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

Thanks for the laugh, Cynic. (At least I hope your were trying to be funny) Being a divorcee myself, I can say that when I said "I do", I really meant it. And although you may think gifts go un-remembered, I think fondly of many things I still have and the person(s) that gave it to "us". Off the top of my head�the cast iron Dutch oven, handmade curtains for the whole house, a Christmas lamp, a hand painted picture of the house, the garden trellis now full of blooming roses... The gifts, knowing they were meant to share, evoke some sad thoughts of a failed marriage. But conversely make smile thinking of the person that gave with unconditional love. And sometimes gives me a reason to call and tell them how much they mean to me. Giving unconditionally is the only way I want to. People and life, by design, will always disappoint. Keeping score is not fun.

I thought I'd post an update. I went shopping and looked at pretty much all of the brands mentioned in this thread. After trying on a pair of Sketchers, I knew they were the ones. The thick foam in the bottom of the shoes brought instant relief when walking on the hard tile floor of the shoe and they are feather light so it didn't feel like I was wearing weights on my ankles. I bought two pairs, one in black and one in gray and wore the black ones out of the store. I was able to walk the length of the mall and back without any pain and just minor stiffness. Since then, I have gone grocery shopping twice, walked to the post office twice and taken two short walks around the block. It would have been impossible to do any of those things without the shoes. The side benefit has been that my knee isn't sore and aching at the end of the day and I think it is healing faster because of that. Being unable to walk except for short distances has really given me an appreciation for what people with permanent disabilities must have to deal with on a daily basis and I am so very grateful to be able to be out and about again.

Ha.. I love that you have my back DLM. Sorry I didn't get back sooner-- I didn't have a chance to call until tonight. No updates-- they offered to refund. I told them my preferred resolution to the issue is that they DELIVER and ASSEMBLE the one set available in store nearby. I was told that was very unlikely to be approved because the stores and .com are independent-- but if they want to make this right, I believe they surely have a way to get it done. In the meantime, they have escalated my issue and i should hear back in 24 hr. In the meantime, I have been looking for something else that i can get right away.. One of the first sets I considered was from Grandin Road but there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for it here... primarily because of the no cushions design. The reviews are universally positive but Im not sure i can imagine curling up in them. Honestly, when I start inching north of 2K, then I am pulled to the pieces that have my heart (below-- but in green), It is fewer pieces but they fit my lifestyle. The big issue with this set is that it is now 4-6 months for delivery (increased shipping delay since March when i was THIS close to ordering).