You haven't been to the mall in over a year but have spent hundreds of hours researching and buying roses.

Ingrid

Manure is your friend.

Your only friend. (Unless you count other addicts. They're the best.)

Sherry

Your neighbors think that you dabble in the occult and warn their children to steer clear of the witch when you are seen putting strange ingredients into a trash can and stirring your frothy foul smelling batch of alfalfa tea.

You know exactly where in the yard each variety is planted, but you can't remember where you put your car keys.

You want to prune, or at least "tidy up," every rose that you see.

I know this was mentioned in another thread but this is so true:

'You might be a rose addict if you keep checking the rose forum every 15 - 20 minutes'

Heaps of time I've been logging in and out of this forum hoping that someone could post some pictures of their rose garden for inspiration. But lately, the gallery has been very quiet... and this forum doesn't seem to be the same as it used to be.

I don't have a problem. 750 different varieties of roses in my yard is not unusual. Doesn't everyone keep alpacas to produce manure to feed their plants?

When for any financial comparison you calculate how many roses you could buy for that price. x)

While at work, you type Gertrude Jekyll in the "to" section of an email.

(With a bow to the wag who posted in '08 the very first thing I read here that made me laugh out loud....)

ALL your clothes are gardening clothes.

This refers to another plant, unfortunately, but a friend who is mad about phlomis recently bought THE book about phlomis, written in English, and read it, even though he doesn't know English. Now that's passion.

You used to regard the falling leaves in autumn as a nuisance. Now your eyes are wide as you think, yesss.....COMPOST!

You go to a museum and spend a lot of time trying to figure out the identity of the roses in the paintings.

I'm not REALLY addicted so, I probably shouldn't say anything. However, as I sit here on the rose forum with my "Best Rose Guide" book in my lap, trying to figure out the 8th Fri. mystery rose, I find my children to be a bit annoying. Don't they understand that roses are more important than dessert.

I am reminded of this post from years ago:

HOW TO COUNT ROSES Posted by Kim_SC 7B SC (My Page) on Thu, Jan 31, 02 at 17:07
1. Mini roses donâÂÂt count.
2. Floribundas ��" because they are not full-fledged hybrid teas ��" count as half.
3. Shrubs, Climbers, Ramblers, Old Garden Roses, etc. donâÂÂt count because they can be considered "landscaping."
4. Roses not planted ��" or in pots ��" donâÂÂt count. (See the "Territory" Clause).
5. Roses that were discounted count as half.
6. Roses received as gifts donâÂÂt count.
7. Odd numbers must always be rounded offâ¦if youâÂÂre out of room, round the number down. For every one-hundred, divide by two. This is known as a "stock split."
8. Roses whose names you donâÂÂt know or can't remember obviously donâÂÂt count.
9. Roses that are on Shovel Prune Watch donâÂÂt count; the roses that replace them also donâÂÂt count as they cancel each other out.

10. Duplicate/multiples count as one as they are considered a set.
11. Roses that are not planted in a bed donâÂÂt count. (See the "Landscaping" Addendum).
12. Bareroots donâÂÂt count because they are dormant when they arrive; once you plant them and they start to bud outâ¦well, youâÂÂve already done your count, so you will just have to wait until next season��"by which time youâÂÂll be sure you already counted them.
13. Mislabeled roses donâÂÂt count because you probably already have one of them somewhere, which has already been counted onceâ¦probably.
14. Anything less than Grade 1 counts only a fraction, and since fractions are not whole numbers they can be rounded off (remember the rounding off rule).
15. Roses that you think you might give away can be excluded from the countâ¦makes it easier to part with them; if, by some chance you wind up keeping them, wellâ¦oh well.
16. HTs that get huge and wind up taking more than one space should be counted twice, but remember the duplicate rule.
17. Nowâ¦if, after counting, you have under a hundred roses, you must immediately place some orders��"and they donâÂÂt count because theyâÂÂre in transit and therefore not in the ground.
18. Roses ordered on a whim really donâÂÂt count because they were never on a list. (This is known as the list rule: If itâÂÂs not on a list, it doesnâÂÂt existâ¦most likely).
19. If you cut many roses and give them away, this is considered Charity, and everyone knows that you get special allowances for Charity��"which brings us toâ¦
20. Tax Deductions⦠(see Claiming Roses as Dependants).

When you start reading the rose availability lists in languages you don't quite recognize. Serious trouble when you try to figure out ways of importing them.

When your anemic do to pruning

When you get home and take the evening walk around your yard after work and realize SOMEONE HAS PICKED SOME OF YOUR BLOOMS! Realizing this from over 200 roses.

a) Someone posts a thread "If you could only have 12 roses" and your first thought is, How many times do I have to clone myself to get to 300?

b) You read this thread & calculate the number of times you say to yourself, "I've done that".

Boy, you guys are really sick. Get the help you need.

Get help? Who needs help? We're fine, I mean PERFECTLY FINE!!

An addict? Who? Me a rose addict? No way! I am not addicted to roses.................! Ooops, got to go and finish off the fall clean up. Of the.......umm......roses.

Between this forum, HMF, RC, and that darned facebook, it's a wonder I'm able to get myself showered & fed on a daily basis.

