Jim, you made such an excellent choice! I love your roses because they all are known to have amazing fragrance to them! I try so hard to get roses with fragrance, but not always do I luck out... Zyperiris, I would definitely get Gemini from Jackson & Perkins...You will have better luck with them having fragrance at J & P because not all Gemini have fragrance...I love the scent of mine (smells like honey and and peaches)...Advantages of Gemini are that they flourish and look beautiful even in 95-97 degree heat; they are rated exhibition form roses by the ARS and are highly resistant to diseases and are very vigorous! Fragrant Cloud makes...delicious rose petal jelly--haha! man, when I eat that stuff I feel like I'm eating plums, super-saturated kick-pow jam, it's got flavor intensity to the max. It's got a very strong nice perfume, but my favorite perfume will always be Mr. Lincoln. Disadvantage of Fragrant Cloud is that it is very, very difficult to color match whereas Gemini looks beautiful anywhere you plant it! Special Occasion is a very beautiful rose but!!!!!it's got a split personality. It has a classical very lovely shape from young to maturity blooms, but once it's past mature it becomes an antique Souvenir bloom (google search Souvenir de la Maison) and you'll know what I mean. If you don't like the curliness and petticoat shape of this type of antique rose, you may not like Special Occasion... You see Special Occasion is a long-lived blossom, it takes forever! for it to fade and thus it has a split personality-- a breathtaking classical hybrid tea, but once its past its mature bloom stage, it becomes a cute petite OGR. It is now currently sold by Vintage Gardens. Mine was supposed to be exceptionally fragrant, but in my opinion it is only medium in fragrance so far...Also with Special Occasion it is OUCH!if you pick it up by the blossom neck-it's like a bristle brush of very tiny miniscule thorns...

Thanks for commenting, punk, sorie, kathleen, marlene & purplemoon ... punk..blizzards are over & "sunshine" just makes all the diff in the world! Very cold yet tho...but do-able! I'd love to visit your home...from what you share, it's just downright SWEET! sorie ... that print is by Robert Duncan called "April Storm" ... by his signature it says 1980 ...but I bought this print at an frame shop & had it framed 7 or 8 yrs ago...it is one of my favs! kathleen...no, the tree I bought on an after Christmas small town shopping trip...at a specialty store...they had used it in their display decor...& had it for sale...I was in heaven! I'd been wanting one for some yrs since I saw the grapevine handmade ones at a craftshow that sold for lots of $$$. It would be fun to try to make a "small" one. PM...hey, next mo (March 20th) is first day of Spring...so maybe you can decorate for that! You'll be bringing out all those beautiful bunnies!! You've got alot going on right now, woman! Thanks, gals! Jeanne S.

Thanks again everyone. You will notice that my pictures are gone. The reason is that when someone views this thread, it occupies digital band width traffic from/to Photobucket, the WEB site where these pictures are stored. If there is a lot of viewing then the bandwidth traffic can exceed 10 GB, the allowance is used up for the month. This is temporary. The pictures will show up again when the next month's allowance starts. dcarch

Come on guys you are embarrassing me. But thank you for making me feel good. Here is the reality: Salad from leftovers, Grilled a sous vide steak on a grill that�s made by someone else. Sous vide, by definition, nothing can go wrong. Roasted veggies, do you need skills for that? Roast them until they are done. Not done? Roast some more. Not memorable at all. Nothing was made from a two-page recipe. I do want to say that I really like roasted elephant garlic with the steak. A nice paring. Lou, The potatoes were with the squash, and the elephant garlic was with the steak. dcarch