Axel, I generally agree that nowadays no one goes to the expense of patenting and releasing a variety unless they're quite certain that they can consistantly obtain high quality in a wide range of climates, but that doesn't mean that they don't vary greatly in quality season to season. Goldrush was released as a commercial variety and it might just still make it (even if it's too late for royalties). The season before last my Braeberns were exquisite while this year they were completely worthless- really annoying because I had a great crop. The person here complaining about the quality of Goldrush this year doesn't seem to realize that we barely had a summer in NY last season, and in Z5 there just wasn't enough heat to properly ripen Goldrush. Of course I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

1. Favorite RED / MAGENTA - Maggie. I especially like the flatish (not high-centered) form that looks like nothing so much as a dancer's full array of bright rosy skirts. Even though it's a Bourbon, it's extremely healthy and easy to grow. Low in thorns, large in bloom size. The blooms last a long time in the vase, and you can stare at it forever without tiring of appreciating its beauty. 2. Favorite ORANGE / APRICOT - We don't have this color yet that I've seen, though tiny Crepuscle (noisette), when it gets large enough to bloom, will be a faint shade of this. Maybe. That's a low-thorns healthy rose with large blooms too. 3. Favorite YELLOW - Julia Child. I like its butter yellow color, but even in the summer when it fades some, you can still tell that it's a yellow, not a white. 4. Favorite PINK - General Schablikine. Often called a red, it has always been a dusty deep pink here, regardless of season. We've had it from two different nurseries and the color was a dusty pink in both cases. It's a beautiful, beautiful color that contrasts nicely with the lighter pinks that we have a good many of. Its form is flatish and full-petaled. Fairly low in thorns, good-sized flowers that keep on going late into the fall. Evergreen in North Carolina. 5. Favorite PURPLE / VIOLET / MAUVE / LAVENDER - Reine des Violettes, assuming it's going to eventually get around to blooming here. (I've read that sometimes it takes awhile to establish.) Low/no thorns, and so far the picture of health here. 6. Favorite BICOLOR (Example - Double Delight) - Cinco De Mayo. This is a party rose, pure party rose. If you plant Cinco De Mayo, you must prepare to take a bloom in the house, clinch it between your teeth, put on your dancing shoes and dance all over in a big ruffled skirt. (Guys can wear kilts, I suppose...) The rose's only negative is that it's a bit thorny. Otherwise, it's amazingly healthy, and beautiful in its combination of colors with ruffly edges. It blooms less once it loses much of its sunlight, but it never gets a bit of any kind of disease (grown organically, at least). 7. Favorite WHITE - Lion's Fairy Tale. Healthy, healthy, and will take a bit of shade and still bloom well. Large blooms. 8. Favorite CLIMBER - Madame Alfred Carriere. We don't have it yet, but I'm figuring on ordering it this fall. 9. Favorite FLORIBUNDA - Gruss An Aachen. It's simply a perfectly beautiful rose, and it smells wonderful too if you get it in just the right temperature. 10. Favorite GRANDIFLORA - Eutin. The pictures at Help Me Find are so heavy with the numbers of blooms in its bloom clusters that you'd swear they must have been Photoshopped, but no, those huge numbers of bright red blooms are actually what we're seeing here... growing next to our pergola in far, far too much shade. It is getting a little powdery mildew in all that shade, but a hard spray with the hose once in awhile gets rid of it instantly. If shade is your problem, this is your rose. A little bit thorny, but you can't always have everything, and its interesting foliage looks good in the landscape. Evergreen in North Carolina. 11. Favorite HYBRID TEA - We don't have a hybrid tea, but we've had two pinks (tossed due to Rose Rosette Disease) that show a lot of hybrid tea parentage and we'll buy those two again soon: Belinda's Dream and a tiny very attractive small shrub with a bloom that looks like a tiny version of another Belinda's Dream: Rose Rosette. 12. Favorite Old English, Rugosa, Romantica, or David Austin - David Austin's Mortimer Sackler, hands down. The blooms here have looked exactly like those featured on David Austin's website, and this rose is healthy, healthy, healthy. Beautifully delicate looking and lovely to sniff, too. 13. Favorite LANDSCAPE ROSE OF THE YEAR award (I just made this one up because there's no list that ought to leave out this rose!) - Mrs. Dudley Cross. If you can only have one rose, this one is it. It's luminous creamy colored blooms are breathtakingly beautiful and they're eyecatchers in any vase too. Give yourself a gold star if you buy this one, because you made the right decision! And add a second star if you can also buy General Schablikine to plant beside it; the pink of General Schablikine perfectly reflects the faint dusty pink edging of Mrs. Dudley Cross in cooler weather. They look splendid together in a vase. Quite healthy if grown organically. Evergreen in North Carolina. Ours is a no-spray anywhere any time yard and all these roses are suitable for growing that way, at least in warm and humid blackspot-prone North Carolina. Best wishes, Mary Here is a link that might be useful: Mrs. Dudley Cross

CA Sally for size and color of blooms, and multiple and long-lasting inflos. Maverick, for the same reasons, plus an awesome jasmine scent. And my new favorite pink, Serenade What a long lasting flower and inflo! Big flowers, too! And all on a very newly rooted, very small plant.

I haven't grown enough whites to come up with three, LOL. Here is my one shining white star: This is my first blooming seedling, that I've nicknamed Big Hank for being so, well, BIG. Blooms, tree, leaves--everything about it is big. Fragrance is wonderful, too.