This is a rose I got a couple of years ago from the nursery Walter Branchi, now owned, as I understand it, by the former manager Paola Lungaroni. Anyway, most of the roses are doing adequately to excellently after a slow start and two droughty years, but the Comtesse is a sad sight: four little sticks and no new growth in several months, at least. Like the other roses from Walter Branchi, it's grafted. Does anyone grow this rose? How does it behave for you? Did I just get a poor plant, or is it generally a fussy creature?

I'll put in a word for a couple of other roses that I don't hear so much about. 'Comtesse de Caserta' is a healthy rose with lovely, semi-double to lightly double flowers of variable delicate warm pink. Drought or no drought, this plant has started to grow and flower this fall, and I think she's going to be a winner. Next fall I'll take cuttings and see how they do. 'Papa Gontier' is a rich cherry red this time of year and a low, speading, healthy plant that looks like it could get large in time. 'Mlle. la Comtesse de Leusse' is likewise putting on fall growth and, if the warm weather holds, looks like she'll have a nice flush. Normally I don't expect much here in November, but the weather this year is a month behind schedule. This rose I remember having flowers of a rather uniform pink; the fall flowers are closer to red; the catalog description speaks of a touch of saffron in the color, which I haven't seen yet. All these roses are from Walter Branchi and are grafted. Another rose, growing down in the hospital bed in the bottom of the garden, though unlabelled is, I believe, 'Isabelle Nabonnand'. I know we moved her down there because, after a good start, she started to mope in the Box Garden. When we dug her up we found out that her roots had been invaded by elms. Anyway, the rose in the bottom of the garden is certainly a Tea rose and that's the only one I remember us putting down there. Vigorous, low, spreading growth, and the flowers are notable: long-petaled, loosely double, and of a white-streaked hot pink with enough orange in them to set them on fire. This one came ownroot from Nino Sanremo. I'm looking forward to taking cuttings next fall from all these roses.

Last note: I want to put in a word for 'Isabella Sprunt', a rose that I don't hear that much good about, and yet I love this rose. This is the lemon yellow sport of 'Safrano', similar to the sport parent in all but color. There are simply not enough lemon-yellow roses around, to begin with, certainly I don't know of a Tea rose that looks anything at all like 'Isabella Sprunt'. I have finally planted this beauty in a spot that isn't absolutely brutal, and am looking forward to the results. It grows well, has dark wood that contrasts beautifully with the flowers, is fragrant and tough. I've never seen a trace of pink in the blooms. It's unique, in my experience, and one of the roses I yearn over.

Melissa