In my case, my soil pH depends on where in my yard you are. There was a LOT of earth moved when the house was built, and a lot of backfilling done. The undisturbed soil is acidic; but anything near the house or where grading was done tends to have a more neutral to alkaline reading. I think they buried every piece of concrete they could find to use as fill :P Fortunately, the alkalinity is not too extreme, and since organic matter tends to buffer the pH, my soil if good for roses, even near the house. And I have the wild multiflora all over the farm to prove that it likes the native pH just fine, lol. I've drooled over some of Steve's offerings, but I haven't brought myself to take the plunge yet, never having dealt with maidens (of the rosaceae type, lol) before. John

Carol: Some doctors mistake phytoestrogen (God-made & natural) with chemical estrogen (man-made). My Swedish mother-in-law grew up drinking tons of cow-milk (zero flax, zero soy), and had a mastectomy at 40 year old. No history of breast-cancer in my family of 9 girls (I'm the youngest girl), nor in my Mom nor Dad's side ... we eat tons of soy-products in Vietnam & zero cow milk. I got curious about phytoestrogen (occur naturally in plants) versus chemical hormones added to cow milk .. found this article from Cornell University: "A diet rich in phytoestrogens has been proposed as a way to decrease breast cancer risk. Some, but not all studies show that women with a diet high in phytoestrogens, including vegans (who eat no animal foods) and women who eat diets high in soy products, have lower rates of breast cancer. Why is this so? Most phytoestrogens are not stored in the body, but are quickly broken down. Phytoestrogens are weak estrogens, and may prevent stronger human estrogens from binding to the estrogen receptor. If the weaker estrogens bind to the receptor instead of the stronger ones, there may be less breast cell division. Women with diets rich in phytoestrogens also excrete more estrogens into their urine, and have lower blood estrogen levels. Some studies have shown that women with a diet rich in phytoestrogens have longer, and hence fewer, menstrual cycles. All of these factors may contribute to reduced breast cancer risk." http://www.envirocancer.cornell.edu/FactSheet/General/fs10.estrogen.cfm Below excerpt is from Oncology nutrition - Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics " Animal studies have shown that both flaxseed oil and lignans can reduce breast tumor growth and spread, even for ER- cancer cells. This result suggests that flaxseeds may have anti-cancer benefits that are unrelated to any type of effect on estrogen or estrogen metabolism." https://www.oncologynutrition.org/erfc/hot-topics/flaxseeds-and-breast-cancer/ Phytoestrogen is DIFFERENT from chemical hormones injected into cow to make them produce milk longer. An excerpt from below link: "new study out of Harvard University showing that pasteurized milk product from factory farms is linked to causing hormone-dependent cancers. It turns out that the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) model of raising cows on factory farms churns out milk with dangerously high levels of estrone sulfate, an estrogen compound linked to testicular, prostate, and breast cancers. Dr. Ganmaa Davaasambuu, Ph.D., and her colleagues specifically identified "milk from modern dairy farms" as the culprit, referring to large-scale confinement operations where cows are milked 300 days of the year, including while they are pregnant. Compared to raw milk from her native Mongolia, which is extracted only during the first six months after cows have already given birth, pasteurized factory milk was found to contain up to 33 times more estrone sulfate. http://www.naturalnews.com/035081_pasteurized_milk_cancer_dairy.html#ixzz3uj5y7wGc Havard-trained doctor Andrew Weil, M.D. stated "Among women, milk consumption has been associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer in both the Nurses' Health Study and in a 2005 study from Sweden's Karolinska Institute. Organic milk is better in many respects than conventional milk but still may be full of natural hormones. My advice: cut down on dairy products. Substitute soy milk for cow's milk when possible. Andrew Weil, M.D." From Physicians committee for responsible medicine "In international and interregional correlational studies, dairy product consumption has been consistently associated with prostate cancer mortality.3-7 The largest and most recent of these, based on World Health Organization mortality figures for 1985-1989 from 59 countries and United Nations food balance data for 1979-1981, reported a strong correlation between per capita milk consumption and prostate cancer mortality (r = 0.78, P<0.0001).7 A more geographically restricted study, conducted in 20 Italian regions, found a similar correlation between prostate cancer mortality and milk consumption (r = 0.75, P <0.01).6 http://www.pcrm.org/health/health-topics/milk-consumption-and-prostate-cancer *** From Straw: Agree with all the above researches, I gave flax oil to my kid to improve her eczema (skin-rash). I'm taking flax oil & flax seeds to improve my skin-rash. I develop an allergic reaction to the new batch of fish-oil (really stinky) .. and I still need Omega-3 for my dry-hands.

vaporvac totally agree although I did loose 2 our of 3 of my velvet fragrance roses even after 5 years. They were small cuttings at first, got fairly big then after the deer pruning them constantly they eventually died off. Only one left, its been over 10 years and the poor thing is still struggling. If its targeted it will have a bad year, if its left half way alone it can do alright. Having a new dog helps a little but not alot

The stocks in use in various areas are sometimes those which have proven themselves the easiest to root and the easiest to bud to in those areas. Prior to Dr, Huey being "the" stock in California production, Ragged Robin, Gloire des Rosomanes was the stock of choice there. It's thought some time around WWII, while collecting cuttings for the next year's production, cuttings of Huey were collected, rooted and budded to. Once it was discovered how much better those plants performed, the choice was made to switch to Huey for production. Sometimes, it's scientific study, sometimes it's serendipity. Yes, patents mean you aren't supposed to propagate the patented rose. If you decide you wish to attempt rooting it and testing it as a stock for your garden, that choice is yours to make and I am not going to judge either way. You will need to successfully root lengths of it. You will need to remove all but the top one or two buds from each cutting so no growth of new shoots comes from anywhere but the top growth buds, or those new shoots will be "suckers" you will have to deal with on your newly budded plants. Once they are rooted, you can decide whether you wish to "T" bud, chip bud, cleft graft or how else you wish to bud to them. Personally, I prefer chip budding as it is far less dependent upon the bark of the stock being able to be lifted easily, so budding can be successfully accomplished over a much longer period than it otherwise might be able to. There are many videos on line about how to accomplish each method of budding (or grafting, it's pretty much the same thing, except you bud or graft single buds, but you can also graft stems to stocks).If you wish photos of chip budding, I have some on my blog. The hardest part of what you propose is rooting the stocks. Practice it until you're proficient then have a ball budding! Good luck!