I did them several yrs back in the mid-90s. It was fun, until I found out they had already picked the next-yr's "Rose of the Year" and named it before they even sent the test roses out to us. The rose at that time was MOON SHADOW. It was the worst rose of the test batch, and I ended up tossing it. I quit doing the testing for a looong time after that because I was so disgusted, knowing that my time and effort were being wasted. I did do them the last three yrs here tho. Mainly because I liked the looks of the pics they showed of the roses. Back when I did them before, they never showed pics of them beforehand; they only had the color stamped on the tags, so it was more interesting anyway. But the test roses they send out now, most of them do end up being marketed, either here or overseas. So it can be fun to be able to get a rose a yr before everybody else does. Or you can have a rose that may be only marketed overseas, which is kind of cool. I actually have a wonderful rose from the 90s that is now only available in Australia and New Zealand. It's a beautiful yellow-orange called ALMOST SUNSET. So, you can have some fun with the test roses. However I find that many roses don't really show their full potential for at least 2-3yrs. I ended up not sending in any evals the last two times because I figured I was wasting my time. It's just nice to get some pretty roses earlier than the general public. I decided not to do them this time around tho, because this batch doesn't look all that interesting to me.

This years J&P Test Panel has actually been pretty good in my opinion. I have already stated that I love Summer of Love and Malibu from it and they are definitely keepers for me. As for the other two, the jury is still debating but for the most part it is good news as well. JACdrama, the red/white stripe has bloomed once so far and they were pretty nice but could have a little tighter form to them. The color,size, and fragrance were nice. I hope the form tightens up and that the rebloom is good. If so, I will definitely find a spot for it in the garden somewhere. JACelvet, the dark velvety red, was super slow to break dormancy. I am telling you that it took a good 10 weeks and I thought at about 7 weeks it was about to dry up and die. In a side conversation with the J&P rep one day when they called to try and get an order out of me, I told her of my concerns with it. She offered to send me another so I let her and three weeks later a second one arrived. Lo and behold the very next day my original plant broke dormancy like gangbusters and has done a nice job of catching up with the rest of them. The second JACelvet bush they sent broke dormancy that very first same week so now I have two very good growing JACelvet plants. The bushes are growing vigorously and have started blooming. The blooms could use another few petals to fill them out but the form is decent with good petal shape and petal substance that makes them last a long time on the bush. the color is excellent. Many times first blooming cycles end up with fewer petals on the blooms than what I would like but most times that is one thing that will definitely improve with a little more age and maturity of the rose bush. I truly think this will be a keeper as well and this will be a good rose when it matures. All four bushes have had very good disease and insect resistance with my usual spray program that I use on all my 225+ roses. They've had no disease or insect problem at all even including the nasty little thrips I get each and every springtime. All of the potted bushes were growing well until I sprayed a new amendment item I bought on-line on all my potted roses including 18 mini's on my back deck and my pot ghetto where the test roses are currently growing. The stuff left a greasy,waxy, gray residue on them and stunted the growth of the big roses and almost killed my mini's by defoliating them almost completely. Thankfully they have all rebounded as the stuff has been wearing off of the leaves and the bushes are putting on new foliage growth. This little tragedy slowed the growth on all my roses but they are coming back and I cannot fault the roses for this as it was definitely my fault for spraying them with the stuff--Liquid Karma it's named. Maybe I got the quantity wrong, but I don't think so. I sure won't use it again, that's for sure, so I just wasted my good money for nothing. For the person who asked, all the test roses that J&P is sending out are own root. I was surprised at first by this as o/r hybrid tea roses for me have generally not been very good growers especially in the first year. However, these have been the exception both last year and this one. last years test roses grew and bloomed well and continue to do well this year too. I am condifent that these test roses will do the same. J&P has done a commendable job of carefully and correctly selecting o/r roses that will do well without being on an understock like Dr. Huey which is what they generally use on most of their roses. John

Their customer service is horrible this year, too :( They were supposed to replace a rose I bought last spring, and I tried bugging them about it since last May, but their final verdict is a $10 credit. Great. What are the credit card policies on this sort of thing? If they send dogs, can I just have my cc company cancel the charges, you think? Surely bum product + bankruptcy would work to not have to accept another store credit if it's done quickly enough? ***Does anyone have any experience at all with Heavenly Dawn? That's who I'm considering using my credit on if I decide to actually use it.*** I was going to buy Heaven on Earth there now, too, but any J&P rose available elsewhere at all should be bought elsewhere, imho. (Unless your cc company is usually very great about bum companies, I suppose ;) Mine usually is.) Heavenly Dawn isn't some known rose, is it?

Ok, I went out and took a whiff! It's been a long time since I've smelled a sweet pea, but the scent sorta reminds me of what I remember sweet peas smelling like. Definitely not a "tea" scent or "myrrh" or citrusy. Maybe it is SUGAR PLUM! Those two blooms have already blow quite a bit, but they haven't fried yet. Very lovely rose. I can't imagine them not intro'ing it. But then, one of the others from that batch is a gorgeous creamy yellow with red edge, and I know they never marketed it.