Leo - thanks for the tip! I sure hope I can get it! Good for you!! Looks like a fab rose. Valerie - yes I do go to the zoo, but I'm usually so exhausted (I have a neurological disorder) that any extra walking is difficult, plus I have to watch where my feet are going to go, so I don't get to look around too much. LOL An orange species rose would be pretty interesting. Next time we go (could be awhile) I'll try to remember to check on it. As to TB, I'm going to pass on it, because if you agree with me on the blowing fast, then it sounds like it's standard operating procedure for it. I'm going to check out Turbo and Dr. Merkeley - thanks! Thorn grower - oh that's too bad! I just don't grow roses that ball. I had Brother Cadfael at my old home - beautiful with tons of flowers - but they kept balling. Who needs that!! Thanks everyone - I'm off to check on Turbo and Dr. M, Carol Wow!! Thanks York Rose!! We sure look out for each other on this forum.

Hi Karen! I live in Calgary. However, my roses will not work for your sister, because I overwinter them (potted) in the garage - so I can go up to zone 7 or 8. However - these are low maintenance roses that everyone buys here - because they are good! 1. Morden Blush - I had this in Edmonton - it grew to 3 X 2 feet. Lots and lots of blooms. Very pretty. 2. Morden Centennial - lots and lots of blooms. I grew this in Edmonton. Really pretty. 3. John Davis - wonderful rose - I have this in my front yard. Gets completely covered in roses. Has to establish first in order to get the huge amount of bloom it can get. 4. If she wants to try a fragrant tender rose - Brother Cadfael grew to 3 - 4 feet in my Edmonton garden. I protected it - but the canes were fine to the tips - so she could see if it survives. 5. Hansa - everyone here grows this one. The city uses it extensively. Very fragrant. Hybrid Rugosa - so it is close to a species rose. 6. Alexander McKenzie - probably closest to a hybrid tea bloom you will find in a hardy rose. 7. Therese Bugnet - hybridized in Alberta and really tough. I grew it in zone 2. Lovely fragrance. Yes, we get Chinooks - and they are the bane of people who grow tender roses here. However, the above roses should be fine. John Davis is probably the best of the lot. But they are all really stellar roses. I can not seem to use apostrophes. So I am sounded quite stilted. Sorry about that :) Carol

Hi folks, Glad you enjoyed the photographs. Hopefully I was able to transfer my excitement at seeing for the first time a rose I had heard of, but never seen the blooms in real life. They are definitely more than I hoped for when I saw their color, but again as some have cautioned it is one moment in time and a particular spring for temps rain etc so color change is no doubt possible. But gads a new bloom colored apricot - peach rose totally hardy, going 6 to 8 feet and cloaked well in blooms in zone 2 and 3 ... me, I have died and gone to heaven. My ones in the garden are surprizing me as Leo suggested they would. I had a crooked eye when I received them because of my limited experience with suckers, but they are flourishing after about 4 weeks in the ground, along with Suzanne, Butterball and Haida (sp?). The beautiful and graceful pink did not have a label that I could find but it had the genes to me of a pimpinefolia due to the leaves and form. However I now believe it to be too double to be "double blush burnet" as mine is definitely not that double and is 5 or 6 years old. There was also a near pure white semi-double "pimpinefolia" just beginning to bloom with no tag that I need to go back and check when the college is in business hours ... got to find the curator and get a map. I know 4 or 5 years ago I received, or saw a map, of the gardens in some periodical where they were advertizing an open house and rose sale. I have to dig more as a fast pick of google did not find it. By the way I finally got the first official blooms in my garden today of "previous years plants". First was Cornhill's Mary of Scots" that is not totally cane hardy for me(lose half the length of the new canes) and Theresa Bugnet - every year I appreciate the latter rose more and more. For some reason primula is very slow this year but as usual excellent cane survival - nada damage except maybe an inch on the tips of 5 foot canes - in a year that smacked the mordens and explorers - don't get me wrong I like those roses but there more 4 to 5 zone ones to me. My further excitement is the - not hardy - Geschwind's Orden had enough canes left and it will give a nice bloom this year along with De la Grifferaie. Both after only the first winter.

Oh my. What is a passionate rose lover like you doing in that glacial hell hole? Reading about your endeavors has exhausted me and I haven't even lifted a shovel. I admire your grit and determination, but would love to see you rewarded with thousands of blooms on your rose bushes for all your hard work. I bet they could use engineers in zones 7 to 10!