My needles arrived(7g)with most of the spears pulling,I did get my money back but I lost one,the other one is coming back from the side shoots and is doing quite well, some shoots are on their second to third leaf with the benefit of the root system of the main plant. I agree with DZ about the light and cover,since my needles were not favored by me to survive,I just built a leaf cage with moisture protection,(also wrapped the plants in burlap)they came through winter(lowest temps of -16F and -17F)with no added heat.One thing I wish I would have done is leave a min/max thermometer in with them to see how cold it got. think the main thing with needles(and other palms)this far north is to keep them dry and limit direct sun(during winter) and heat in an inclosure as the roots have a very hard time pulling up moisture when soil temps drop during winter.

Masiel - my teas have grown a bit fewer since last year's bitterly cold winter but I still have 4 or 5. The best have been Mme. Antoine Mari and Maman Cochet, and with the leaf bag protections they'll bloom more or less all season. Mrs. BR Cant is also good and fairly reliable in blooms, as was Georgetown Tea, though neither was a particularly full bloomer at any given time. Duchess de Brabant was never a strong rose, but she was mostly shaded out by some aggressive clematis and might not have gotten a good chance to show herself. That's one of the roses that died off last winter. I have grown Monsieur Tiller and Safrano at various points and had them overwinter at least once, but they weren't robust. Ditto for a couple of other teas that slip my mind. I planted the china Archduke Charles last year on another zone 6 recommendation, and I have Clementina Carbonari and Mme. Berkeley on order for this spring. There are probably some others, but those are the ones that come to mind. FWIW, even if Elie Beauvillain is 15+ in warmer zones, she might not be that big for you in zone 6. It depends - my MAC is HUGE when happy and drapes over everything in sight (easily 15' on a good year), but my teas are no more than 4' tall at best even though they're usually 8' or more in warmer zones. I've posted a picture to give you an idea. Mme. Antoine Mari is to the left of the inner path, Georgetown Tea is to the right of the path (just barely rising above Savoy Hotel), Mrs. BR Cant is barely visible toward the left back and Maman Cochet is at the far left. Cynthia

Hi Patty, I actually bought Peter's book as a preorder from Amazon after reading about him and his book in Fine Gardening. I gave him his very first Amazon review and got a very sweet thank you note from him! I love the book and he seems to be very realistic and non biased in his assessment of a rose's performance when guaging his assessments against the few roses I already had like Easy Elegance 'Centennial' and 'Julia Child'. I had purchased several roses prior to his book and was happy to see that many I purchased came highly recommended by him. I have 2 'Poseidon' and these so far have bloomed nicely and are very healthy, and performing as he stated. We both garden in same zones and similar conditions although he is more coastal ME and I'm more inland MA. I would love to see his gardens but don't know if they're open to the public. He's only about 2 hours from me so it would be great to meet him and discuss roses with someone who is so knowledgeable. Whiteout is interesting. I just bought (against my better judgement since it's so late in the season) 2 Radler Rambling Red Climbers from High Country Roses (gallon size so hoping they'll be well established) 2 own root Double Pink Knockout Roses and 2 Livin Easy from a vendor on Etsy. Keep your fingers crossed that we have a loooong fall, lol. It's always a gamble here on when old man you know who will arrive! Sharon

Vaporvac, ac91z6 - I have both Florentina and Princess Alex de Lux, and I highly recommend them both. Florentina I've had for about 4 years and it's an enthusiastic bloomer all season with entirely cane hardy survival in an average zone 5 spot. The blooms are very full and dark red and it's among my favorite climbers these days. PadL is newer, since she just went in last spring, but I can already tell she's a typically enthusiastic Kordes rose. She's putting out canes in every direction trying to elbow wimpy neighbors out of the way, and I've seen clusters of those thickly petaled blooms off and on all season. She hasn't gotten to her third season yet so her repeat isn't all that frequent, but I don't expect that in a rose's second year. I think she had some but not all surviving cane over the winter, which is typical of most of my roses. Both were from Palatine for me, and both have done extremely well. Cynthia