Your pot and your rose are beautiful, NTxdude! Kippy's suggestion is the way to go. Put the rose in a plastic pot that slips inside the ceramic one. The rose will NOT be happy inside the house all winter and you will probably lose it. It can winter inside an unheated garage but then that will not protect the pot from cracking. The only solutions is two pots. The rose can stay outside in the plastic pot where it will winter best and the ceramic pot can come inside to winter so it doesn't crack. Make sure there are drainage holes in that ceramic pot so water will not collect in the bottom and drown the rose. When I stack pots like this I always put a small piece of styrofoam in the bottom of the ceramic pot before I insert the plastic one so the two can be pulled apart easily. Otherwise they'll really stick together and you'll have a devil of a time getting them apart.

I am going to apologize in advance for sounding snarky or offending anyone. After all this is just my opinion. And you all know what they say about opinions..they're like armpits; everyone has two and they all stink. PB/RH/CB blahblahblah have kind of become my pet peeve. I equate them to what Abercrombie did for fashion. Just like Abercrombie teaches the gullible youth of America what is 'cool' to wear, despite shoddy quality of overseas goods, PB/RH/etc teaches first time home-makers what their place ought to look like despite the shoddy quality of their overpriced imported goods. PB couches are garbage with a PB tag somewhere on it. That little tag costs a lot of money. The way I see it, if you can shell out the kind of money that a PB/RH sofa demands, spend a little bit more and get an heirloom piece by Stickley, Baker, or from Room and Board (one of the few 'trendy' homestyle retailers that supports domestic workmanship and historic design). PB is pumping out a generation whose design aesthetic is void of all individuality. Rather than letting people explore what environments they find pleasing, they're selling a crappy cookie-cutter style. So, here comes the jerk inside. They style you ask us to define? Cookie cutter. And I don't mean this to be mean. Look around the furniture and design forums on this website. There are links to places all over the internet that offer great goods. Okay. I'm done. Again, all apologies to those I have offended. I look forward to hearing other opinions, and what others think about my perhaps not-so-humble opinion.

Boleslawiec pottery from Poland is very durable, and works well in the microwave, dishwasher, and oven. Originally the patterns mimicked a peacock's tail and were painted with a stylus. Many are still done that way in several different patterns of cobalt blue on a pale beige/ivory background; some now are painted with brushes in a wide variety of colors. There are several factories making this pottery, and oodles of people importing it. Most people mix a bunch of different patterns together. We have several serving pieces that we use with some Pfaltzgraff dishes that have blue accents on them. Enjoy!

All I can tell you is that I had orb pottery barn bin pulls and knobs in my last kitchen and the finish totally wore off. Worse yet, when I called PB, they were not very helpful or cooperative. I eventually received replacements, but I wouldn't buy from them again.