I've had many varieties in so fla...kiwi, etc. Only the tried and true red sister has any vim or vigor. It grows well in full sun, part-sun etc without any problem. Obviously much darker maroonish in sun, pink-maroon in less sun. For landscape uses, I would definitely recommend the red sister. The rest of them are beautiful but def for pot culture where they can be babied a bit more. During our cold snaps, they do behave like crotons and drop their leaves but come back well if it's a short near freeze (like 2 or 3 days).

Al doesn't like or dislike what people decide to do with/to their plants; he realizes, and always has, that it's the plant owner's place to make all decisions about how the plants (s)he owns are treated. He does, however, have a decided interest in providing reliable information that others can use to make informed decisions. A small to middling fraction of hobby growers might be able to bring along attractive-looking plants in media based entirely or nearly entirely on very small particles like peat, coir, sand, topsoil, compost, composted forest products, ......., but the fact is, these soils will nearly always rob plants of a notable measure of potential growth and vitality. If you think back to threads in which there was lengthy discussions about soils, I never once decided for the grower what (s)he should/shouldn't do about soil choice. The discussions and/or disagreements center on what is or isn't a 'good' soil, or what happens in soils to rob plants of potential. It should be easy to agree that a good soil shouldn't have inherent factors that rob plants of large measures of potential. To me, a 'good' soil is one you can water to beyond the point of complete saturation at will (so you're flushing the soil of accumulating salts when you water) without the plant having to pay a tax levied by extended periods of saturated soil after watering. When it comes to hydrology, adopting a soil that allows correct watering practices w/o that penalty are always going to be superior to those that sap potential due to a continual or even extended intermittent period of saturation in more than a very small fraction of the o/a volume of medium in the pot. Not only are they superior, they make other aspects of husbandry that often cause problems, notably fertilizing, much, much easier and more effective. The good news is, there are ways of dealing with less than stellar soils by using one or more of several methods to limit how much excess water they hold by means other than changing the soils make-up. The fixes won't necessarily be the same as using a highly aerated soil based on larger particles that naturally holds a very limited amount of excess (perched) water, but they (the fixes) can be used to significantly limit the loss of potential caused by what would otherwise be just another soggy soil. Not looking for a battle - just taking the opportunity to muse a bit. Al

Hi Nanadoll! Thanks for the kind words! Life has gotten in the way of my rose forum fun and I need to catch up! My lawn helper decided to deadhead the ND's but I think only up to regular human height. It will be interesting to see what they will look like on the next flush, assuming that there is one. To be fair to ND, the first flush was absolutely packed with blooms and I couldn't ask for anything more. I added some Aloha in there and they took off so we'll see if they have any reblooming issues. Diane, I think of you and your quail whenever I see my roadrunners and mockingbirds fighting! One zoomed by with a little snake in its beak so I surely had a disappointed cat.

Cedemas, I doubt it'd get that big. Mine never seems to send forth long, stout canes. Instead, they just keep branching, kind of like a China-leaning Polyantha, but the stems are stiffer, and blooms don't come in big clusters. When stems reach a certain point in length -- for me, about 24" at max -- they just sort of peter out, and newer growth either lower down or entirely from the roots seems to "suck the juice" out of what was above it. As for finding it, you'll increase your chances if you also look for a rose sold as 'Louis XIV', perhaps under Chinas. It's the same rose under either name, and it's not a China, but rather something like 'Chateau de Clos Vougeot' -- called "Hybrid Tea" but really much more Hybrid Perpetual with a sort of reversion to China growth habit. Think of 'Arthur de Sansal', incorrectly called a Portland, but the same basic idea. The "wimpiness" is probably some genetic confusion between the Hybrid Perpetual desire to grow canes that live just a few years and are replaced by new canes afterward, mixed with the China desire to not send up many canes but instead keep branching upon the few it produced to begin with. The result is not a lot of canes but which branch a lot, but then don't last long enough to amount to substantial growth building upon itself. For me, that makes for something functionally like a small Polyantha in the garden -- or in a pot. There's another way to handle this rose in a pot -- keep it in full-sun most of the time, until you see flower buds forming, then move it to some place with just morning sun then bright shade to enjoy some very dark blooms. Don't dead-head until the last has faded, then dead-head the whole bush and give a feeding, so that you'll get it blooming in flushes rather than just a few at a time all the time. This way, you can keep it in lots of sun to make sure it's healthy, then move it at bloom time so the petals don't burn. It sounds like a lot of work, but it really just means having your two spots figured out, and moving the pot a few times each year. Mine gets four flushes of bloom per growing season if I do this -- it starts earlier because being in a pot makes its roots warm faster. :-) ~Christopher