In my zone 6b Pennsylvania garden, I grown Gemini, Tamora, Lavaglut and olog. I have a friend in the same zone (near me) who has Cherry Parfait and a DIL who has Frederick Mistral. I'm thinking you might have slightly more humidity than I. My gardens are all day south exposed full sun. Gemini is a wonderful rose and does quite well, even with disease resistance, but like Diane NJ say, it shuts down over the very hottest, most humid part of the summer. Winters, it seems quite strong. Besides being very small, Tamora doesn't do so well in the heat and humidity either and is more prone to black spot. I'm not as thrilled with this rose as I could be and it suffers from winter die back. Frederick Mistral also suffers from winter kill, but not to the extent as Tamora. It is also a larger bush, more heat tolerant but still prone to black spot. Cherry Parfait, olog and Lavaglut are all outstanding in the gardens around here. Cherry Parfait is more prone to black spot, but is winter strong. Olog and lavaglut will get blackspot in my garden toward the end of the season and I do spray, but not as regularily as some of the others. Remember to keep Tamora, olog and Lavaglut toward the front of the bed since all these roses have a tendency to be squatty. Tamora looks more like a miniature except for the leaf and bloom size. The plant is so extremely tiny. This is just my take. All roses act differently in different areas.

No offense, I hope: Super Thrive has been around for decades and there is no reliable evidence that it does anything except promote the rooting of cuttings, which it does because it contains the same ingredient as Rootone, though at greater expense. The value of added Vitamin B has been disproved in scientific trials subsequent to one early, badly designed experiment that showed positive results. People may say it works because they used it and their plants grew. But we can't learn anything unless there is a control group of identical plants treated identically except for the use of Super Thrive or not. And you need two good-sized groups of plants to run a test that means something. You can find reports on the web where amateurs have done experiments with fairly reasonable controls and gotten negative results for ST (except for rooting cuttings).

I think the nutgrass is very distinct from spiderwort and rain lilies in color, texture and leaf shape. Nutgrass is very bright green, shiney and stiff. Spiderwort is a bluegreen leaf, softer texture and normally will grow to be about 18" tall. Nutgrass tops out at about 8". Rain lilies have a smaller, curlier leaf that sprouts in a whorl and then sends up the delicate flower stalk about the size of a pencil lead. Nut grass has no stalk, and spiderworts have thick, fleshy stalks of the same blue-green color. Also, rain lilies will bloom within a day or so of sprouting, nutgrass just sends up new grass shoots. I'm glad I caught this thread, I've had nutgrass multiplying in my rose beds now for about two years and it's driving me crazy trying to keep it pulled out. I'm going to try the molasses on it. Patriotizm, try mixing a 1 TBSP of liquid molasses with 1/4 C. orange oil, three drops of dishwashing liquid in a gallon of water. Pour that on your fire ants and then sit back and watch them suffer. They are attracted to the molasses and the orange oil will kill them. For a very large mound I will use 2-3 gallons. If you're wondering how orange oil works, try putting a drop on the back of your hand and count to 50. Smells wonderful as it burns the hide off! I recently heard that pouring club soda on the mound would kill them too. I haven't tried it yet, but a good friend said that's what he does and it's even less damaging than orange oil to the environment. We'll see.

Hi, Lisa Su, and Friends, I guess I caught rose fever and took to ordering and planning more roses for spring in last few days to add to above orders.... I started looking up your roses and found ones I wished to add to my gardens... so I have ordered a few more also..... Souvenir de la Malmaison, Boubon 1843 rose, strong fragrance...nice big bush w/big blooms....for my femce border... Clotilde Soupert, polyantha , nearly thornless, strong moderate fragrance...actually may be a small rose that blooms in intense clusters like The Fairy...for my front hillside ground cover... And I’m planning on adding China Doll polyantha and Elegant Fairy Tale Roses to lower part of back yard hill, waiting for them to come available to order.... Oh, to plan my dream gardens. I now am up to 88 roses... roses in front yard...roses down side of house and lining back yard and some on hill by spring.... 20 new roses so far coming to plant....fun..fun.... Soon to sleep...per chance to dream...of roses...roses...roses.... oh, my! Post your photos, too? What are you favorites to have this spring? Happy Gardening! Kitty