Check out: http://www.adpeonies.com/ This nursery lists a number of white and/or pale pink peonies that are very fragrant (marked VFR). I would take the "strong stems" descriptions with a grain of salt; they claim Duchess de Nemours has strong stems, and mine certainly doesn't!!!!! Personally I would love to get "Eden's Perfume".

Slugs/snails will leave the "see through" area on leaves you describe. I have a lot of slugs around here, but usually they don't bother my roses. However if they were confined to a container with nothing else to munch on, I'm sure they would do a number on them. As for cutting off the leaves the worms ate, outside of appearance, that really wasn't necessary. The more green foliage you have(even if it's tattered) the better. Powdery Mildew is something else. It usually attacks new, tender growth and some roses are more prone to it then others. You can do some things to curtail it culturally, but even if you do everything right, some roses will get it regardless. Here are some cultural hints on preventing P.M.: Good air circulation around the bushes is very important. Also make sure the roses are not allowed to dry out. In experiments, roses subjected to drought were more prone to attacks of P.M. There are spray materials you can use to help you with all of insect/fungus problems. It just depends on whether you care to use them.

A few years back my wife and I were traveling on business in Brazil over Thanksgiving. A professor my wife was working with took us and several of the students to a churrascaria for dinner on Thanksgiving. (A churrascaria is a restaurant where servers roam around the restaurant with skewers of various cooked meats, continually stopping at each table to carve off some to everyone at the table) While there I mentioned that it was the US holiday of Thanksgiving and described it to the professor and the Brazilian students in general terms: get together with family and/or friends and have a large meal together, and described the "traditional" Thanksgiving meal. I was merely trying to make conversation, and make the point that what we were doing was pretty similar to the Thanksgiving tradition. However the professor responded "I'll see what I can do" and flagged the head waiter over, and spoke to him in rapid Portuguese. The waiter responded to us "We don't have any turkey but I'll see what we can do." and disappeared into the kitchen. About 10 minutes later he emerged from the kitchen followed by a server carrying a large skewer of meat, he presented it to us with a big beaming smile saying "This is as close as we could get to turkey. It's Ostrich." It didn't taste even a little like turkey, but it was delicious.

Thank you to all of you for wonderful comments. Mary, I kind of do the same thing you do. I have a small seasonal (6X8) greenhouse and last year I re-potted those that needed it and kept/keep my amaryllis in it until it gets too cold. Most of them are still dormant and I like to let them do their own thing. When I see growth I get them up. My Marquis is a new bulb for me this year, so I can't take the credit for it's spectacular bloom. I also got a Dancing Queen when I bought this one and it had spectacular flowers too but nothing like this one. I too, am astonished with this bulb.