You realize you might, just might, have a little problem when you order fify nice rose tags thinking that will be more enough, and then when you start tagging your roses you find that A HUNDRED more are needed! (True story :-)

OMG - I am not alone. Whew. Last year I bought my very first rose. I have never gardened before. One year later, I have just under 50 roses.

Budget is small, I've frequented every nursery within a 100 mile radius from me, and I found one particular Lowes on my way home from work that consistently has a huge selection of #1 roses for very low prices. During my 1 hour one way commute I visit that Lowes a few times a week to see what's new!

I have created a spreadsheet listing the names of each of my existing roses, type, hybridizer, and color combinations. Then I have a spreadsheet "wish list" and feverishly search them out to see in person.

I'm lucky to own horses, so have an infinite supply of horse manure (and have sandy soil), and each and every rose I have LOVES MANURE. Most of my purchases have been between $1.74 and $6.99, and there isn't a dud in the bunch. I prune without gloves, and the thorny war wounds are inspiration.

Chrysler Imperial and Double Delight are my first to bloom this year, and the Crimson Glory's are covered with buds. I just planted my first climbers, CL Angel Face, CL Blaze, CL Royal Gold, CL Pink Don Juan, and CL St. Joseph's Coat to cover a fence, and I check the new growth every morning and every evening.

I check the roses before I feed my horses. I think this is a bad sign. I obsessively do google image searches on every rose name I can come up with to see what they look like. And I eat company bagels for lunch to save up money to buy, yet another rose.

And each new bud gives me so much joy I can hardly describe.

You have eight horses and a small herd of cows, and you still go to a horse barn for trailer loads of free manure. My DH refused to participate in this. He said it was like carrying coal to Newcastle.

When your husband has far more views of you bending over to weed, fertilize, remove aphids, prune, disbud and smell roses than of you actually standing up. He says he doesn't mind.

Ingrid

Ingrid, you're too cute!

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Flaurabunda, you are too funny! I probably have spent thousands of hours in the last decade on most of those sites, although I've never gotten into RC, thank goodness.

I am the Master Gardener that the others call if they have a rose question. They ask me, "How do you KNOW all of this?" The answer is, I've been eating and breathing and dreaming of roses for many years. I fall asleep imagining walking through the cemetery rose garden, and wake up thinking of things to do there or at home, or with my rose friends. Rose road trips - rose books - rose pruning and planting and propagation - rose workshops and rose events - it never ends. I've met such wonderful people through roses, been to such wonderful places, and have learned so much. I love my life.
Anita

Great post-----

Florence

You plan your retirement, a year in advance, for March 31st. Just in time for spring. Making sure there is absolutely no way you will be bored.

Who needs a job on the opening of garden season?

when you look for a new house you're less interested in the number of bedrooms than the square footage of potential garden space

when you go to visit a new friend and she invites you on a tour of her house you nod, smile politely but think to yourself, "what for? where's the back yard?"

when a new friend comes to visit you and wants to tour your home, her main comment is "why do you have so many rose books?"

When you spend days and days readying the garden for the annual spring Open House ... and you pray no one asks to use the bathroom, because it's a mess. (We were just talking about over the weekend.)

Connie

"In your computer you have 300 photos of Madame Hardy from the 2010 growing season but none of your son's 13th year on this planet." Heh heh. Well said, Flaurabunda.

If you remember the names of all your roses, but forget the names of your children. If you encourage your dog/cat to recycle and aim him toward the compost pile.

When soaking bare-root roses, you discover to your surprise that all your larger vessels are already in use, so you put your newly unpacked bare-roots to soak in the bathtub.

littleredrose - isn't that what you're supposed to do??

If your picture is on the wall in the break room at the salon where you get your nails done. . . . like a Wanted poster. . . and all the manicurists hide when they see you coming.

Connie, rent a port-a-potty. After all, one has to establish one's priorities, and cleaning the bathroom isn't even on my list. Not this time of year.

Oh, thank you, Floridarosez. You just made me feel so much better.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Glad to help, Sherry. Any time a rose nut needs rationalization for bizarre behavior, they only need come here. Of course, to us it's not bizarre.

"rationalization for bizarre behavior"

Yeah, that pretty much nails it.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

You're in a bad mood because the fish tank HAS to be cleaned because you can't even see the fish anymore, and the bathroom absolutely HAS to be cleaned. Forget the floors...

Oh well, this too will pass, then it's on out in the yard again! :)

You're offered manure (called Or Brun in French = Brown Gold) for Valentine's Day and you think this is the most beautiful day of your life.

Great post, I enjoyed your answers. I don't feel alone anymore ;)

Here is a link that might be useful: A Little Bit of Paradise

Ogrose, didn't I read somewhere that water from a fish tank makes excellent fertilizer? See, there's a silver lining to everything. Or not, if it's a saltwater tank.

When you speak of roses, and describe their "personality".

At least I am not alone. ;)

I was telling DH about this thread and said the same thing, Clanross, "At least I'm not the only one." And he said, "There are worse things to be addicted to." I thought that was kinda nice, considering what I thought he could have said.

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

...when a neighbor describes a rose planted down the street and you say, "Oh yeah, I know that one, it's 'Just Joey' and they feed it with Osmocote and underwater it."

Your neighbor sighs.