I ordered three Sunsprites, years ago, and they turned out to be Gracelands.

Same yellow color I wanted, size fit where they were planted, and they are very pretty.

I had a bunch this year that were wrong. Tricolore de Flandres turned out to be Rosa Mundi, Bubble Bath was Cornelia, and Rosa Moyesii "Geranium" was some hot pink thing--I think r. forrestiana.

Rosa mundi was a good miss; the others need to be moved. Almost time for transplanting...rah.

At least one "mistake" has turned out ok. "Pink Poodle" had two roses in the pot. The first one to bloom was something completely different, but the second one finally bloomed and it's right. Yay!

I did a whole whiny blog post on just this subject earlier in the year. We're not talking body-bag roses here, either ... these were roses ordered from good nurseries, and roses that aren't anything close to what they're supposed to be.

Hoag House Cream, a found hybrid tea, was Reveille Dijonnais, a very colorful climber ... gotta be moved.

Schultheis American Beauty, another HT, was Schoener's Nutkana, a huge shrub. I can understand this one, since they're so close alphabetically. SN is a wonderful rose, it just can't stay in the HT bed since it's at least 6' in diameter now.

Mrs Aaron Ward, an apricot HT, is some dark pink hybrid perpetual instead. Another nice rose, but not the one I ordered.

I wanted to put Souvenir du Mme. Leonie Viennot on the fence in my rose field ... what I have instead is a mauve I-think-it's-a-noisette. It's a nice rose, but I can't propagate it and sell it unless I know what it is.

There are others ... I could go on for days.

If you want to see the photos, here's the link to my blog post.

Connie

Here is a link that might be useful: Blog

Here's a funny story. When we were new to rose growing, hubby would do a lot of research before purchasing. He decided that 8 Seafoams would be the perfect rose for in front of our low stone wall that run along the driveway. The 2 ft height was perfect. He had to prune it back hard the second year as the canes were getting quite long. By the 3rd year they were a monstrous size, growing into the driveway, scratching out cars as we drove by. We hosted a rose society garden tour and asked one of the CR's why our Seafoams were so unruly. She replied "Because these are New Dawn" They have since been replaced by a nice row of miniatures.

There is a saying in Italy: "not all bad things come to harm", which means felix culpa, i.e. that sometimes what seemed bad turns out to be good.
It is thanks to a mistake by a nursery that I planted scabrosa, now I have 5 of them, they are wonderful roses I simply didn't know.
Same thing for cocorico, I did not like the picture on the catalogue, but the rose was wonderful, it was just an ugly picture, I am very happy they made a mistake :-)

Connie, I so enjoyed your blog.

I was visiting a friend last summer who only has a couple of roses in her beautiful garden and is quite an expert on other plants and gardening techniques. She talked on and on about her Betty Boop and that she had to have one become of her fondness for the cartoon character, etc. Unfortunately, her Betty Boop turned out to be a Scentimental. And even though I have 50 + roses -- which is mostly what I garden and have both roses, she argued with me and would not believe me because the incorrect metal tag was still hanging on the plant. If I had only bet her some bucks on this one, I could have made some money. Eventually, she had to acquiesce because I sent her the proof-- links to HMF. Even offered to get a Betty Boop to make her feel better and to save face. It's so common! Good thread. CJ

One of my favorite HTs is a mislabled one. I have no idea what it is, but it sure as heck not the Broadway I thought it was! Broadway is yellow with pink edges and the flowers on the plant are Pink with marbled yellow, actually MUCH nicer than the one I thought and more unusual. It is kinda hard to see here but there is a lot of yellow marbled throughout and of course every flower is different.

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The one above is what I have, the one below is what it SHOULD be......the buds on mine now are almost 100% deep pink. Oh well, its pretty and its healthy!

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I bought WS2000 from Ashdown. It isn't WS2000. I don't know what it is. It's reddish singles that are close enough in color to what I wanted that it gets to stay. So I'm only a bit disappointed but this rose, whatever it is, did very well this year and is a nice big plant that blooms repeatedly.

Renee Danielle, a hybrid wichurana rambler, turned out to be Francois Poisson...a hybrid wichrana rambler.
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Martha, bourbon sport of Zephrine Drouhin, turned out to be the polyantha Mary Daley.
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Eric

I thought I was buying Kordes Perfecta (Walmart body bag), but the rose turned out to be something else. I didn't realize the it had been mismarked until the plant leafed out and produced its first bloom. I'm now the proud owner of Cleo, a light pink sport of Kordes Perfecta. I wasn't looking for light pink, but the pointy and plentiful petals on this hybrid tea won me over. Thanks to HelpMeFind.com and photos posted by Beth of Northern California, I was able to identify Cleo. I don't think this rose is sold by many nurseries. The few Cleos I could find are in California.