My DCT is has performed very well--the best in my garden this year. Large healthy bush with no disease, and I have not sprayed. Blooms are large (grandiflora) and plentiful. Yellow blooms rimmed in dark pink gradually turn into blooms that appear completely dark pink. Because the blooms are long lasting, DCT can show blooms that are mostly yellow next to blooms that are mostly dark pink at the same time. Love it! Last year DCT did not do well, producing only one bloom. However, I bought a sickly DCT late in the season, and it had been neglected at the nursery.

All of mine are in their 1st year in the ground or 20" containers. Belinda's Dream--Very nice HT with large solid pink blooms on her. Also a very strong, very sweet scent. The bush itself is moderately upright but stays about 4x3 for me. The bush could be more well mannered to shape up better, but that is most likely me pruning it wrong. Mine tends to get powdery mildew slightly, but almost all my roses do. Pat Austin--Beautiful, large coppery, pinkish, and especially orange blooms that come out like a fireworks show. Stays at 4x3 for me and while it would probably become an octopus and have some arching canes, it stays very well mannered for me. Practically no disease, and the foilage is gorgeous green glossy leaves. The scent is strong tea scent with a hint of other scents as well. The blooms do fade fast and die off fast, but they are also replaced fast as well. William Shakespeare 2000--I need to get WS2000 in a better spot as he doesn't get near enough sun and tends to get some mildew. With that said, he still does decently well and provides some gorgeous bright magenta blooms that fade to a darker crimson/burgundy color with a beautiful warm fragrance of old rose, damask, and violets. The bush has been rather small at 2x2 and the growth tends to go out sideways so it's not exactly the most well mannered grower. White Eden--Beautiful nearly white big blooms. A sport of Eden so it has all the characteristics of the regular Eden. Unfortunately, it is slow to develop and has only provided me 2 blooms so far this year although I am growing it as a climber and it is up to about 4.5ft at the moment. This seems to be the case with Eden as well. It takes a while to establish a root network before it takes off. We shall see how it progresses next year. Not much of a fragrance if any. Red Eden--Tall, upright HT that I am growing as a climber. It sends out thick, rigid, and upright canes straight up and tends to have clusters of 4-5 blooms at the ends of the canes. The blooms are to die for as big, globular, and nearly true red blooms. I counted 186 petals in one bloom. The fragrance is fairly strong as well. Old rose with a hint of a fresh fragrance as well. A gorgeous bloom with rather sparse foilage though. So far it' up to about 4ft although it's sending out a new basal at the moment. Winchester Cathedral--purchased as a band from High Country. Has put out respectable new growth, although not a real thick caned grower. The blooms are small so far, but the rose isn't mature yet, so we shall see. The rose has a whole slew of thorns, although they seem to be rather small. The white blooms have a bizarre honey with nuts scent to them. It smells totally different from all the other roses, but is still quite a welcome scent that lasts for the entire life of the bloom. So far, the rose has had a pretty terrible time with powdery mildew, but it might improve as the rose matures. Golden Celebration--This rose is getting huge for me in a 20" container. It's thrown out numerous canes around 7' that arch out. I'm letting them arch out to promote some new buds off the lateral arching canes. The rose has stayed really healthy for me and the blooms last for a pretty solid period without the yellow color fading a whole bunch. My blooms have been large, but not overly massive...yet, but the fragrance is very sweet and fairly strong, so it's definitely a nice rose and I'm sure it will put on a show once it matures and gets some lateral breaks in it. New Dawn--This rose hasn't exactly bloomed a whole bunch for me, but that is because of me growing it to get as vertical as possible. It was a little slow to get going as the root network has been developing, but right now it is booming and taking off. I have 3 canes a little over 9' in their 1st year going up an arbor/pergola. I expect big things out of New Dawn next year when I can grow out longer canes and train them to get more flowers. The blooms I have had have been quite a good size for a climber and despite other reports I've heard, they are every bit of at least a mild fresh fragrance. The thorns can definitely rip you a new one if you don't watch out for them though. Abraham Darby--One of the last roses I planted this year. The growth has still been spindly, but it is still developing in a 20" container and will most definitely improve with time. I've heard a lot of reports of blackspot problems and while I spray now, I've never had blackspot problems in my garden and Abe hasn't had the faintest hint of any mildew or blackspot problems. All of my blooms stay in a strong cupped form and rarely open ALL the way. I like them that way though as the petals look packed. The fragrance is to die for. People have claimed it as juicy fruit and that sounds somewhat accurate. On any claim, the fragrance is most definitely an intoxicating fruity fragrance. The blooms are already pretty large for me, but I'm sure they can get much larger one Abe matures. Pretty Jessica--I was enabled for Pretty Jessica and I was also interested in saving some of the older Austins. I still have to wait to see more from PJ before I can accurately say a whole bunch about her, but I've been pleased so far. The rose is almost totally thornless and has leafed sepals. No problems with mildew or blackspot so far, so should turn out to be a winner once I see some more blooms here in the next week. Sharifa Asma--I purchased mostly for the rave reviews on fragrance, and havn't been disappointed. I wouldn't say the fragrance is the strongest of my roses, but it definitely has a beautiful note to the fragrance. The blooms are nice, although not exactly the most elegant. The canes are also thorny with numerous small thorns. Sharifa was purchased as a band as well, so I will have to wait to see more. Evelyn--I purchased Evelyn as a band and she has exploded with growth in such a short period of time in a 20" container. I already have 3 canes over 4.5ft. The blooms are very beautiful, but I'm excited to see the end result with numerous blooms. The canes are arching much like Golden Celebration, and I will most likely eventually grow Evelyn in the same manner by letting the canes arch out and break new buds laterally to make her more floriferous. I havn't had much of a scent from the first couple of blooms yet, although Evelyn is supposed to have a strong fragrance, so she will probably develop it as she matures as well. Zepherine Drouhin--I am growing Zephy as a climber, and we shall see how it turns out. Zephy was unfortunately a powdery mildew disaster, which is why I started spraying her. If I spray, the mildew stays under control. I also made the mistake of planting a giant sunflower in it's path that robbed it's sunlight. Even with those issues, Zephy has some canes up to almost 9ft right now in it's first year. The blooms are powerfully fragrant with a sweet old rose fragrance. Blooms repeating has been rather difficult so far, but I am not training Zephy laterally either yet. I expect the blooms will come better next year as Zephy will have another year under her belt and more sun to work with. Bishop's Castle--Probably my strongest scented rose. The growth has been rather spindly so far, but I expect it to pick up and the blooms tend to be medium sized pink with a little variation in color, but not much. The blooms stayed cupped, but the cup is really shallow and flat. The fragrance smells like straight rasberries.......but SUPER strong. The rose had blackspot when I purchased it, but it's totally gone now. Graham Thomas--I planted Graham Thomas in a rather poor location that is almost entirely clay. I am growing him as a short climber attached to a 6ft tall wood fence. It really took him a while to get established, but just recently he has been BOOMING. Easily 7ft tall now and throwing out numerous new thick basal canes and an explosion of new growth. The blooms have increased in size dramatically as well. The scent is about as textbook of a tea fragrace as you can get and is quite strong. It occasionally gets a few leaves with blackspot, but they fall off and all is well after that.

