Dolly Parton. Looks so beautiful in the nursery under perfect conditions. Pay $30 for it, put it in the ground, baby it in a way that every other rose in a 10 ft radius gets jealous, and it does absolutely nothing. Nothing. Just sits there like a bump on a log. It survives the winter, barely, after reassurance from the nursery I bought it from that it'll do fine here, and when it comes back, gets a total of about 14" tall and blooms twice in an entire year.
Fail.
Europeana. Looks like a blah rose at Home Depot. Buy the $20 5gal bucket. Put it in the ground. Starts to bloom. And bloom. And bloom. And bloom. And bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom. Stops only when the daytime temperatures are below 50 degrees and there's been at least 2' of snow already. Survives the winter locked under at least a foot of pure ice (near the bottom of a down slope in my yard). First to put out new growth in the spring. Starts to bloom in May. Stopped now because of an extremely hard frost, but still has about 15-20 buds that got frosted out. Never got watered, never got fed, pretty much ignored. Bloomed like crazy with beautiful red bouquets.
Win!
