Your best bet for finding a Gypsy for sure would be Vintage Gardens. They KNOW the roses, and, while not impossible, receiving a mis named plant from them would be less likely than other hit and miss efforts. Currently, it's only custom root, which is expensive, but you have to determine what it's worth to you to obtain the right one. Until five years ago, I dealt with contract growers here in Southern California. They have lists of the roses they bud...supposedly. In cases of very distinct roses with none that resemble them greatly, they have the right rose. I've not received anything other than Peace labeled as Peace. Camelot and Gypsy both came as Fragrant Cloud. Cherry Parfait, when still pretty new, came as Double Delight. Paradise came as anything mauve. The climber Golden Glow came as the HT Gold Glow and vice versa. Just about anything orange to pink came as Tropicana. Anything red, fragrant or not, came as Oklahoma and Mr. Lincoln. Oregold was anything yellow, regardless of how yellow. There were many others which resembled the named rose, but which definitely weren't. These companies remain in business because of price and quantity. They serve the big box segment of the market because they can provide cheap, named, budded roses in huge quantities. Because they limit their production to a smaller list of varieties, they produce masses at very low prices. They permit a business to order in several different ways, each one determining how much the individual roses cost. If you want to cherry pick and specify the names you wish and want grade 1 plants, they would cost you as much as $2.75 each wholesale cost. This is before they are potted and grown into bud and bloom plants. You could allow them to choose what they needed to get rid of, specifying type (HT, floribunda, shrub or climber), how many of each and which grades you would accept. You could order simply by color, when you would definitely get more mis named plants because of foul-ups in the fields, or just order a quantity and leave everything else up to them. By not being picky about what you received, and ordering by the thousands, you could drop your wholesale cost to as low as about .85 a plant. You have to at least triple the cost for a bud and bloom plant, so picking the varieties and grade would result in at least a $9 blooming canned plant. Letting them dump whatever they had too much of and needed to get rid of could provide you with around a $3 canned, blooming plant. Of course, there were no guarantees of them being properly named and no freedom from viral infection. They weren't guaranteed to live, but were guaranteed to be alive when received. If planted properly and cared for appropriately, they usually lived and flowered, whether they were correctly identified or not. This is likely what you're seeing in the "home improvement" stores as there are many growers who avail themselves of such contract growers as they can pump out the product much less expensively than anyone can produce their own. If you want a plant less likely to be virus infected; more likely to be true to name; in higher percentages of higher grades; held in proper conditions to keep them fresher until shipping and with a guaranty to be true to name and live longer, you bought from J&P, Week's, Star-Meilland, etc., but the wholesale costs of their plants were double to quadruple that of the contract growers, depending upon how many of each variety you ordered and whether they were true bare roots, body bagged or potted. This was also the only way to get the new, patented roses everyone came in looking for. While you can luck out and find a decent plant of a rose true to name in the contract grower category, your chances are much lower than if you bought from the major producers. And, if you wanted anything newer, you had to buy from the majors as newer is always more highly controlled and more expensive unless someone had excess and dumped them wholesale to reduce their inventory while the demand was still high. It hasn't been uncommon to find new, patented varieties mis labeled as something non patent and sold cheaply to reduce stock and avoid royalty payments. Of course, in recent years, the world has changed because of the collapse of so many markets and producers, but that only means it's worse now than before. I realize much of the fun is finding the "bargain" plant of what you want, but the odds are getting worse against your getting a decent plant of the actual rose you want in those selections. Last spring, at my local Lowe's, I encountered tables full of variously colored roses all labeled Oregold. You could buy a red Oregold, a pink Oregold, etc. Imagine trying to straighten that one out years from now. Kim

Will my experience in TN and NC do? Fragrant Cloud is still my favorite HT. Once established it is a robust plant with great bloom production. The petals have heavy substance and the fragrance is incredible. Must be sprayed for BS in the South. I've grown it both grafted and ownroot. Just Joey - I have two ownroot in my garden. I've had it grafted also. Its winter tender, spindly and not all that productive. It does have the most incredibly beautiful fragrant blooms. I have it still because it was my mother's favorite rose. I'm about to pull both out and buy Martha (a sport of ZD) as a replacement tribute to my mother. Cherry Parfait - a sprawling, very productive bush that just pumps out blooms even in heat and drought. It is really more of a shrub than a grandiflora in habit. I love all the color variations in the blooms. No fragrance. Must be sprayed for BS in the south, although it has decent resistance. Peace - I have (finally) a good ownroot clone. Although its currently unhappy because I moved it. The bush is sort of awkward, but its hard to argue with the blooms. There is a reason this rose is so well known, and it is the beauty of the bloom. It is a robust bush once established, but requires very regular protection against BS.

Sheer Magic's color is difficult to describe, but I would not call it apricot. It's an odd blended coral that I'm not particularly fond of. Also, SM is wildly phototropic (changes color rapidly in the sun). Under my conditions, the rather nice color variation doesn't last much past the open bud stage. The color change seems to work in reverse if SM is cut & brought indoors. The blooms have a LONG vase life, but the color becomes a kind of washed-out pink as the darker coral slowly fades. When it's color is at its best, SM closely resembles 'Brigadoon'. It's been a while since I've seen Fragrant Cloud & am having difficulty remembering the precise color, but I'm inclined to say that it's similar to Sheer Magic's color AFTER the sun has done its number.

Thanks to all. I am learning a lot. I just took pictures of my Own root Roses. I purchased 2 Touch of Class and 2 Moncheri Roses from Amity last year. One Touch of Class did not make it. We had a hard 5 day freeze the first week in April last year. This was following a very warm March and my roses had already started to leaf out. They were still covered with composted cow manure and mulch. I only added the cones to the 4 from Amity roses. I lost around 8 of my HT last year and that is why I decided to try Own Root roses. I purchased 4 roses from Roses Unlimited a month ago during the sale--buy one and get one free. Those roses are growing well and full of buds. I live in Louisville, Ky. I have 31 HT, and I love HT, and I have one English rose and 8 Knockout Roses. I have a small yard and keep the Knockout Roses small. I just pruned them again a few weeks ago and they are still happy and about to bloom again. I am learning so much from this forum and all of you know more than some of the rose growers. I guess I will just stick with buying roses from Roses Unlimited for the future and continue to learn from all of you. Betty Sorry about the pictures--some came up twice.