I have ordered from Hortico for many years and I have not have one problem - the roses all look good. The ones I ordered before Christmas are potted - leafing out beautifully and a few even have buds. They are very healthy and I have nothing but praise from Hortico. They have roses you cant get elsewhere and in my opinion, I would order with confidence. Tammy, sorry you had problems getting them but they really look good. I bet once you soak them and get them planted and you get spring weather, they will take off and do great. Would love to know what you got! Good luck! Judith

It'll be kinda hit-and-miss with them. I have been ordering for over a decade from them, only because they are THE only source for many of these roses. They are getting a good bit better at getting the roses to us tho. I was told they count how many roses they graft the season before and anticipate a certain amount of crop failure due to weather conditions, etc. Then they lower the percentage again just to cover any boo-boos, etc. If they end up with more than what they anticipate then it's a plus for us!! Often tho, they end up with complete crop failure once they dig the roses up in winter! Cold storage issues make the percentages go down also. This season, I had better luck with the roses shipped in Fall and Winter than the humongous batch I got in late spring. All the roses arrived green and healthy, but I lost many in the last batch because they just never broke dormancy and turned brown and died. Even mulching didn't help much. I also had two mis-marked ones for the first time in many yrs. That really doesn't happen THAT often, for me anyway. As for your list, all of those are excellent choices. I would add some Poulsen varieties tho too. FLORA DANICA and JOSE CARERRAS are drop-dead gorgeous! You might also look at another Delbard lavender, BLUE NILE. I recently replaced mine that died, and they were the only source for it. Also take a look at some of the Ben Williams roses, like Ann suggested. There are some beauties! I particularly love his striped roses in the Dutch Masters series.

I don't usually get on here at the Antique Rose Forum, but it's been so dead on the regular rose forum, I decided to see what's happening here. First thing that drew my attention was this thread about Hortico. I used to always defend them. I've ordered from them for probably 14-15yrs off and on. It could be frustrating tho. I used to hate how they would list roses that they didn't necessarily have. I had roses on my "backorder" list for yrs! Many I did finally get. But many never ever materialized even at the source. I rarely got mis-marked ones. And when I did they replaced them by crediting my backorder list, or current running list. I've gotten so many roses over the yrs from them that, as others have said, I wouldn't have ever gotten if not for Hortico. They are often the only source for many hard-to-find roses, so if we want them, we have to order from them. But.... I have to say, this past two seasons were the worst I've ever experienced with them. So many mis-marked roses, or roses that died before they bloomed, etc. The thing that really bothers me most, is how they offer quite a lot of roses that are the correct name, but not the correct rose of that particular name. They even show pictures now of some of the roses as they really are, but they don't match their description. Here's a few examples.... Last yr, I ordered MARIETTA, a Tantau ruby-edged white florist HT, but received the same named rose, which is the Tantau red-edged yellow FL. I ordered MARIA THERESA aka CORAL FIESTA, a Dot flaming orange HT. I received MARIA TERESA, a Lens light pink old-fashioned-looking FL. I ordered the Kordes hot orange HT called FORTUNA, but received their lt pink single FL called FORTUNA VIGOROSA. I ordered ALOHA, purported to be the Kordes orange-edged yellow florist HT, but instead received ALOHA the Boerner pink climber. I also had ordered the Dickson apricot FL called DESERT ISLAND last yr. It didn't bloom til this yr, and it was an ugly lt pink semi-double bloom that blew in two days. This yr, my OLYMPIC DREAM rose ended up being rootstock, and OLYMPIC GLORY never broke dormancy, so I don't know if it would've been the right rose or not. SUN CITY and GERMISTON GOLD died. ROYAL COPENHAGEN (which was shipped as supposedly being from my backorder list, which I had actually cancelled) never bloomed, but is still alive. Same goes for HELLO DOLLY. The remaining roses, APRIKOLA, CHANDOS BEAUTY, JAN STEEN and PRINCE OF PEACE all bloomed and appear to be the correct roses. PLEASURE gave me one bloom, and appears to be correct, but I'm not sure. Like an idiot, I ordered a few roses for the coming season... ESTHER GELDENHUYS and TIFTON to replace mine that died. I also ordered two roses, knowing I will be getting the "other" rose with the same name... DIGNITY is supposedly the white LeGrice HT, but the picture shows the mauve Athy HT. And RAZZLE DAZZLE is supposedly the red w/white reverse Warriner FL, but they show a pic of the Fryer orange FL. You would think, with their own pictures showing a totally different rose of the same name, that they would correct the descriptions and classes of these boo-boos. I want to add several David Austin roses that Hortico lists as having, but I'm afraid to try with as many as I'd like to order. I don't want to end up with a bunch of rootstock or some off-the-wall roses. But their prices for the DAs are only $14!! I did get a few from them a few yrs ago and they are correct.... ENGLISH ELEGANCE, A SHROPSHIRE LAD and THE DARK LADY. So, maybe it might be worth trying?? But.... I dunno?....

The issue Michael referred to was the same issue retailers have dealt with since the beginning of "shelf labeling". When products are priced individually, it doesn't matter how they're moved around on the shelves, as their pricing moves with them. When the SHELVES are labeled with no pricing on the products, moving them without moving the labels, results in confusion and miss pricing. There are laws in place preventing the public from being deliberately cheated using these issues. Reports from friends who visited them regularly at that time were that Heirloom didn't label the individual flats. They placed the name of the variety on the shelf the flat was placed on. When flats were moved, often the names were not, resulting in some serious misidentifications. Fortunately, that practice was corrected, but it took some time for them to admit the errors and fix them. Kim