Thanks 'fabaceae' ... that gives me still hope then if you then live in a zone 6 in New Mexico! I live right at 5200 ft. in the city ..zone 7 but relatives in Roswell at about 3500 ft. elevation (?) seem to be in zone 6 but they can grow ocotillo & others in that colder zone than we can! I did go out & try & flex some of the 'Flame' vines .. some snapped/dry but a few did seem flexible & still alive! I do wish now I had planted it on the south facing side of a block wall too.. but thought making an arbor with it would be rather pretty... The VERY old Concords are west facing against a chainlink fence w/slats & they seem indestructible thank goodness! Even being seeded, that old Concord flavor is SO good... seeds & all! The new seedless Concord is leafing out and am anxious to taste those in a couple years to compare to the old seeded Concords! After the minus 17 or so, the Concords that year had weird- very alive but shriveled- green leaves all year & some fruits... but snapped back to the regular look the following year... indestructible- like our 50 yr. old pomegranates & fig! Hope you have a great crop of the 'Flames' this year... they don't get as big as those sold in the store though do they? Heard commercial grown Flames have been sprayed to get the larger size!

I'm planting red celosia, 'Scarlet Flame' zinnias and hardy red hibiscus, but I think that's it for the reds. I don't really do any color schemes but research what the butterflies like and go from there. Not that I planned the colors, but my gardens seem to have mostly turned out purple, orange, and blue and in no particular order other than by height. Someday when I have everything I want here for the butterflies (if there is such a thing as being done...ha), I might just do a flower bed planning colors, not caring if the butterflies go to those flowers or not because I'll already have plenty of flowers for that. I think the red idea is neat and might just try that one since I think it is very pretty. I have a red car so I must like the color. :-) Oh, I just thought of two more reds that I'll be trying here this year, Cardinal Climber Vine and Cardinal Flower! I bought those for the hummingbirds because I heard that they like the nectar from those flowers.

Thanks for your thoughts, rhodyman and mikeybob. I was concerned because a substantial proportion of the reddish seedlings seem not to be flourishing. It is interesting also that not all the seedlings have reddish leaves (the stems seem more uniformly red). A very few that, as an experiment, I grew on top of thick, live moss, but otherwise treated pretty much the same as the ones in flats on sphagnum moss, are a fairly bright green and are growing relatively strongly. I have them all under 40 watt white fluorescent lights, which I recently replaced in case they were not getting enough light. So, I just guess I'll wait and see what happens. Maybe this is within the normal range. (I have a few R. calendulaceum, flame azalea possibly related to cumberlandense, also showing some redness, but not so much, and the few I have seem to be doing all right.) Thanks again.

Rosetom, I understand your hesitation about accepting "petal base-tip-color" as being a valid (reliable) ID-clue. So, please test my theory yourself, using "Scientific Methodology" for the test. In science, for a theory to be accepted as Valid, the theory must produce the same result "consistently" - and also be "replicatable" (produce the same result when other researchers test it). Select four large petals from a healthy, fresh (young newly-opened) red-rose bloom. But not from the very-outermost ring of petals, nor from the small central petals). At their base is a small point, which I call the "attachment-tip." It will be the same color on each of the four petals taken from that bloom. Decide whether that tip-color is closest to one of the following colors: White "Nearly-white" (a quite pale yellowish-greenish color) Butter-yellow Deep-yellow (some are an "electric" deep-yellow). Take note of the "comparative size" of the non-red area at the petals' base. (I've noticed that although the base-tip-color of Mr. Lincoln and Chrysler Imperial is the same (electric deep-yellow), the deep-yellow area of Mr. Lincoln's petals is consistently about twice as large as Chrysler Imperial's deep-yellow area.) Next, do the same tip-examination procedure for (say) three other varieties of red roses in your garden. The result I got was: (1) The attachment-tip / base-area color was the same for each of the four petals from a particular varieity's bloom. (2) The attachment-tip / base-area color of some red-rose varieties is distinctly different from that of other red varieites I have two bushes of Mr. Lincoln. I checked the tip-color of large FRESH petals taken from each of the two bushes. The tip-color was the same (specifically, electric deep-yellow) for both bushes. I also have three bushes of Dr. Huey - and the tip-color on large FRESH petals from each of them was the same (specifically, white). This data led me to third conclusion: (3) Petal-tip color seems to be a "genetically-set" characteristic. Important Note: The petals' tip-color tends to fade lighter as the bloom ages - therefore, for the tip-color test to be valid, check ONLY some large FRESH petals from a newly-opened bloom. I am now quite certain that if someone handed me a large fresh petal from each of four red-rose varieties WHOSE TIP-COLOR I AM FAMILIAR WITH ...I can correctly name the rose each petal came from. Please do not take what I've said here as being bragging - take it as "interesting amateur scientific research." And please check my Petal-Tip-Color Theory for yourself, on various red roses from your garden. Let me know the results you get. (As I noted elsewhere, the theory also seems to work well on orange, pink, and lavender roses - but white blooms and yellow blooms can be difficult, because those colors are also tip-colors.) Regards, JohnReb