EEEEEuck! what vendor was this, I hope you don't mind me asking Susan? I think any band sent too small shouldn't be sent unless it has enough strong,large enough viable leaves to survive the UPS journey. Why some vendors don't follow this rule of thumb is beyond me. LittleTXYard, it's a great idea to keep taking photos just in case. At first when I was reading this post I was thinking what??? bands this late in the season? until I checked the zones and I thought ahhh, now I understand. I think as long as there's enough strong leaves on the band you should be o.k. It's when you get lots of shriveling and sickliness that's when I feel you are entitled for a refund or exchange, even if the rose were to survive a few months later. Weak roses take some time to re-cover and normalize and for cold zoners this is not a good scenario. To me a rose needs to be of decent health and size to be sent out. I have seen some of Vintages' baby bands and they look fantastic. In the future, if I ever go with baby bands I'm getting Vintage bands.

I think most would agree local nurseries are better: no stressful transit, you get to pick the healthy ones, consistently better blooms and plant stock, and avoid the mislabeled some. Back to the post: Since Im one of those in zonal denial mail order is very tempting. Of those Ive tried Logees has nice selections and a user-friendly website although one staff was grumpy when I called, another from TN mixed up the order then mailed out plants that "almost" survived except one which has not bloomed after a year (yet a similar plant from San Gab in LA constantly blooms), FF has a great selection and friendly service but when the new J. grandiflorum reminded me of a J. polyanthum the explanation was "the leaves look the same when they are young". So it's hit or miss, but thats where the fun is.

I've never used Smith and Noble, but I had great luck at Blinds To Go where I got a beautiful white linen fabric roman shade with top up bottom down functionality and had it in 24 hours from when I ordered it. It's a franchise so there may be one near where you live. I also happen to live a 20 minute drive from Country Curtains who also has a mail order service and you can't beat their quality and customer service. They have a great selection of Romans.

I always call back if I don't get a satisfactory answer/result to my request. 9 times out of 10 I get the results I was hoping for the second time around. And always get names. I've started telling them that I too am recording this phone call. I have an app on my phone that records both sides of a conversation. I have it for work related phone calls so if I'm not where I can write down information I can recall it at a later time. I've also found that (most of the time) women take their jobs way too seriously or act like they have a chip on their shoulders. Men are much easier to deal with. As always, keeping the high road and keep calm pays off...except for the time I told one Eastern Indian (who had no business dealing with the American public) that if I knew where he lived, I'd fly a plane thru his tent! This was shortly after 9-11. I think I broke my phone that day :(