I have Allegra and Jeri Jennings. They're both doing well for me. JJ is new in the garden but is very healthy and has put on decent growth for a first year band. Excellent repeat. I've got Joyce Barden on order. I can't wait to see this one blooming in my garden. There are lots of folks on this forum who are big fans of Paul's roses so I'm sure they will chime in soon.

My Paul Barden roses are all pretty young--less than 2 years old, so things will probably change as the plants mature. This has been my experience with them: Golden Buddha: a bloom machine, but check the photos on HelpMeFind. If you're expecting a yellow rose like the pictures at RVR, you might be disappointed. The color is described as varying with temperature--I've only seen apricoty-orange blooms on mine so far. Very pretty blooms cover the bush in flushes most of the summer--some balling in the fall. Had some pretty severe dieback this winter--1/2 to 2/3 of the canes died completely. Pretty healthy otherwise--I don't spray, and it was very clean until the rains started in the fall, when there was a minor amount of blackspot. Again, all these comments refer to young roses and things might change as they mature. Oshun: Didn't survive a spring freeze. Had a bloom on the band when I received it, and it smelled great--color was much paler than expected--maybe because it was just a young rose. When I pulled it up after it died, it had next to nothing in the way of roots--it might not be the fault of the rose, I might have gotten an inferior specimen. Jeri Jennings: A great rose so far. It's grown like a weed and has a very pretty arching form. Flower color has been variable from pale yellow/almost white to intense yellow to almost pink. Lots of blooms for a young plant. A little mildew late in the season--I'm hoping she'll grow out of it. Probably my second-favorite Barden rose so far after Marianne. Marianne: Very vigorous. Several blooms the first year. Color was variable, from cream-colored to the wonderful peaches and yellows shown in the best photos of this rose. No disease problem at all. May be my favorite of my Paul Barden roses. Fara Shimbo: A little slow getting started, and hasn't bloomed yet, but it looks like it's starting to get established. I have high hopes for this rose this year. A little powdery mildew--something it might grow out of--otherwise no problems. Carol's Favorite: Too new to tell. Planted last fall, looks like it got through the winter just fine. Mel Hulse: To new to tell. Planted last fall, looks like it's about to bust out in leaves any minute now. Just got bands of "Crested Damask" and "Dragon's Blood", and they look like healthy little plants.

Kmama, suckering roses, such as gallicas or the wild Rosa californica, expand and send up new flowering canes via underground rhizomes, eventually forming a thicket or patch. My Rose du Roi of commerce has been in the ground just 3 years and has yet to do much of that (so, perhaps not as vigorous that way as some. For many years I have had an unnamed mossy pink gallica-type that, really, is a weed, though with a very full and beautiful, well-perfumed flower. Every spring I need to circumscribe its perimeter with a shovel to keep the patch around 5' diameter, and more than a year after digging up one population of it, I am still digging it up! I always take care to never plant that one anywhere near the "civilized" part of the garden.) Thus far, the canes of my Rose du Roi have not exceeded about 2.5', so I can't imagine pegging it, but, anyway, each cane puts out several branches without pegging. The leaves are very healthy (saying something, this year) and cover the plant well. Current flowers are about 4" in diameter. This is one of my favorite rose flowers of all: beautiful deep red-going-to-purple, heavy scent, huge number of petals arranged in intricate swirls, flower flat and quartered. Just love it -- it is more beautiful in person than most of the photos on HMF would indicate (tough rose to photograph).

I received this rose in 2005 for winning a contest at a spring district meeting. It arrived as a bare root directly from Weeks and hadn't been named yet. All it had was a tag with the code name WEKbepmey attached. It's not performed all that well in my zone 5a. The flowers are stunning with a yellow neon color that seems to glow. The only problem is it seldom blooms for me. It does seem to be disease resistant and root hardy but it's not a vigorous bush in my garden. It's rated to zone 5b so it just may not like my growing area.