South Sea Enchantment is a very pretty pink. That's a nice cluster of Adorable Tiger too you've got there. I also like Electric Mist with that big yellow/green throat. The edges on Guy Meadows are scrumptious. ........Maryl

Anna-Lyssa, I can't provide enabling photos, so keep an eye out for Ingrid's garden photos for those. But I think you might enjoy this passage on 'La France' from a 1912 book called Everblooming Roses by Georgia T. Drennan, pp.17-18: "The Journal des Roses, 1867, gives an account of fifty rosarians of France, called together to vote on the merits of one thousand roses. The almost unanimous vote was for La France. It was conceded to be the most perfect and most distinctly new rose. Guillot fils introduced it as a seedling Tea unidentified. Its parentage is not known. After close comparison and much discussion, experts decided it to be the first rose of a new class rather than the pure Tea its origin suggested. Guillot fils claimed no agency in its creation beyond having grown it from the seed of a Tea rose. The rosarians of France named the new class Hybrid Tea; La France, the representative rose, combining the exquisite delicacy of the pure Teas and the broad petals, large size and striking features of the Hybrid Remontants, perhaps of the Bourbons. An enthusiastic amateur rose grower, young when La France was young, I gave it cordial welcome. No new rose that I read of or knew, had been so much and so favourably commented on, except General Jacqueminot. I planted La France in my garden and tested its merits by careful culture. I was ardently interested in the rose that ushered in an entirely new class, close kindred to the Tea, which I so much loved. It proved to be a constant and profuse bloomer and excelled the Tea roses in size, with sweeter scent than any rose I had ever had bloom in my garden. To reassure myself, I bought other specimens from different florists, with the same result. To this day, I find the same fault. La France blooms itself to death. Mea culpa, if others do not find it a short-lived rose." Virginia

I love my main clematis, but it thrives on neglect. It grows on an arbour which leads into the garden. Everyone gushes about it, because it has these small, relatively insignificant, flowers in early spring, but then produces these massive, muppet-like, seed heads which remain as a showpiece for the remainder of the season. You do NOTHING to it and it performs consistently wonderfully each season. This year, the arbour blew down and broke apart (rusted through) in our first major windstorm of the season, back in March, just as the thing was starting to flower. That was probably the first sign that this gardening season would be a challenging one. Anyway, it took me a good month and a half to find a replacement arbour. The poor thing was left splayed on the ground during that time, looking awful. When I got the new arbour, spent quite some time wrapping the old, gnarly vines back around the base and through the sides. Must say, I did a pretty good job of doing that. A month later, started sending new shoots up out of the old wood, wrapping around - absolutely amazing. I'm sure most people would never realize the saga that happened. I'm sure by next season, it will be business as usual, barring any more crazy storms.

I forgot to include my top 10 Bennett intros. Here they are: 1. Wild Cherry Wine 2. Careless Dream 3. Sitting Cool 4. Jubilee Ball 5. Tactical Cat 6. Fashionnaire 7. Burtonsville Blush 8. Runaway Romance 9. Kiwi Magic 10. Fast Pleasure *Salty Skipper, Extra Bold, and Blues in the Night are honorable mentions. Ask me another day and the order would probably change, but I think that these are pretty solid as my top 10. The top four I don't think would change. David