Thanks for the information--I'm also comparing with what they say in the Austin catalog, which is that Ambridge rose, Carding Mill, The Alnwick Rose and Winchester Cathedral all end up on their hot/dry climate rose list and Sharifa Asma is on their hot/humid list. I'm finding this hard to believe for Alnwick rose though, since these blooms seem to wilt in the heat of my St. Louis garden. I see someone in Texas has had good success with Scepter'd Isle and Ambridge rose also I wanted to get one of the smaller ones Austin sells as a container plant rather than bare root, since it will be a gift and my friend may want to keep it potted for a while. I'm tending to think given the color scheme they have in their yard that he'd like a white/cream or pale pink one, maybe: Scepter'd Isle Eglantyne Sharifa Asma Winchester Cathedral. Let me know if you have any opinions/info about any of these.

first issue.. is the pots themselves .... fired or ceramic pots should be ok .... but water expands as it freezes ... and when the ice forms.. it can break them ... so perhaps the easiest thing.. would be to heel them into the garden .. and repot in spring ... as the buds start extending ... compare to the plain old terra cotta clay pots.. they themselves suck in water.. and they will surely crack when freeze hits .. so first.. if you have the wrong pot ... you have to remove the hosta.. and figure out how to store the pot ... DRY!!! now.. move to the hosta ... the roots can NOT survive.. if they freeze into an ice cube ... so as per above ... margo.. they need to dry a bit.. and if a plastic pot.. its as simple as placing them out of ALL WINTER SUN.. so the pot itself does not heat in the sun.. and laying them on their sides ... in late november ... i even had about 500 of them stacked on top of each other against the wall of the polebarn .. once frozen ... on their sides ... out exposed to nature.. in the shade they should be near bullet proof ... next.. they do NOT come in the house for 'storage' NO MATTER WHAT .... finally ... [probably not.. lol] ... any structure is easily.. 2 or 3 zones warmer ... since it traps day heat.. and doesnt get as cold at night ... which means your hosta will start coming out of dormancy a month or 3 early .. which will excite you early on.. until you realize you are not frost free until nearly june .... you have 2 options ... you could bring them in the house at that time for an early 'forced' display .. but the furnace will make the house very dry for them.. and they might be spent by late july [ugly] ... their season will be early.. and over fast ... or when the snow melts.. and they are still in full dormancy.. you could just line them up on the north side of the house.. so at night they stay cold.. and stay in full dormancy.. until the more proper time. ... but if rain is possible.. you would lay them on their sides.. again.. because a pot with frozen media might trap the water.. and a frozen hosta will not like trying to breath with its roots in an ice cube ... there was something else.. but the caffiene rush is addling my brain.. will report back when it comes to me .... this topic has been covered many time.. and by using the search function within GW.. you may find many more posts .... if you care for more ideas .... wintering over pots is not specific to hosta.. so the type of plant discussed does not matter ... oh ... i recall ... if you have just a few.. and you line them up in a structure... come about xmas or so ... put a couple ice cubes.. or a snowball on each ... such will melt when the temps warm.. offering a LITTLE moisture as necessary ... w/o drowning them .... do this once a month or so .. NEVER FORGET.. in the cold white north.. winter is the driest season of the year.. near desert ... in that almost all water is tied up in frozen form.. so though we do not want to 'water' them.. we dont want them getting so dry.. they root rot and die ... think a piece of chicken poorly wrapped in the freezer .. and extend such logic to the roots ... good luck .. believe it or not.. its not that hard ... ken

>>For some reason, I mistakenly believed the Seattle-area winters were milder than they apparently are Most people think the other way around--that it must be about as cold as northern Maine because of the latitude. The mountain ranges block most of the coldest interior weather, and the water offshore is warmed by the Japan current. My lows are probably higher than yours BUT...of longer duration! You probably get frosty nights followed by warmish days. We can get a week and a half of freezing weather here. The real problem tho is that the peak of our rainy season is late autumn early winter, meaning that a lot of plants have tissues that are saturated with water when the cold hits. I did have a look at Mr. Irvine's website. He's got descriptions of a lot of the newer hybrids, which is how I found it when I googled their names. You're right; the climate here is close enough to that of the UK that anything that does there does well here, and vice versa, with a few exceptions. My climate is slightly warmer but also slightly less equable, and the rainfall here is very seasonal, like a cooler version of a Mediterranean climate. I read your bio. Fruit and nut trees, eh? Well, I live in the city but I have a good-sized lot as city lots go, and I have squeezed in a mini-orchard. I'd love to grow nuts, too, but those are usually big trees, except for the Hazelnut/Filbert. It would be fun to grow a Gevuina--Chilean substitute for Macadamia nuts (same family, but a hardier Chilean version)--but I can't find any cultivars selected for big nuts and the default is hardly as big as a cherry pit. My fruits are Peaches, a Nectarine, an Apricot, a sweet Cherry, Strawberries (including a wild native, F. chilensis), Raspberries, Blackberries (including "Marionberries"), Black Currents, Gooseberries, and Arctic Beauty type Kiwis (they're better than the fuzzy kiwis, which also grow here). I technically have a "Pineapple Guava" (Feijoa sellowiana aka Acca sellowiana) but it got a bad case of Phythophthora last year and might not live much longer. Ugni molinae ("Strawberry Guavas" aka "Chilean Guavas") also got the Phyto and will need to be replaced. I think Passionfruits are probably a dream up here, but we'll see what I can come up with. P. carulea produces its fruits with abandon but they don't have enough pulp to bother with. Yes, it's too bad about the Tacsonias because I've heard they have the tastiest fruits. Judging from the posts I take it that a lot of the contributors here are amateur lepidoterists (sp?). I'm too far north for those kinds of butterflies; all we get here are common ones like Swallowtails, Angel Zephyrwings, and Cosmopolitans. Hmmm...I followed one link to another link and discovered we have another common interest. Pleased to "virtually meet" you.

Lazy housewife beans,The Diggers Club. John