Hi Jeff, Well, since others are suggesting some places to eat, I might as well mention my really up-to-date information on New Orleans' spots, fresh from the 1960's... hoping that some of these places I can remember right now still exist. Perhaps the most important restaurant memory is one I can't recall a name for. But it had a proprietary name, something like "Chez E___" I think. Maybe. It's on St. Charles, on the right as you head away from Canal Street, same side of St. Charles as Tulane, but a good many blocks farther out, in a section of older but well kept up homes. At that time many of those older homes had been converted to businesses. It's very hard to see the discrete brass plate name on this restaurant but as you drive out from the French Quarter, it was the very next structure after a bridal shop that might have been named the "Brides' Aisle" or something like that. I'd guess that it's probably a mile and a half past Tulane. Reservations were very much needed; they did a booming business all week long. If you can afford only one expensive French meal, this would be an excellent choice. The food was wonderful and the service was excellent. Attire is dress-up, with a butler to meet you and escort you to a plush anteroom for ordering/cocktails. Lovely everything inside this old house, lovely antiques, lovely china, silver, crystal on the table with more than a token of beautiful fresh flowers. The best breakfast I've ever had was at Brennan's. I usually steer clear from poached eggs because those are so tricky to get right... but they knew how to do them there, and to keep them perfectly warm too. I never would have thought to combine a poached egg with a slice of pink grapefruit on an English muffin, but my goodness, what a pleasant surprise that one was. Brennan's would be a good place for any meal any time of the day, assuming you're not looking for all your meals there to be reasonably economical. I kind of think I recall that Antoinine's closed, but if it's still open, you can get an excellent French meal there if you don't mind a bit of slow service. Pete Fountain has a place in the French quarter with a brick leafy courtyard that is oh, so pleasant to relax within to while away a bit of time while you rest up from all the walking. Felix's Oyster Bar is famous for oysters and they were wonderful too (and inexpensive). For really inexpensive but good food within walking distance of everything else: the Cajun restaurant, The Bon Ton Cafe. Things like gumbo and jambalaya are featured, as well as the whiskey pudding for dessert (tastes better than it sounds). A big open air market-like place that is near the center of things is the place to get your cafe au lait. If you like looking at scenery, then try the paddle-wheel steamboat ride up/down the Mississippi River. I wish I'd had a camera with me when we did that! And on the horse & buggy ride too. My very favorite place in New Orleans was Faneuil Hall. I wish we'd made a music tour, as I think there are many more good places to hear top musicians of every stripe there, but we never did that. I hope you have a wonderful time! Best wishes, Mary

