Yes, it would be nice, Zuzu! They said they will be mailed next week, so we shall see.

Great, Cindi! We can compare. Didn't Brushwood send beautiful plants! I was more than thrilled with them.

Next week, Janice? When did you place the order?

week or so ago, Zuzu!

A week ago? That's intriguing. I'm tempted to place an order for some J.B. Williams roses. I think the Western states have to wait until January, but that's just around the corner, isn't it?

Well, Janice, I guess I'll be sharing your joy or grief, depending on how well Hortico is performing these days. I just placed an order for 9 roses:

Sweet Juliet
William Morris
Creme Caramel
Darling Annabelle
Audrey Wilcox
Magic Beauty
Martha Allen
Expression
Just Joey

All of them will be new to my garden except for Just Joey. I have three of them already, but they're drippy little own-root midgets with new signs of dieback every time I turn around, and I really want a nice big grafted one. I had one years ago, but the gophers got it, and ever since then I've been buying it in the own-root version, which clearly doesn't work with this rose.

I was mainly seduced by Hortico's prices. I just ordered a little band of Blue for You from Vintage and it costs $21.95! I couldn't resist buying nine big grafted roses at $14.99 each. And then there's the shipping: $19.00 for all nine! All the way from Ontario to California. I'd have to pay Roses Unlimited $72.00 to ship me nine roses, and I'd pay a handling fee of $5.00 on top of that. Hortico has no handling fee either.

Now I have to hope Hortico has reformed and improved.

Yippee, Zuzu!! ...........We can share our joy or grief!!

Those sound gorgeous!!!
I shall go look at them on the site in more detail.

Yes, their shipping charges are great!
The woman said they drive them across the border to mail them at UPS in the US, so really it's like ordering from a US company.

Love ordering just about all plants at the end of the season, when I get upset at losing the garden for winter. But that doesn't happen there in California, does it? Your climate is so delicious!

It's only semi-delicious at best. Our rainy season is like no other. It rains here for days and even weeks on end, without ever stopping, so it's fairly impossible to get anything done outside. It's also cold. I'm sure you'd laugh at the temperatures we regard as "cold," but we're not equipped for it. We don't have winter wardrobes and storm shutters and some of the other things that make winter more bearable in the colder zones. Our houses are built for "California" weather, so the temperature inside is usually the same as it is outside.

And when will they arrive, Zuzu?

You need double pane windows and added insulation added to the house Zuzu!
And you didn't tell me about the miserable wet winters before I moved up here!

I caught a bloom on my SHEER MAGIC over the last few days. The first was in late afternoon hazy sunlight, and the second was a couple of days later when it was overcast.

Ohhh, just exquisite Betty! I find the cooler weather just fabulous for rose colors!

Yes, I am always surprised by the beauties I discover in the fall. And I'm wondering if this will be an early winter because my Crimson Queen Japanese maple which always turns red at the end of November is already there!

Wow, Betty, Sheer Magic is so great!!

Those are beautiful photos, Betty!

Sue, I may not have told you specifically, but surely you've heard me whining in winter for years. I wish we had the kind of rain other places have. When I lived in London, I remember ducking under an awning and waiting for the rain to stop. If I did that here, I'd still be under the awning a week later.

Janice, they asked me to choose a delivery period starting after November 27th. I'll know more when someone processes my order this week and lets me know some specifics. I hope they don't have my name flagged as the person who wrote them the long and detailed letter of complaint a few years ago. After I wrote that letter and demanded replacements for the dead and mislabeled roses they had sent me, they sent me a box of dead sticks that were no longer distinguishable as rose bushes. I'm hoping the nasty and vengeful folks have moved on to other jobs, perhaps at the DMV.

Good one!

Sharon rarely writes Spotlight articles in Cubits these days, but she just wrote one spotlighting Moby. I really enjoyed reading it.

http://cubits.org/WhosWhoSpotl...

That was a nice one, I think Moby would be someone that everyone would enjoy being around.

Here's some good news, bad news.

The good: I ordered four bands from Vintage Gardens (Blue for You, Shades of Autumn, Silver Star, and Cymbaline) and received not only the 10% discount for HMF premium members, but also a special $10 rebate for Small Business Saturday. The full price for all four is therefore just $55.52, which is $13.88 per rose, despite the fact that one of them was originally $21.95. Such a nice transaction!

The bad: I didn't go outside today because it was wet and rainy and there's no mail on Sunday, so I had no idea of the calamity that befell my garden until I walked out back to feed the feral cats and couldn't get to the garage. My Trumpet Vine, a huge thing that spread halfway across the garage roof, had come right off the roof and was spread out in the other direction, right on top of a bunch of beloved roses.

Fearing the worst in view of this evidence of some sort of gale or hurricane last night, I went out with a flashlight and couldn't find anything else that had blown over. Even my most rickety trellises were still upright. The cats aren't strong enough to pull a trumpet vine backwards off the roof, so I have to conclude that a grizzly bear tried to climb the vine.

The vine I want a cutting of? Weird.

Zuzu, I laughed so loudly when I read this, my cats ran for cover and my daughter came to see if I'd been attacked. All I could utter was 'Zu has a grizzly bear climbing her trumpet vine'. I'm still not quite in control.

Her comment was: "Sue has a bear playing a trumpet on wine?"