I have not considered using 'Mermaid'. Dealing with those nasty thorns would make it a challenge. And I have no reason to think that it's adapted to our soils -- certainly I seldom see it here, and when I do, it's virtually always grafted. I don't remember ever seeing an own-root one in Florida. And while its parent the McCartney Rose is a weed farther north, one never sees it here, and it won't survive for long. I also don't know how easy 'Mermaid' is to root from a cutting, but that would be important if it is to be used as a stock. Still it may be worth an experiment. Grafting roses is easy, compared to other commonly grafted plants, but it's a skill that must be learned. The ideal way is to get an expert grafter to show you how, and then to watch you do several grafts, making suggestions as you go. I have a class of 30 intro. to horticulture students this year, none of whom had ever grafted anything. They each did 2 roses in lab, and it appears the success rate is 100%. I was very pleasantly surprised. But I did spend a good deal of time with demonstrations, and then careful coaching as they did it. And we had only one kid send off to the medical center for stitches (5)! There are articles on grafting/budding on the American Rose Society website: http://www.ars.org/About_Roses/propagation.html Malcolm

My Louis Phillipe froze solid in his clay pot this winter. I now noticed that one stubby litle cane is still alive. I re-potted and am hoping he springs forth from the roots. I'm betting he will. Old Blush was also frozen solid. It was deader than a door nail....or so I thought. It was one of the pots I hadn't dumped out yet due to lack of time. It sat baking in the sun with a few other dead potted roses. Lo and behold I now have a seven inch Old Blush with a bud on it. Amazing. Sandy

Louis-Philippe of France Louis-Philippe (aka Philippe Egalite or the bourgeois king) of France (1773 Â 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848 in what was known as the July Monarchy. He was the last king to rule France, until being overthrown by the revolution of 1848. I thought there was a red China rose named Louis Phillipe that was very popular in the South and still to be found in dooryards all over. I never heard the name applied to Celsiana, though anything is possible. The Orleans family were more flexible (or libertine if you didn't like them) than the Bourbons, the decapitated older royal branch of the family, a fact that could have helped increase their popularity here in the states. The Bourbon Count of Chambord missed being put back on the throne in 1870 because he refused to accept the tricolor flag (white being the Bourbon color, unlike the namesake rose, which is pink) and the patriotic French people refused by that time to give it up. He was a stick-in-the-mud about protocol and everything else, he and his supporters, as Tallyrand (or someone) famously put it, having learned nothing and forgotten nothing during their exile. I almost fell off my chair laughing at Jon's post.

OK, so my 'Louis Philippe' from RVR has started blooming again, and the squirrels are too busy burying food to notice (and eat) the flower buds before they open. While certainly not single, they're not (yet?) quite like the pictures I've seen of 'Louis Philippe'. I am thinking that this is due to it being young, but I definitely notice a white eye at the center. The shape of the flowers is cupped, and on the outside does look just like 'Louis Philippe' on HelpMeFind, but it's as though someone ripped out the very center. I'm seeing two or three rows of petals on the outside, and I smell something that reminds me of Cherry Nibs (the short pieces of red "licorice" put out by Twizzlers). I DO think I PROBABLY got the right rose, being as none of the other red Chinas sold by RVR look to be a better match, but I'm wondering if anyone growing 'Louis Philippe' could "dissect" a flower and tell me if the large outer two or three rows of petals have white bases. Perhaps you can't see them on fully-double flowers, but are they there nonetheless? I'll have to take pics in the next couple of days. I notice white centers on Jardineratx's pic, and that the center seems "missing", and this is sort of how my rose looks -- except on mine, the petals it has do maintain the cupped shape found on 'Louis Philippe'. I think that Jeri's pics of 'Louis Philippe' offer a good base for how mine look -- just imagine removing the inward-folding petals, keep the outer three rows of petals, and keep the cupped shape. And when you peek into the "cup", you can see that the petals have white bases, forming a white "eye" that is mostly obscured by the cup-shape of the outer petals. That's how mine look. Is that just 'Louis Philippe' as a baby? :-) ~Christopher