Not wanting to rain on anyone's parade, but a word of warning for the unwary. Sounds great doesn't it? 10 different cultivars on one understock. Can I let you in on some practical aspects of these offers, made to entice those who often know little better than to part with their money. It is usual to put 2 buds onto a standard understock. One, to give a bit of insurance should one bud not take, and two, to provide a balanced head, given that the buds are implanted on opposite sides of the stock, one slightly below the other. Usually both take and to begin with we have an acceptably robust plant. However after a few years one of the scions (usually the lower) does better than the other, which eventually dies. The lower scion gradually expands to enclose the entire head of the understock, in effect starving the upper scion of nourishment, and it dies. Very rarely is it the other way around. If you apply this logic to stock budded up with 10 cultivars, it follows that in 10 years you will have a 3' standard of the lowest budded cultivar. In addition to this, the cultivars mentioned are not vigorous enough to make a balanced plant at 6' height. They do have names of popular and reliable cultivars to lure the punters. Iceberg and Bonica are OK at tops 4' height understocks, while 6' understocks are usually reserved for the weeping or procumbent cultivars, to give that much larger, weeping and/or umbrella form. Hey, but in the end it's your money.

Thanks for your replies, wirosarian, Jackie, Patty, and SoFL rose. I'm surprised to hear that our temps could be cold enough to cause this. We have days in the 60's and nights in the 40's lately. But, I guess it does make sense, because if it was much colder, it wouldn't bloom at all. I never would have considered cold temperatures causing it. Some sort of bug was consistently ruining the buds on Irish Creme during the summer. I just assumed it was the same thing. I think you guys maybe correct. I'm looking more closely now, and I don't really see chewing from a pest. I'm glad I asked, because I never once thought it could be anything but pest damage. Thank you all so much! Lisa

Thank you to all who responded. We are building a house and it is clad with limestone but the mortar that was applied is too dark and we are struggling to get the right color. We have tried to match the stone color but have not succeeded. Our goal is an old world look like in the photos.

Lowes says it is discontinued.