This year I'm crazy for lavender roses! Last week I went to buy another lavender rose & it came down to either sweetness or neptune, and neptune won this round. But I would buy Sweetness for sure next time. Also a favorite J&P lavender rose of mine is Enchanted Evening which is new to this year also. It's a floribunda and is one of my new favorites.

I grow Sweetness -- it's just okay. Blooms blow very quickly is the main complaint I have with it. I prefer Neptune, because no matter the color, at least you have the blooms for long enough to enjoy them.

Kathy

hmmm I got it last fall in a raffle. I like it. They don't seem to blow that quickly to me. It repeats very quickly though which is nice.

I got Sweetness this year. It has a nice fragrance, doesn't seem to blow fast, and seems to be a producer. So far, no big disease problems, I do spray.

Sweetness is also new for me this year and it gave me some nice blooms so far. I didn't notice that its flowers scatter faster than the flowers of any other HT or grandiflora. The fragrance is very nice and I love the lavender color, but I am not so sure, if I am too crazy about the mauve reverse, though..., but who knows maybe I get used to it. By now, I still feel, the mauve reverse gives Sweetness a little bit of a restless impression and I find that difficult to successfully combine with other roses.

Mine is still in a small pot and needs desperately to be planted in the ground to grow and flower properly, but that is my fault and not the one of the rose. So far I would say, it looks like it is going to be a promising rose.

I bought Sweetness this spring and so far it's very nice. It's really lavender, it smells good, and seems to last decently well. I'll have to see how it holds up.

Too bad it's a grandiflora... I'm looking for something shorter than Neptune with the perfect flowers of Neptune. Enchanted Evening is the right height, but it doesn't have enough petals... I wish Austin made lavenders...

You could try Fragrant Plum, decobug. It's a very nice lavender and it doesn't get very tall for me.

Fragrant Plum, at least in this climate, are only partly lavender. They are edged strongly in a deeper plum color. Very intriguing and wonderful fragrance, but the overall effect is much deeper than lavender, to me anyway.

I'm still waiting to see what Blue Moon blooms actually look like. I got a tiny rooted cutting from Heirloom, it sat and did very little most of the spring, but seems to be perking up and growing now that the hot weather is here. I could REALLY come to like that quality. Anyway, it had a bud a week ago that got chewed off by a caterpiller. Now it has another just starting to show color. "Pray" for this one please. lol I'd like to actually get to see the rose I bought 6 months ago.
Sweetness sounds really promising. But seems to be on a fairly hefty plant. I grow all mine in pots and am not sure a plant that size would be happy in a pot. I'll certainly keep watching for others' comments on their experiences with it, though.
I just got Deja' Blu from Noreast. Yes, its a miniflora, but the pictures on HMF of the blooms look floribunda-sized! Really attractive full-petaled, too! I'm excited.

Mike

Mike

Fragrant Plum IS too dark :( I already have shocking blue and Love Potion in that color range...

I just chopped Neptune in half, so hopefully the next flush won't be up so high...

I grew Sweetness when it was a J&P test rose a couple of years ago. At first I was very impressed with it's vigorous growth, but then it bloomed and I fell out of love very quickly. Almost as fast as the blooms blew!! My Sweetness blooms only lasted a maximum of six days and then were shot. The color was nice and the fragrance was okay, but not as nice as other lavenders. Then, the most frustrating thing was it's lack of rebloom. The first flush produced about 8 good flowers and the entire rest of the year I only got about 5 more flowers. Ditto the second year as well. Good first Spring flush and then almost nothing the rest of the year. And, the blooms still didn't last more than six days or so. When I cut them for vases in the house they didn't fare any better either.
Then, it's third year I transplanted it from it's container to a spot in the garden and the darned thing just up and dried up and died on me. So, no more Sweetness and no great loss as far as I am concerned.
As for Neptune, I have tried growing two of them and both were duds. They had no growth vigor, bloomed rarely, and the blooms were not very pretty to look at. I gave each bush three years to improve and they didn't so they both got the shovel.
I think that Fragrant Plum, Melody Parfumee, Lagerfeld, and Royal Amethyst are much better lavenders than either Sweetness or Neptune.
Another lavender to watch for is the J&P lavender test rose in this years J&P Test Panel roses. This one is a darker lavender, has very thick petal substance so the flowers last a good long time, and they are wonderfully fragrant. The bush has lots of blooms and looks like it is going to be quick to repeat bloom. It is a grandiflora rather than a hybrid tea, but the blooms are still nice and large compared to most grandiflora's that I have grown. Of course J&P hasn't named it or even decided for sure to market it commercially yet, but I am very confident that they will as it looks to be a very high quality rose so far. It was very quick to break dormancy after I planted the bareroot plant. And, it has grown and bloomed very vigorously and so far has not shown any sign of disease at all and it hasn't been sprayed at all. I don't spray the test roses so that I can really assess their disease resistance. Anyway, watch for this one if/when J&P decides to name it and start selling it commercially on their website. I would really recommend it highly.
John

John, I don't see how anyone can criticize a rose for "only" lasting 6 days!! 6 days sounds excellent to me. I would be thrilled to death if all my roses lasted that long. Ofcourse, if it had so few flowers as you say, then that would be another issue.

I got Sweetness from J&P this year. It was one of 7 roses I got that I waited too long to plant, so the grafted ones all died. Sweetness and Kimberlina did put out some tiny new canes and I have high hopes that they will eventually turn into good plants if I can just continue to give them good care. I now understand that they are own-root roses, so whatever comes out of them will be the true variety, right?

Sweetness already bloomed, one nice little bloom on this poor sick plant. But I love the color and the bloom lasted several days. I hope to see more from it before the season is over.

I'm still learning - I just found out about the difference between a grafted rose and an own-root rose, and why I have so many Dr. Hueys in my gardens.

jon that is weird about the rebloom too. I find the rebloom very quick. Mine is on the third flush already!

I bought Sweetness and Disneyland on sale at a local garden store for $4.99 each (how could I resist?!).

Sweetness didn't (and still doesn't as of this moment) have any blooms on it, but I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I'm collecting mainly purple, white, and red roses - but I'll snatch up other colors if I find them interesting enough. :-)