Those are the photos he sent me by e-mail. Aren't they amazing?
Today's delivery from Cliff consisted of:
Jean Cote
Lobo
Hector Deane
Stokes
By Appointment
Creme Abundance
Great Expectations
Grey Dawn
Inner Wheel
To say that I'm astonished by the inclusion of Grey Dawn is a gross understatement. I hadn't even bothered to include it in my first two orders because I thought Grey Dawn would have been snapped up on the first day. But here it is, months into the ordering process, and no one else ordered it.
Only three of these nine are new to my garden, but the six I already own are small and weak because they either were damaged by gophers in the days before I planted my roses in gopher cages or arrived as small and inferior band roses.
Some band roses are just so lousy. I only ordered from Mark of Excellence once, but all four of the roses failed to thrive. Amity and Northland sent good bands that all grew into medium-sized bushes and then stopped. They have never reached their full potential. Rogue Valley, Heirloom, and Vintage are a mixed bag. Some get huge and some stay small. Unfortunately, the ones that get huge from those three places often turn out to have been mislabeled.