Regarding what the reviewed published scientific literature says about bees and imidacloprid. When a scientific paper is submitted for publication, it is the responsibility of the Editor and the reviewers to see that the paper adequately and fairly covers the prior published literature. Here is a very recent reviewed scienific research paper from a European source. Title: Risk assessment for side-effects of neonicotinoids against bumblebees with and without impairing foraging behavior. Authors: Mommaerts, Veerle; Reynders, Sofie; Boulet, Jana; Besard, Linde; Sterk, Guido; Smagghe, Guy. Authors affiliation: Laboratory of Cellular Genetics, Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belg. Published in: Ecotoxicology (2010), 19(1), pages 207-215. Abstract: "Bombus terrestris bumblebees are important pollinators of wild flowers, and in modern agriculture they are used to guarantee pollination of vegetables and fruits. In the field it is likely that worker bees are exposed to pesticides during foraging. To date, several tests exist to assess lethal and sublethal side-effects of pesticides on bee survival, growth/development and reprodn. Within the context of ecotoxicol. and insect physiol., we report the development of a new bioassay to assess the impact of sublethal concns. on the bumblebee foraging behavior under lab. conditions. In brief, the exptl. setup of this behavior test consists of two artificial nests connected with a tube of about 20 cm and use of queenless micro-colonies of 5 workers. In one nest the worker bees constructed brood, and in the other food (sugar and pollen) was provided. Before exposure, the worker bees were allowed a training to forage for untreated food; afterwards this was replaced by treated food. Using this setup we investigated the effects of sublethal concns. of the neonicotinoid insecticide imidacloprid, known to neg. affect the foraging behavior of bees. For comparison within the family of neonicotinoid insecticides, we also tested different concns. of two other neonicotinoids: thiamethoxam and thiacloprid, in the lab. with the new bioassay. Finally to evaluate the new bioassay, the authors also tested sublethal concns. of imidacloprid in the greenhouse with use of queenright colonies of B. terrestris, and here worker bees needed to forage/fly for food that was placed at a distance of 3 m from their hives. In general, the expts. showed that concns. that may be considered safe for bumblebees can have a neg. influence on their foraging behavior. Therefore it is recommended that behavior tests should be included in risk assessment tests for highly toxic pesticides because impairment of the foraging behavior can result in a decreased pollination, lower reprodn. and finally in colony mortality due to a lack of food." ----------------------------------------------------- I have a copy of the full paper but I can only post the abstract due to copyright restrictions. However, I can send a limited number of copies of the full paper by e-mail "for educational purposes" if anyone desires to read the full paper. I can also quote a section (or sections) to make a point in a discussion. Here is some of what the autors cite about the research that had been previously published on the subject: " To date, most studies on bees mainly consider mortality (Suchail et al. 2000), while less attention is given to sublethal effects which may be detrimental towards pollination and subsequent bee populations. Thompson et al. (2003) and Desneux et al. (2007) reported that sublethal effects must be considered when evaluating the impact of pesticides on pollinators. To date, multiple laboratory studies have focused on the impact of pesticides on the biochemistry of honeybees (Armengaud et al. 2000). However, interpretation of the negative effects on the neurophysiological capacities of insects is difficult, and in turn the effects for the insect or the whole colony are unknown. For honeybees the proboscis extension response (PER) assay has been used to determine the impact of pesticides on the learning ability (Lambin et al. 2001; Decourtye et al. 2004a; El Hassani et al. 2008). Further, Decourtye et al. (2004b) showed the reliability of this method to detect disturbances at the level of the learning behavior on free-flying foraging bees under more natural conditions. For honeybees such abilities are essential because they rely on their visual learning capacity to communicate the distance and the direction to the food source. Pesticide exposure to honeybees while foraging could affect their orientation behavior (Vandame et al. 1995; Bortolotti et al. 2003; Thompson 2003; Yang et al. 2008). In France, it was believed that honeybee mortalities in areas of sunflower crops were linked to the use of pesticides (Bonmatin et al. 2003). This assumption was not supported by Schmuck et al. (2001), who found that the residues in pollen and nectar of sunflowers were too low to be detrimental. But in the field, bees can be chronically exposed to pesticide residues via contaminated stored food (Schmuck et al. 2001; Bonmatin et al. 2003; Miranda et al. 2003; Chauzat et al. 2006). Numerous studies have reported that ingestion of small quantities can lead to sublethal effects in honeybees (Colin et al. 2001; Decourtye et al. 2003); in laboratory and semi-field tests it was reported that low concentrations of imidacloprid taken up via the pollen were responsible for changes in foraging and food collecting and for the loss of ability to communicate and learn (Colin et al. 2001; Decourtye et al. 2003). Similar sublethal effects on the learning ability were found after exposure to fipronil (Desneux et al. 2007), on the communication dance by carbamate insecticides (Thompson et al. 2003) and on the homing flight by the pyrethroid insecticide deltamethrin (Vandame et al. 1995; Ramirez-Romero et al. 2005). Until now, most studies have been performed on honeybees, while other bees like bumblebees may also be affected by pesticide poisoning." -------------------------------------------------

CRL says Rogue Valley Roses has it however I do not see it listed on their website. HMF says Chill Out Roses has it but it is not listed on their website as being for sale. It says to email for availability. I would email or call both of these sources...

I can't give you a solid answer about your climate and size, but it definitely has the deeply veined rugosa leaves. I just got mine this summer. Kind of an experiment to see if it can handle my climate. I have to say that the blooms of this first year plant haven't held up to summer heat very well, but maybe that will improve with maturity. They last longer than the quick-blowing Scentimental, but they aren't nearly as full. Still, they have a pleasing, sweet clove-like scent to my nose. As far as size, the nursery I got mine from said it should grow about 4 feet, but very bushy and kind of rambling. So far, mine has grown out 3 main canes about 3 feet, with plenty of leaves. The plant doesn't seem phased by the heat, just the blooms. Already with the oppressive heat of August behind us, the blooms here are looking better.