If you can find her, Dolly Parton is an awesome red, too. Mine's never very corally, always pretty red. And, once established (took her 3 years here!) she gives these HUGE blooms.. very aptly named.

My favorite red is OPENING NIGHT -- great healthy plant and gorgeous pure red blooms. I highly recommend it!

Opening Night *is* a very nice true red, but hasn't any scent.

If I remember correctly, Palatine has Dolly Parton.

Opening Night is gorgeous. If scent isn't an issue, another option for pure red is Olympiad.

Oklahoma is also an awesome red. But Olympiad & Oklahoma are pretty older roses & Cindi was looking for a newer red.

How about Legends? I know that's an awesome beautiful clear red.

I'm drooling over the new Weeks' catalog.. *sigh* That Love Song.. http://www.weeksroses.com/pdf/...

Boy do I feel old hearing that.


Oklahoma will blue as it ages, but Olympiad is really good for holding its red color without bluing. It also has nice form. But not much scent. In its day it was considered a really good red HT. I still have it.

I planted Legends this year. So, if it grows like most roses in my garden there's about one chance in three that it will survive long enough to produce a flower I want to photograph and post here. I've heard that the flowers are huge but not very neatly formed.

I also have a Firefighter that is celebrating its first year in my garden this week. I've heard that it is fragrant and disease resistant; not sure what its liabilities are.

I think Opening Night has a good fragrance, but I prefer a mild scent.

Always and Forever is a nice rose, with huge blooms and with stems almost as long as those on Opening Night, but it doesn't bloom as much as Opening Night does.

one hell of a storm flying through here now. Very violent lightning, but a soft rain! The BEST kind!! YAY!!!

I don't suppose it's headed my way...

Strange but not a drop in Phoenix. Glad you've getting rain up there in Prescott, Steve. Weather says we'll get rain on Saturday. Hope so!

I have NO scapes on any of my established daylilies. Must check in with Lyle as to what might be happening here ...or not happening. Let it rain, let it rain ... let it rain

We ended up with over 2" of rain, and more expected today. I went back to the nursery with the roses and I'm sure glad I did. Roses vary widely in appearance after a hard rain! Koko Loko was wiped out. Drop Dead Read didn't even look like it had been touched. Easy Does It was a mess. They didn't have a Firefighter or Always and Forever. My roses aren't as far along as those that were grown in a greenhouse, or I would be reporting on how mine did.
I do already grow an assortment of reds--I have them in a row--Mr. Lincoln, Chrysler Imperial, Oklahoma, Olympiad, Opening Night, Black Baccarat, Love, Lovestruck, (which I can't help but read as Loves Truck!) Black Magic, In the Mood, Crimson Bouquet, Black Cherry, and I think I still have Grand Amore. When Legends first came out, I had it at the top of the wish list. It falls apart here, though.
i grew Dolly Parton a few years ago and I see the local nurseries are all carrying it this year. One has it listed as "NEW" for 2012!
I was hoping there was a new red rose that's pure red, with scent like Mr. Lincoln, and good disease resistance. Oh it has to hold up to heavy downpours, too. Is that the holy grail?

Cindi - LOLLLL... very few roses that I've got have ever held on in a heavy downpour. I think the only ones that tolerate it are Heirloom & Intrigue. Forget about Sunny Delite or Sunsprite.. both of those shatter like a pane of glass (especially SunnyD). Mr.L never looks good after a heavy rain, Scentimental looks like a drowned rat, and almost all of the "blues" look like absolute crap. I'm kinda surprised that Koko was in bad shape... mine held up pretty good to what rain we got.

Got a pretty good downpour last night The lightning was spectacular.. brilliant white lightning. We won't get the technicolored storms until summer when it's hot & then we get the red/purple/blue lightning. Coworker who lives near downtown Denver didn't get a drop, though. These two rainstorms have really awoken a lot of my plants. On Monday, my trumpet vine was no where to be found (I cut it back 100% to the ground 'cuz it dies to the ground here). Today it's 4" above the dirt. Told DH that I need a trellis for it now! But, also at the same time, I can now tell what perennials made it & what didn't. Looks like I lost some more columbines (I swear I'm not buying anything from Tagawas.. they just don't survive for me!) so I'll have to get new ones (easily done.. they're a constant at the big boxes) and a forsythia (didn't survive the transplant). The lilacs... the ones that survived are REALLY lovin' this rain! I have to take a pic of Mount Baker. It's almost 100% open and WOW is it going crazy w/the blooms this year!

YES! I got 1/2 inch of rain this weekend!

We got 2.5 inches rain with our tornado. I'm amazed at how well my plants and trees held up to it, considering the worst damage was less than a mile from us. Always takes my breath away, no matter how many times I see it, to see huge trees totally uprooted and tossed way across the street.
My lawn chairs didn't even blow over this time, and we had 4 windstorms last year that blew chairs and tables over. We had a gust of 84 mph and the tornado was F-3 which means winds 158-206 mph.
We have 2 large dead cottonwoods down by our creek and I expected them to fall. We leave them up because several birds and critters nest in them. i've even seen a bald eagle perched on the top. When the creek gets below flood level and we can cross the drive again, I'll see how stable they are. It's so incongruous to drive through town on a bright sunny day and see so many trees twisted and broken, light poles snapped, signs shredded. Streets are closed and police are guarding neighborhoods where homes were destroyed.

I'm glad it missed you!

I was reading in the news on how bad it was in Wichita. So grateful you're OK! Been in 1 tornado in my life, I personally didn't have any damage from it, as it just blew overhead (plus I was in college & living in the dorms), but right outside of town silos were completely ripped to shreds or split apart like they'd been opened with a can opener. Then, in '03, a tornado went through my town I live in now and completely demolished a condo development that was in the process of being built. Luckily, at that particular time, the only thing it was was the wooden frame, no siding or roofs. Turned a 125 unit condo development into kindling & toothpicks. I remember this distinctly because I was in the ER for appendicitis & the ER staff rushed everyone to the interior of the hospital (no basement). I remember seeing the sky as this weird green color. Then, in '09, I again saw green sky in my side of town and that's when a tornado formed right smack over downtown Denver (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...). Scary stuff! But, then again, sometimes it's like this:

yeah, I took this picture to show my daughters the damage in our yard--sent them texts saying I had an oak tree down.

It drizzled a little last night. I did something stupid a few weeks ago - I ordered plants from Michigan Bulb. Yes yes yes, I know, I know. But I had a 50% off coupon w/free shipping, so for $22 I got a Bicolor Butterfly Bush (http://www.rutgersln.com/large...), Empire Blue Butterfly Bush (http://cdn0.michiganbulb.com/i...), Bluebird Hibiscus (http://www.georgiavines.com/op...), Tidal Wave Clematis (http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img...), and Red Fox Veronica (http://www.calhort.org/Content...). Even if only 1 or two survive, I'm doing OK as far as $ (and the Bicolor buddleia is almost impossible to find here.. I've looked for 4 years to no avail). I had planted all these plants (some were more teenier than others), plus the 4 teeny roses I'd received from Melva (keeping fingers crossed on them) yesterday afternoon as I just *knew* it was going to rain (my knees had been killing me all day). Might rain again tonight!