A picture to brighten your day

Anyone else have roses blooming in December?

there are some at the traffic circle on hilton head that were blooming friday
here's my pride and joy!

never mind that one here's a right side up one

My David Austins are still blooming despite the frost. Nice to still have some color.

I have about a half dozen blooming but I also have strep throat (it's a good thing my grand kids are cute) so I am not going outside to take pictures. From what I can see, Slater's Crimson China, Toscana Vigorosa, Topsy Turvy, Caldwell's Pink, John Boy, My Wild Irish Rose, Rainbow's End and the red and pink Knockouts all have blooms.

I am starting to really like roses; they seem to bloom until the Camellias are in their full glory and by the time the Camellias are finished the roses are blooming again.

hope you get better

Thanks, me too.

its funny. no one in my family has ever gotten strep throat... ever. even after being exposed repeatedly

Diehrd: Ya might want to knock on wood or something, when you say that. :)

I have one unknown-name yellow climbing rose blooming, btw.

yeah you're right.... lol i'll bet you a million bucks i get it tomorrow! we just had "christmas" with my g-parents, who are leaving tomorrow and won't be back before christmas, and guess what they gave me as a combined b-day/ christmas gift (even though my b-day is in july)...........yall get 3 guesses total

a greenhouse? (hoping, hoping hoping)

YESSSSSS how'd you know??? lol its coming in 3-5 weeks

I am sooooo happy for you. I knew because that is what I would have bought you if you were my grandson.
What a Merry Christmas you will have this year.

thanks! i was told not to expect much this year as my dad is starting a new business, but that doesn't apply to grandparents, and these are the extravagant gift giving ones( also gave us a Wii) so yeah... my christmas is already made.... even though i have only gotten one gift for other people. i gave Mimi and H (thats what we call my grandparents. actually H has a DG account his name is HL) a cassia/senna bicapsularis from south carolina palm trees and garden center just down the road from us in Okatie. they saw one at the Crown plaza in Shipyard, and thought it was beautiful, so that gave me a perfect idea for them... they really like it and i'm going to plant it for then at their condo in Shipyard.

I can't get my hands on a Wii for the life of me. "getting it for the kids", LOL.

Golly! Congrats, dhs! A greenhouse:-)) And a Wii:-))) You are set...Happy early Holidays and b'day!
Bev

thanks.... i can NOT wait til it is here. the shelves have already come

diehrd, what kind of GH are you getting? If I could give anyone advice that buys a Rion, I would say to go ahead and insulate the bottom frame and around the bottom of the GH when you put it together and before you fill the floor in with gravel....lol...I've been spending time insulating my GH but I can't believe how much cold air can come in through the bottom edges and floor.

*gulp* our power bill this month was twice last months...since I turned the heat on in the GH...ouch

i'm not exactly sure.... i'll check after i get back from my CHRISTmas shopping.

Diehrd's ground is still warm and it will never freeze so I suspect he will probably need far less heat than you would need in zone 7. He will probably be opening the vents on *most* sunny days or it will cook his plant babies. It's those chilly nights he'll have to worry about.

it comes with vents hat open themselves acording to the temperature
the GH is a Fast-Start Greenhouse from Gardener's Supply Company

depending on what you want to grow your GH you might never need to heat it, diehard, but I'm saying that without looking up what your avg. min. temps are for your area. From the picture of the GH you're getting it's hard to see what the base looks like, but if I had really thought about it I would have gone ahead and insulated the bottom and other open spaces (in a Rion, I don't know if the Fast Start will have them) when I put it together instead of having to move everything inside to do it later...lol.

I bet you're excited diehrd, so whatcha gonna grow in there? :)

tropicals like plumerias etc. and any propagation projects that i'm doing over the winter. for my birthday, i'm going to ask for taccas. those are really cool looking plants, and i'd like to try my hand at growing them

lol, again, I don't know your temps, but it sounds like you'll need a heater

oh definitely... we get down to like.....no less than 20.it semms weatern bluffton/okatie got pretty low for our first frost though, so i'm not sure....... Merry CHRISTmas everyone!

What a perfect Christmas gift for you, Diehrd! Your Grands really "get it"! From my experience: you'll have far more problems managing heat than cold. I'm north of you, and my exhaust fan comes on between 10-11 o'clock on sunny days,with outside temps in the 40's. It's already close to 90 in the greenhouse by that time. I worry about these rapid changes in temps, so I open doors and roof vents (manually) when the inside temps get into the 70's. That seems to delay the electronic kick-in of the exhaust fan by an hour or two, and reduces the "radical" change in temps, but the fan still always has to kick in to keep the temps down on sunny days. Whole different world of worries, but so much fun!

Got so distracted by Diehrds Greenhouse that I never answered the original question! Yes, I've still got roses blooming. All my knock-outs ("Homerun", "Rainbow", and "Single Red") are still going strong. They kept blooming into February last year, skipped March, and started blooming again in April! Those things are a little scary---but so pretty! But my fragrant Hybrid Tea's ("Tiffany", "Mirandy") are also still flowering. They got burnt more by the recent "frosts" (29 degrees) than did the knock-outs, but they're still producing flowers. They need to go to sleep!