Delicious is the right word, Porkpal. It looks like coffee ice cream with a little caramel mixed in.
This one should be the best of both worlds for you, Toni. The petals are supposed to have lavender edges. Maybe this bloom will acquire them as it ages, or maybe I'll have to wait for a second flush, but this one has beautiful coloring for the maiden bloom, I thought.
I bought it from Wisconsin Roses. I had been wanting to try their "maiden" roses, but had always decided against it when I read the growing instructions:
http://www.wiroses.com/instruc...
They have a "small numbers sale list," however, with really, really low prices, so I decided to give it a whirl.
http://www.wiroses.com/index.p...
I ordered Mu Lan, Silverado, Red Intuition, and Stephen Rulo. The detailed instructions turned out to be foolproof and I now have four lovely, thriving, and disease-resistant rose bushes. They're still small, but they're bushy, not like the one-cane wonders I usually end up with when I order own-root bands. And they're larger than own-root bands would be by this time in the growing process.
The main thing is the health factor. Their foliage has stayed mostly a lovely green while other roses around them have developed black spot, and they're still alive! I had already killed two Silverado own-root bands, so I knew that rose didn't particularly want to grow on its own roots.
The catalog of varieties is limited, there is no shopping cart, and there's no payment by credit card, but if you have the patience to communicate by e-mail, pay by check, and follow the instructions, you'll end up with beautiful roses.
For me, they have the added advantage of being budded onto Multiflora rootstock, which doesn't appeal to gophers.
