Carol, how many bloom cycles do you usually get per growing season? Good luck with your new ones.What did you get? Here's you something to laugh at: today I finally broke down and bought another Blue Girl! The bush looked sooo good... I sp'd 2 last year...just love those stingy blooms.

I have grown Harlekin for a few years now and I am kind of on the fence about it. It took a couple of years to get going but now it is a very vigorous rose. The growth habit is stiff and upright so I think it would be hard to train on a fence unless the fence was very tall. It takes hard pruning so it can be kept down to 6 feet but it has the potential to become a monster if you let it go. It has bright, dark pink edges which are definitely not red. It does get some blackspot here in damp Seattle but it is vigorous enough to replace the leaves that drop off. It can be unsightly though and will have bare legs because of the blackspot. In a climate with more blackspot pressure, it might defoliate. It responds well to spraying and occasional spraying of the base leaves can keep the blackspot under control. It is pretty much in constant bloom once it gets established. But I do not love it. I just don't find the flowers to be all that pretty. They are just OK. I don't like the centers of the flowers and the flowers tend to have some brown on the edges. I consider it to be a background rose but I think it is disappointing when viewed close up.

Denise I read though that article again in hopes of finding something useful regarding the blooming habits of Hoya australis ssp australis. According to the author's Mr. Liddle and Mr. Foster this species is found in varied habitats from Australia to New Guinea and Melanesia (Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu). Some plants are said to grow on rocky cliffs in the open as small succulent shrubs while others in the same location will develop as climbing vines if they have a source of shade. Hopefully you can get it to bloom, a summer outside sounds like a good idea. I am liking the LED light panels more and more because you can buy solid red units that give out the light wavelength that plants respond to by blooming. My panels are only 14 watts and they are rated for ten years of 24 hour a day operation. I think I am going to try the red light treatment for some of my stubborn non-bloomers. Pug according to the article I have Hoya australis ssp australis always has pubescent leaves, fron sparsly to densly pubescent and on one side of the leaf to both sides. Hoya australis ssp tenuipes has leaves that are always glabrous or smooth at maturity. The margins of the leaves are also always curved under on Australian plants of ssp tenuipes but not so on plants from other islands. New growth is sometimes red/brown. Hoya australis ssp sanae is a small narrow leaved succulent plant that grows in seasonally dry areas and has leaves that curl under to conserve water. There is also apparently an intermediate species that shows characteristics of both subsp. sanae and subsp. oramicola. From what is said in the article I would guess that your larger plant is Hoya australis subsp tenuipes, not sure about the smaller one but it could be Hoya australis subsp. rupicola because that plant is said to have a densely hairy leaf surface while the other small leaved subsp. that characteristic is not mentioned and their leaves certainly look glaborus int he photos from what I can see. There are some really cool articles in my Asklepios magazines, another one in 2005's issue 102 discusses the medicinal uses of 26 different Hoya species throughout their natural ranges. Mike

The painters got delayed! So I have a bit of a reprieve. Whew! I got a sample of Jojoco's SW Tea Chest and tried that yesterday. Definetly a warmer brown. I had to leave before it was totally dry...I'll check back over the weekend. Les- thanks for your input. I always look forward to reading your comments. I'll have a look at those colors. msrose - you are so very right about Davenport tan looking completly different in the Pottery Barn version. Here's my experience with that. Earlier this year I bought some PB bedding and the exact paint that they had it paired with. When I got home and painted, it didn't even come close to pairing well with the bedding. They looked awful together in real life. THe bedding was a weird green and Philipsburg blue was almost a 80's country blue. I returned the bedding and complained to the store. The manager told me that PB photo shoots use very complex lighting, plus all their pictures are retouched and manipulated. She said their catalog colors do not at all accurately represent reality. Hmph! But it's true - their catalog pic of Davenport Tan looks nothing like the actual product.