So, I received a response from Hampshire Farms: "First, I would like to apologize for shipping a variety with the incorrect name/label. We ship a great many plants, and attempt to be absolutely perfect in identifying our plants, but unfortunately, as in this case, we do goof. We feel strongly that this plant is âÂÂFirst FrostâÂÂ, which was the 2010 Hosta of the Year. Thanks very much for your interest, and I apologize again for the effort we caused you in attempting to identify your purchase." I don't believe it's First Frost, granted my clump is a few years old but they still don't look very similar aside from they both have green centers and variegated edging. So in the meantime, I like the "tc anomaly" possibility. It certainly makes the most sense.

So glad you don't want me to disappear:) Over in gardening I'm useless but I get fantastic advice! spikeysmom- I think one of the three agents people interview should always be from an independent company. I was at a dinner party tonight and there were several other agents and an appraiser and I was talking about this forum- they weren't surprised about how people feel toward agents and neither am I. I work with agents everyday and some are just horrible! Here are some of my favorites- just for a laugh- although maybe it will make you dislike agents more???..no it will make you laugh... I once had an older gentleman agent say to me--"Honey, have your husband call me back because I don't do business with women!" (DH drove over and had a little talk with him) A new agent representing a seller asked me to fax my offer to the office of her "real" job because she never "gets a chance" to go to her real estate office. (Is real estate a "pretend" job? Please don't hire agents with other jobs. Real estate sales is a lifestyle choice not a hobby.) I go to my seller's building inspections but I stay outside so buyers and their agents can speak openly. The buyer's agent came out and told me the buyers wanted to ask for the furnace to be updated but would buy the house either way. She was wondering how she should write that up for them. (Uh-yeah- I'm not the right person to talk to about that.. buyer did ask...I told seller to say no.. we did close..) An agent once told us right before we walked into the closing- he forgot to tell his buyers about the oil proration and asked if we would mind splitting it with him so he didn't have to spring it on them. (DH answered- Your mistake- your checkbook!). (I'll split lots of things to make a deal work but not carelessness. DH and I joke that we own washers and dryers all over the city because that always seems to be the thing people fight about...) The funniest one to me was an agent who had worked out with her seller who was out of town for three weeks that she would go let the dog out of the house during showings because he barked and the dog walker was not always available. I tried to set up a showing a couple of times and finally she confessed to me that she was afraid of dogs! She decided not to let the house be shown until the owner came back! I love dogs and offered to let it out which I did- she called me a couple of days later to ask me if I would let it out for another showing because that agent was afraid of dogs too...