I love Leong. She is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO wonderful! And her roses are awesome! I put in a second order and they went out into today's mail, so I can't wait. here's what I'm getting this time:

1 Moje Hamarberg http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...
1 Humdinger http://horticopia.com/hortpix/... (HMF doesn't have any pix!)
1 Magenta Mystique http://www.helpmefind.com/gard... (to replace my Herbie I lost from John's Miniature Roses)
1 Orange Honey http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...

I needed a few more mini roses in my mini-rose bed as I'll be moving some of my way-over-grown agastaches & columbines out of that bed & putting them elsewhere. It's supposed to rain all next week, so I'm hoping that these guys will like living where I'm putting them.

Nice choices, Toni, and all but Orange Honey are reported to be extra-hardy.

That Horticopia site is peculiar, though. I couldn't help noticing that the name of Iceberg is misspelled. All those horticulturists on call and the site consistently refers to the rose as "Iceburg"? It also refers to Deuil de Paul Fontaine as "Devil de Paul Fontain," which is pretty funny, I think, because "deuil" doesn't have anything to do with "devil."

Zuzu - probably because not too many people would recognize the word "Deuil" but immediately would recognize "Devil", so, thinking that it's a typo, the word & the name gets changed. Or it could be various other countries in English spelling things differently (ie: color vs colour)? Or maybe people are just retarded? I'm leaning towards the last of the 3.

I'm not too worried on Orange Honey as that's going in my minibed and that area is really heavily protected from cold/snow due to the proximity to the house/garage. I can have 2' of snow in the middle of my yard and see bare mulch in my minibed. Plus it's usually 10degs warmer there because of next to the house. And I'm planning on remulching the whole bed this fall with at least 6" of fresh new mulch, so everything's gonna be pretty buried.

I can't wait! *happy dance!!* I love her roses.. I've only lost 2 out of all that I've ordered from her, which, for me, is outstanding! I wish I had that kind of luck with ALL the companies I've ordered from! Pickering I'm 100% loss, Edmunds was 1/3rd loss (1 outta 3, and the two to survive are pathetic, lost Royal Amethyst), Garden Valley are all surviving this year, but lost everyone from last year, Roses Unlimited is about a 50% loss... only Palatine has been super successful with almost a 100% survivability (lost 1 out of the 4 from last year, all this year looks to be strong plants). I'm going to say, however, that almost 100% of my fault. I lost everyone from Chamblees, from Heirloom, and someone else that I can't remember. John's Miniatures were about a 80% survivability, so I guess that's not bad considering how incompetent I am.

I agree with your third explanation. Calling it "Devil de Paul Fontain" is just plain stupid because you're not going to find it under that name on any rose information site. "Iceburg," regrettably, is a fairly common error. Pirl and I were always amused by all of the DG users who spelled both parts of Burgundy Iceberg incorrectly (as "Burgandy Iceburg"). She once did some research, using the DG search engine, and found that the incorrect spelling was actually used far more frequently in the forums than the correct one.

As for the survivability rates of your roses, I suspect that Edmunds' roses are "seconds" anyway. They're never as nice as the bare-root roses I get elsewhere. Palatine seems like the best fit for you because they don't buy roses from California growers. Their roses are grown in their Ontario garden for three years before they dig them up and send them to you. Pickering's almost as good, just smaller plants in most cases, so I think your purchase from that nursery was just a case of bad luck.

Pickering is 100% fail for me too. They sent them 3 weeks after they said they would, and outer branches were already brown. The main ones were green, so I had some hope. We've had the hottest June ever, with 12 days over 100, so that didn't help. I mulched them and misted, but they were really too little and couldn't transition from complete dormancy to high heat, even with several days getting babied in the sunroom. I lost a few Burling roses this year also. They were the smaller ones, and once again, I think it's the extreme heat that did them in.

It's a brutal transition from bare root-no leaves to 100F weather. I don't thing many roses would make it. Roses growing in pots might have a chance.

It seems to me that Pickering should credit you if they were that late, especially if you got your roses into the ground less than two weeks before searing heat. I know the weather in the midwest can change quickly from too cold to too hot. Three weeks of good care in the ground before brutally hot weather (i.e. anything above 90F IMO) could make a huge difference. In my experience with years of trial and failure that in zone 6 April is the month to plant, with more than 90% success rate. By mid May it drops to 40%. By June, even in cool weather it's pretty close to zero for bare root roses.

Steve, why do you say they have a better chance growing in a pot? I try to get plants out of pots as soon as I can. Seems like they are sheltered better in the ground, and watering is much more even in the ground. It's 103 again today, and I'm nervous about watering any of the planters, thinking the water will boil the roots, or steam them. I'm sure you have far more experience growing plants in hot weather so I'm interested in how you pot them to keep them alive.

Cindi, what I meant was that roses that are sold and shipped in pots still have their feeder roots intact when they are planted will be better prepared for warm weather than roses sold as bare root. Bare root roses need some weeks in the ground in order to begin setting feeder roots.

As an example: I moved two "Rise and Shine" roses early in May. Both I carefully dug out of the ground, trying to keep the root ball intact. In the process of moving them, one fell onto the ground and the dirt ball around the roots shattered. I planted both, watered them in well. The one that I didn't drop just went on growing like nothing happened. The one I did drop, lost most of its leaves. Fearing that it was going to die, I pruned away all the wood except for one central branch that had not started to yellow. Now, six weeks later it is growing well, but it is still a third the size of the other one. My interpretation is that the drop tore up the feeder roots. Bare root roses endure the same fate when they are ripped out of the ground. Putting them into the ground when the soil is cool and the air is cold allows for the roots to get ready to take up water as it warms up.

My practice is to take delivery of bare root roses in early or mid March and to take delivery of leafed-out roses in pots in late April. This gives bare root roses four to eight weeks in the ground before they set leaves. And they are much much happier for it.

Gotcha! i had read it as they have a better chance of growing staying in the pots. I love getting whopper sized bare root roses in the mail...in March. After April or so, I'm stuck with buying locally in pots, because shipping costs with pots are just too high, and I don't want chopped up roots. Or I'm too cheap, I guess. This has been a freaky year here. We don't normally have extreme heat in June. July, yes, but not June.
I'll remember your observations on Rise and Shine and try to do better at keeping the root balls intact. That makes sense.

I received a beautiful shipment of roses! I got the four I requested, plus she sent me a Sweet Pea too as a bonus! I was torn between the Moje Hamarberg and Sweet Pea, but went with the Moje Hamarberg because I wanted a large bushy rose like Hansa. But she sent be both because she's so totally AWESOME!

Only problem is now I'm outta space in my mini bed. I need to move Heinrich Karsch to it's own spot out of the mini bed because it's gotten too big for the mini bed (I thought it was a little rose.. nope, it's about 3' around). Next spring, I need to transplant all my agastaches & pendstemons out of that bed too because they're taking up SOOOOO much space.. I have roses buried in them!