consortium and Calflora (same plant) in the Tierra Santa area of San Diego. I haven't seen the plant, but I get the impression it's a garden escape, since I've seen no indication of a population.

Lou, I'm glad to hear from you. I have enjoyed many of your GardenWeb posts over the years. There does seem to be considerable variation in the M.C.s. The ones we bought from Madrone Nursery and at a plant sale at the Heard Natural Science Museum several years ago have a more weeping, bush-like habitus, not like the ones I got from Creech and the one on Wilson Street. They all seem, once established, amazingly tough. The pinetum in Angelina Co. TX. had some along the edge of a pond and, initially unknown to us, a beaver moved in and selectively mowed the M.C.s to 4 to 8 inch stumps, but they all recovered. I must beg tolerance for our website We haven't updated anything but the database of the Angelina Unit for about 10 years. This will part of our work next winter. If you are ever back in E. TX., we would enjoy your visit. Please call ahead because now we seem to be spending more time in MO. (where we have recently enlarged).rl