I have all three of those (Sunset Celebration, Tahitian Sunset and Valencia). Valencia is my fav of the three, but it is slow to establish, as has been said. But once established, it has enormous very fragrant blooms of a really unique gold-peach color. It's also slow to repeat, but oh so worth the wait. Sunset Celebration is kinda blah, normal, as roses go. Nothing too exciting about it. Nice flower for cutting and it holds indoors. But not too much in the scent department. I tried to replace it once with a rose called Scent-sation, which is the same color but supposedly fragrant. NOT! Don't go there. Scent-sation is a disease magnet with much smaller flowers than Sunset Celebration and also, no fragrance in it that I can detect. Why someone had the nerve to call it "Scent-sation" is beyond me. Tahitian Sunset is also okay, but the form of the flower is a little loosey goosey for my taste (and actually I think they blow faster than Sunstruck flowers). Sunset Celebration has more hybrid tea-ish form, while Tahitian Sunset acts more like a floribunda. Tahitian Sunset is also a quick repeater, but I don't consider it a cutting rose for bouquets. It's more of a garden color splash, mostly orange. I haven't had terrible disease issues with any of the three, but I do spray reasonably regularly. Kathy

I finally just read all of these posts and noticed Martin's saga of the Yellow W55. I'm sure that everybody sees through his cr*p, but I'm going to have to call bullsh*t on at least part of his story. Martin hints that credit cannot go to Dr. Raabe in the catalog blurb because this might somehow tarnish his image. Yet Martin clearly identifies respected emeritus professor Dr. Robert Raabe in an earlier post. He seems to believe that long lost journals are going to note the missing seeds from this precious tomato (a tomato so precious that it was never released). Martin said that Raabe took some seeds, not that he ripped the entire plant out of the ground. And if some reputation tarnish will develop, we all know who took those seeds now, don't we? Thanks, Martin. Martin, if you want to be the great savior of all things Wisconsin, have at it. Just have a little honesty in the process. I like WI cheese as much as the next guy, but yours really stinks. Now back to more important things. My wife made it worth my while to take the Dubya bumber sticker out of my truck before the election. I am willing to compromise for peace.

"It seems to have gotten worse in Torrance in the past decade. We're getting San Francisco squalls here now." Just a suggestion for gardeners start keeping a written record of the changes that you see. Someone, someday will be doing research on what changes are being seen. When I discuss what and how to grow with people I can remember plants that used to do well here but have no record of when I stopped being able to grow that plant or changes in the physical appearence of the plant. My peonies used to be finished blooming by about May 10th last year I had several that did not bloom until June? By writing down what happens in your area you can provide a historical record to future generations. Who knows you might write a book on it.

It reminds me of something called a ”kuchalein”. As the earth cooled, many families who went to the Catskill hotels for a few weeks or the summer, stayed in places which had communal kitchens. These hotels were not the same type of hotel as Grossingers which had formal dining rooms. Each family kitchen station had a stove, a sink, and shared a refrigerator with a neighbor, as I recall. Also within this station was a table with chairs for the family. My memory is somewhat hazy as it was probably about 70+ years ago,