Scarlet Meidiland and Sevilliana have bloomed and grown more than any other roses I have. They came from the bare root sale they had in 2006, along with Linda Thompson and several others. They got moved out of the rose garden because they got too big, and the colors clashed with all my pastel Austins. They deserve a bed of their own, anyway. The HD roses are already blooming, and while it seems like too many when I'm planting, once they bloom I always regret not buying more! Of course, this year we've had incredible rains and cooler temps, so even the body bag roses have flourished. I think the Wayside Buy 1 get 2 free sale was the clearance sale. I bought several, and one got cancelled for some reason, but the rest have not been shipped yet! They were supposed to go out today, but who knows... They are J&P stock instead of wayside. My very best performers are the ones I bought bare root. The potted bushes from local nurseries start out as bare roots from Weeks or J&P and are grown out in cool greenhouses, and they take forever to adjust to the garden. The bare roots either make it or don't fairly quickly. When Wayside/Parks posts clearance roses, I buy types I wouldn't normally look at like minis and ogr's and rugosas, and I've been really happy with all I've tried. I'm also more likely to buy in multiples on the sales. I'm beginning to understand the design principle of planting in groups. My group of Julia Child is awesome, and so is my row of Fourth of July, and today I saw the first buds on my hedge of Carefree Wonder. I'm hoping it looks like Pappu's someday. All were clearance roses! Anyway, if there is a late sale this year, I sure hope someone posts it! I'm still looking for Disneyland Rose, Laura Bush, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Sweeet Promise, Catalina, Bishop's Castle, Chihuly, Happy Chappy. That's my fantasy, finding all those for 2.69 each with free shipping, haha. cindi

Well, it's not all that hard to speculate how they tanked. I have no insider info, and everything I have came from news articles also, but one sees this often in these cases where Wall Street has done leveraged buyouts of old name companies. This April 2007 article re Harry & David sale of J&P says Harry & David got $46 million in cash when they sold J&P to the Hachenbergs. Most of that was probably leveraged debt secured by the assets of J&P, which ultimately doomed J&P to fail. I did see an approx $800,000 judgment for unpaid royalties to David Austin LLC -- apparently none of the royalties due for the English roses ever got paid after the Harry & David buyout. That and all of J&P's other normal operating costs and credit would probably be amongst the unsecured debt, which means those folks would get close to nothing in the bankruptcy proceeding. As for the bankruptcy, I would further speculate that that the bankruptcy judge wiped out the debt and sold only the assets to the new owner for that $12.8 million price they announced. Then the folks who had held J&P's $44.79 million in listed current debt probably got the $12.8 purchase price divided amongst them, with secured creditors being paid first. And probably the secured creditors were the Wall Street bankers that structured the buyout a few years back. And the whole buyout deal was probably based on a glowing set of financial projections, probably made by those same Wall Street bankers at the time. And those bankers probably also made huge fees for that leveraged buyout deal. And pure speculation here -- but isn't it interesting that the $12.8 purchase price is just about the same as the $12.5 that your article said was borrowed when the leveraged buyout was done. Guess who got made whole? Gotta love Wall Street and those free market enthusiasts who vote against "goverment interference" (i.e. regulation) of what they do -- the Wall Street bankers consistently found themselves big fees and secured debt on the backs of older companies for whom they convinced owners to do these leveraged buyouts. And now the companies fail under the weight of that debt load and we are surprised? I'm not.

The Tropical Series of cannas were developed by American Takii as a seed strain series. The plants produced are not clones of themselves. For the most part, each seed produces a plant very similar to others of the same strain. The first one released was ÂTropical Rose about 1992, and others have followed. Kent

ralph the link didn't work. but as a professional retoucher, i can tell you with certainty those blues you see online and in catalogs are tweaked- sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. it's very easy for even a novice to goose the color a bit. i have a colleague, who is not a gardener, who did a good bit of retouch for a dayllily grower who had him widen the petals on all his pix. it made me pretty mad, and i explained to this friend that although i personally don't like the wide petals, many do, and pay top dollar to buy said 'improved' plants, and the guy was essentially advertising under false pretenses. i haven't been lucky (or unlucky) enough to work on garden type photos for my work. i'd have a hard time with that conflict and would turn down the job even though i'd love working on plant pix if i felt it was false advertising. this was couple yrs ago- but it's made me hesitate at really fantastic pix since, esp since i know how do-able it is. i try to see a plant in person before i believe any hype, and am always skeptical of blues. so buyer beware! tammy