Hi would you be interested in anything else for some oriental lilies or peonies? I have the following bearded irises 1. beverly sills 2. ebony angel 3. bountiful harvest I also have jupiters beard and tall cannas thanks please email at jain.n@comcast.net

I love both and have both. The ones that I really love are all natives. My pastures are full of Rosa californica bushes. In bloom, they're overwhelmingly intoxicating! Even the foliage has the same fragrance. I make incredible rosehip preserves out of them after the first frosts. So, they're multifunctional! ;~) Everyone would recognise them as a rose. They'd just call the others pretty flowers, if they even saw them. My local species are in my favorites category for orchids. The delicate beauty of the Cyp. californicum. The more exotic and ephemeral Calypso bulbosa. And even the Epipactis gigantea. A lot of it is "The grass is always greener..." or I want what I don't have! ;~) When my mom was in Asia, she had armfulls of orchids delivered a few times a week. They were cheap and common. You'd have to be listed in Forbes to have that done here! I can, now, go out and gather wild roses by the hundreds. If I don't bleed to death first! ;~) I've never seen so many and such viscious thorns on anything! When I pick the hips, I have buckets worth of them. It's like the people in hot/tropical zones wishing that they could easily grow Pleurothalids, while their Bulbos, Catts and Dends are covered in flowers outside most of the year. Or the rest of us frantically hauling our orchids in before a freeze. Something that the roses and other common overlooked plants need. Whitecat, The rose was sacred to both Aphrodite and Venus. So, I guess that you're in good company.

I checked on Fabulous Frieda on the AHS site and was surprised that it looks a lot like Christmas Celebration that I already have. There is a difference, but similar. I love reds so I just had to see it. I was needing to add to my 5,000 page want list.I will add this one but not at the top. Thanks for the information on a new red, I'm also on the look for more new reds so keep the info coming!!! This is a GREAT thread!!! Blessing, Mona

Just wanted to add that where I suspect there was a scam (in fact I might even call it fraud) is in regard to Greyhound and insurance. He insurred each chair for $300 and from the sound of it, was assuming I'd make a claim through Greyhound and get reimbursed for the cost of the chair plus have one functional chair. He did not bet on my taking it to a antique furniture restoration store (which I might not have except that I needed to get my dining room chair fixed) and that person telling me that he saw these types of things all the time in insurance claims and said and put in writing that it was clearly not shipping related damage. When I spoke to Paypal they said this is the type of information they look for when handling a dispute. Now my other issue is if I send it back do I insure it (it's my understanding that Greyhound will insure for $300 for no additional cost). There is a page where the cost of the item is declared. For the damaged chair, I want to declare a cost of $0 since I want to prevent him from filing a Greyhound claim on return. FOr the other chair DH and I were discussing 1/2 the cost I paid--about $100.