When I used to run experiments on rose germination methods, I often used Miniature Rose 'Angel Rose', Rosa chinensis seeds. The resulting seedlings were then sold as a fundraiser at our local rose society spring sale. I do not remember anyone complaining about their plant. The seedlings spend several years as miniatures and then often grew into small climbers. See the link below for a discussion. Here is a link that might be useful: Miniature Rose 'Angel Rose', Rosa chinensis seeds.

Smittee, I agree with funsocaltiger about the local ones being bigger than what you get from those mail order ones. I haven't ordered anything through the mail yet, although I've heard some good reports from those who do. I find buying from the local stores allow me to poke around with the plants, check if they're healthy and finally take my pick. I usually scout for them at Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart and even K-mart. Plus some other local nurseries if they happen to sell them. You'll most likely find Cavendish variety (whether it's the tall, dwarf or superdwarf specie). Occasionally, you may get something nice. I got my Kru from HD, Zebrina from Walmart. One Walmart also had some Basjoo. One thing nice with shopping locally is if you find something wrong with the plants, you can almost always bring them back for a refund. I brought one of the diseased cavendish back to K-mart one day and they took back their plant. Talking about diseased plants, make sure you look out for smelly juice oozing out from the pseudostem. It's a sign of virus infection. If you are just starting, you may find Cavendish a good one to start out with because they're the most easily available ones and fairly cold tolerate too although there was one winter when one of mine died. However, the corm didn't really die. The following spring, it had a new plant. Choose some more disease and cold tolerant ones to avoid some heartaches. I haven't planted them long enough to know for sure, but Ice Cream, Praying Hands and Manzano seem to be quite hardy. Hope you find something you like to plant soon. Once you start planting, you'll never want to stop. Welcome to banana addiction.

There are a ton of reputable ebay sellers of figs and cuttings, but there is nothing more frustrating than purchasing cuttings and finding out 2 years later that it is not the correct variety. Some sellers hermansur, treesofjoy are very trustworthy and have extensive fig knowledge. Jon V. (EncantoFarms.com) has one of the most extensive collections in the US (more than 1000 figs) and knows what he is selling. He sells cuttings from that site in the spring (Feb) very reasonably and is on ebay as pitangadiego. I would also trust drivewayfarmer. There are a ton more reputable sellers, these are just some that I have dealt with or know their reputation.

Folks. This JennAir (and all others) thread totally fascinates me. We have spent over 20k on JennAir appliances in two houses, mainly because we felt that we were getting the best deal for our money (we have the range reviewed at reviewed.com and have loved it, even though it is too powerful for our needs and is being vented by a JennAir microwave situated some 14-16 inches over it (stupid, but the limitations of our second/vacation home). I looked at every appliance under the sun and then some and reviewed hundreds of posts on THS and other resources. I also talked to my installer who is a certified JA, SZ, Thermador, Wolf, pretty much all high end brand installer. He tells it bluntly...ALL, yes ALL manufacturers produce lemons that require one time expensive repairs or multiple expensive repairs. He attributes it to "sick day" or "snow day" syndrome...couple of workers call in sick or fail to show up bc of inclement weather and a whole assembly line of products roll off the assembly line and get packaged after poor assembly by "scrub" workers. He has seen no more failures among JA, SZ, Thermador, etc than among any other manufactures. Now, how a manufacturer deals with a problem is another story. I have yet to call on JA for service and hopefully won't have to. My dealings with GE (and those of my parent's, as well) have been atrocious. 3 delivered dented replacement refrigerator doors (all left for me to dispose of...all had tiny dents, but GE didn't feel it was necessary to recycle any of the stainless steel they left behind for me to deal with). Also had our brand new GE fridge break within days of the 1 year warranty expiring and we had repair men fail to show up and then have to wait several weeks for replacement parts. GE tried to charge us several hundred dollars in repair fees (which we successfully fought), all on a $8-900 fridge!!! My parents have had equally exasperating experiences with GE. We had the compressor die (and I believe get replaced for free...after we sold our home) on a top of the line SZ fridge and we had a Viking 8 burner range that never really worked fantastically and that was a major, major pain to keep clean. We have two local major appliance dealers within 10 miles of us. I am incredulous that when querying both of them independently, they tell me that JA products are flying out of the stores (including complete high end packages like ours), mostly due to aggressive pricing and promotional discounts (installation subsidies and free appliances as part of a package purchase). Yet, I have never, ever, ever met a single person who owns a JA product, let alone is considering JA for their remodel. Several have not even really heard of JA!!! I was initially concerned with the reviews I read online about JA reliability and customer service, but so far, it has not been an issue. We purchased and installed the new Obsidian fridge from JA and the door had a tiny scrape in the corner where the stainless was not "buffed". JA did the right thing and replaced the door with no questions asked. They also called to make sure we received it and had it installed. See my separate post about this fridge. Luv, luv, luv it. And, it's super quiet. And a good $1500-2000 cheaper than similar models from the competition. With respect to the 9600 model of DW built by bosch, I believe it cost us $200 more than receiving the free DW that comes with a range (or cooktop and oven purchase) and it is indeed built by Bosch (for what that is worth). It had no panel, which we desired as we were going with a built in look. Honestly, no complaints here, either with this model which is nearly silent, nor with the free DW that we received with a range purchase in our other home. My wife (who really only opined about the DW and aesthetics of some other appliances) thinks the world of both DWs and is glad we did not go ahead with the FP dish drawers again. Overall, we are very satisfied customers of JA (thus far) and hope to remain as such. We're getting pestered with offers for extended warranties and I am seriously considering these given past experiences with other manufacturers and concerns about reliability. I remain puzzled by the fact that JA is not more in the vernacular when it comes to appliances, even when I hear from salespeople that people are indeed purchasing JA packages. Maybe JA's past reputation is the reason...maybe Thermador, SZ, Wolf, etc just have too much cache. But look at my review on the Obsidian fridge...I thought that internally, the SZ looked like any cheap fridge; people just marvel over the inside of the JA fridge and the layout meets our needs nearly perfectly. I'll try to upload photos when I get a chance.