Just thought I would come back and update this thread! I think that I bought some of this stuff in late 2010, but I don't know definitely. I have notes from 2011. Ozark Premier plum from womack: growing great, no fruit yet. Redglobe peach from womack: growing great, fruited last year. less than a dozen peaches with good flavor. Orient pear from womack: growing great, no fruit. Eureka persimmon from womack: dead. my fault. transplanted in the heat of summer last year and it didn't make it. hadn't fruit yet. Phil's sweet pomegranate from edible landscaping: growing great. had two poms last year. very sweet, very little tartness. minimal hard seeds. Jersey knight asparagus from edible landscaping: growing great. harvested a few spears last year. already growing this year. Grapes from lowes: hit or miss on how well its doing. bought flame red, thompson red and monukka. Weeping mulberry from edible landscaping: growing. probably didn't trim properly, as its still very low. fruited last year and can already see fruit now. fruits were very edible (I was concerned that it might be more decorative). i would say sweet. Illinois everbearing mulberry: growing slowly. moved it last year, so it might be a little shocked. did get a handful of fruits last year. At my previous house, I had both navajo and arapaho blackberries in slight shade. They both grew. The navajo berries were superior in sweetness to the arapaho. I have chosen to put in some navajo at the current house.

>already on my short list (Gruss an achen Hi Nicole, I have the impression that more than one cultivar for Gruss An Aachen is available, and I'd like to recommend the cultivar of Gruss An Aachen sold by Chamblee's Roses (www.chambleeroses.com/). We had three healthy Gruss An Aachens from there and when we replace them (they were lost to Rose Rosette Disease) I'm going to get them from Chamblee's again. The particular cultivar from Chamblees did particularly well here. >Mary, Old Blush looks really great too... I know chinas don't do so well here but I might try her anyway. It is a shame they don't like our climate- many have such a lovely, elegant bush shape. I have actually seen a big bush of Old Blush growing in Asheville, Nicole. It was 1995, before I was really into roses, but you couldn't miss this large beauty. It looked splendid and healthy. I don't know whether it's still there or not, but if you want to visit the botanical gardens at 151 WT Weaver Blvd., adjacent to the campus of UNV-Asheville, you can look for it. When there, go through the entrance building and take the path to the right at the building exit to enter the grounds. The rose is about 20 feet off to the right after you've walked just a short distance up that path. As for spraying or not spraying, I'd suggest you get started with roses that don't require spraying to look good most of the time. A little blackspot isn't a big deal, but a total loss of leaves isn't too attractive if there's nothing in front of the rose to hide the leafless plant. I'd also suggest that once you do get started with spraying, if you do, then roses that otherwise could have developed good disease resistance on their own (it can take up to three years) will either never have the processes stimulated to make that happen or will have much more difficulty making it happen. Amy Padgett in Eastern NC has a website with a large section on roses. Not every variety she can grow there is necessarily good for your spot, but some of her observations on the amount of disease resistance of different roses in an organically oriented yard might be. I'll attach that address. The thing about Old Blush that gives me pause isn't that I think we couldn't grow it successfully here in this no-spray yard--we have never used poison chemicals at all and I feel sure that if others can grow it no-spray, we can too--but that the rose is a little thornier than the impression I've gotten from many different internet comments. I actually wrote Michael Shroup regarding the thorniness of Old Blush and he said that it's average, a 5 out of 10. >Connie, I've been reading your blog for a while... I almost mentioned Ducher and Duchesse de Brabant to you too, but when I saw a zone 7 listing at HMF decided not to mention them. But if they grow well for Connie... I really think they might grow for you too. Because of family, I've often kept up with the weather in Connie's area. And the same for Asheville. Usually the temp differences with us here are similar-- usually 3 or 4 degrees difference, at the most, with Asheville and 3-5 degrees difference for northern Virginia. I do think perhaps Connie's location might have had a rougher winter there than you did in Asheville in this last particular winter. Do consider your topography in figuring out how the low temperatures in your own yard relate to the official lows at the airport. Your yard can be warmer than most if it has some slope on it and doesn't sit at the very bottom of hills. Proximity to pavement can help too. Anyway, both Ducher and Duchesse de Brabant went into the ground here last fall as a healthy one-gallon plant (Chamblee's) and wintered over with no special protection other then a few leaves as mulch. They were planted a bit more deeply than when they arrived, so that might have helped some too. Ducher and Duchesse de Brabant made it through the winter evergreen, not losing any leaves (Ducher), or many (Duchesse de Brabant). It didn't seem too wise to me to keep their leaves, but we let the plants decide on it. :) We had a pretty good spring here--no amazingly wide temperature flucuations bringing the worst of winter in April or anything like that--so it might not have been the best of years to judge how winter hardy those two roses are for here (in the Piedmont). But anyway, Ducher incautiously took off growing at the first sign of warming in February and didn't let any of the intervening frosts slow her down much. Duchesse took maybe 3 weeks longer to get going in the spring and she looked less perky in her foliage overall at the end of winter, but once she started growing she was off to the races. Both roses are sizable, full four-foot high plants now, with a strong tendancy to bloom, bloom, bloom... and bloom some more. Absolutely no blackspot or powdery mildew on either rose. Both look really good as a shrub with an attractive shape and attractive foliage. You might say that there are plenty of good hardy pink roses, but I don't know of any offhand with that particular wonderful scent on a fairly low-thorns rose. If you are up to trying a questionable thing in terms of winter hardiness, Duchesse de Brabant would be a really good choice. It lasts reasonably well in a vase, better than some of our other tea roses. I thought of one other pink rose: Mortimer Sackler. Healthy, healthy, healthy. Great beauty, and nicely fragrant too. Almost no thorns! Best wishes, Mary Here is a link that might be useful: Amy Padgett's rose website

Susan, my experience with it has been wonderful! It isn't blooming now, but that's how it did last year. It begins to bloom when the temps start to fall (late September or sometime in October?) and continues to bloom until it gets hot - like 90 degrees or more in the day time - usually in early June. Its blooming peak, I'd say, is in late winter/early spring. Mine gets some dieback of its oldest limbs, which I cut off, but then it continues to make new branches from the trunk, which grow straight up to about ?9 feet or so. It makes a tall, wide bush, so the only drawback I can see is that it might not fit in a very small garden. The thing I LOVE about it is that it blooms in winter and is adored by hummingbirds! The ruby throats of spring, summer and fall (they arrive in mid-March and leave in mid-October here) visit it as much as they visit Salvia guaranitica, and that's saying something! Oddly, the butterflies rarely ever visit it. I had a rufous hummer that overwintered with me one year, and I've been looking for a winter blooming plant ever since. Orange Septre is also evergreen throughout the winter. I planted mine in a raised bed where it gets part sun/part shade. Everything does better with the benefit of some shade down here - full sun is too harsh in summer. I consider 'Orange Septre' to be one of my best plant 'discoveries'! :) Sherry

Mary, I was at Home Depot just last weekend, and they had several pots of Iceberg. This was mid-peninsula. It might be worth calling around. I was also at Regan's last Saturday and they had a lot of roses - it was the first day of their half-off sale. I don't recall seeing icebergs but I wasn't looking for them in particular. Again, definitely worth calling to check. In my small garden, iceberg is the only rose I have several plants of. They are simply spectacular in So. Cal. but aren't too shabby here in the Bay Area either. Mine get cercospora spots but are rarely out of flower. They are my workhorses. Jo