I can give you a little information on some of your unfamiliar roses. For Toro/Uncle Joe, it is a show rose that has been around a long time. It is a big, beautiful red, but do not expect a lot of flowers from it at any given time. The reason is that it has lots and lots of petals and really doesn't open all the way very easily. It takes the plant a lot more energy to make a heavily-petalled flower than a flower with fewer petals. Sugar Moon is one of the best whites to come along in a long time. It gets quite tall and has lots of very fragrant flowers. I could have more of this one without complaint. It also, so far, has withstood a late, hard freeze rather well. We may be getting another one in a couple weeks if the long-range weather forecast is correct. Garden Party has been around since its 1960 AARS award. It is a good white rose that has seen its day on show tables. It is one of the better whites with a tinge of pink on the petal edges. Perfume Delight is also an AARS winner from 1974. It is a fragrant, solid pink rose. I have not grown this one, so I can't comment on it other than its past history. Cl. America is a coral/salmon climber with hybrid tea-type flowers that are quite fragrant. It is also an AARS winner from 1976. I have not grown it, but I have seen it on show tables and in various gardens. If you know Fragrant Cloud, it was in the parentage of this rose. Chicago Peace is one of a number of sport mutations of Peace. It is quite colorful. If you really want to see this one look really good, just feed it a little blood meal if you don't already do so because the iron in the blood meal will make the colors light up, especially anything based on red. This is true for all the rest of the roses also. Like other sports, this one sometime reverts back to its Peace parent. Sometimes it is only half of the flower. Half is Peace while the other half is Chicago Peace. It is strange, but cute. Other sport roses, such as Winchester Cathedral, have done the same thing also. Double Delight has won a number of awards, AARS 1977 being one of them. It is colorful and quite fragrant, but it is prone to a lot of split centers, a no-no if you are into exhibiting. If you want it just for the garden or cut flowers, it should be fine. It is good for smelling. I hope these little comments help a bit.

I was reading to my daughter from an illustrated children's Bible, and we came to a scene where some ancient Jewish king was killed in his garden . . . yes, I know, a lovely scene to read about to a child anyway! . . . but then I turned the page and saw that in the illustration the desperate fellow was fleeing through formal beds of hybrid teas. No way!!! We also have a beautiful park in town that was especially designed for a "natural" look, with many types of ornamental grasses and species shrubs, rosa nitida, etc. The only false note in the whole thing is three hybrid teas that someone plopped down, all by themselves, at a very prominent juncture along one of the paths. You can tell by looking at them that the designer never intended for them to be there! I'll bet that the man who donated the park and named it in honor of his wife probably insisted on including those hybrid teas because they were his wife's favorite flower, or something like that. I shudder every time I see them!

The Victorian style of gardening was dead, dead, dead right around 1900. It survived in public parks and railroad stations but most people had come to dislike it intensely. One of its chief features was the bedding-out of annuals, both flowering and foliage plants. I am now seeing some of these foliage plants, like coleus, so popular in the 1800s, popular again. Huge foliage plants such as cannas were also big with the Victorians and scorned after 1900. William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll began a revolution in English gardens. They advocated naturalistic planting styles and perennials. They also wrote books. Jekyll designed gardens for the very rich in England, never stirring from her hidden home at Munstead Wood, which I have had the great good fortune to visit. Jekyll was inspired by English cottage gardens but her gardens were planned for the upper class. Her books were very popular and well-to-do Americans bought them with enthusiasm. However, American gardeners soon found that English garden books do not translate very well in our climate. A whole new garden literature, most of it written by women gardeners, arose. These books were, I believe, the largest influence on American gardens from 1900 til WW2. They generally showed naturalistic groups of perennials in geometric beds. Borders were hugely popular, as well as the style described above, so often with a sundial at the center. Sorry for the long post!

We just bought the NXR from aj madison online. Awesome experience. The installation was for $60 !!!!! White glove delivery. The range is my dream come true ! I purchased it without seeing it. Just researched all info on it via forums and websites. (not that there is much out there on this range to go by....hence my post). Burners are beautiful ! Double stacked , they come apart for cleaning. Grates are heavy duty. Oven works great and the infra-red broiler is just amazing for grilling ! cons :yes there is one maybe two...I find it hard to clean. The top is not one smooth piece of metal and food could get stuck in the grooves on the surface. It does not have self clean oven feature - something I don't really miss. ( my previous range did, and I remember using it once in the 5 yrs I owned that range). Oh, and there are no fancy controls or timers..I just use my microwave timer. All in all gets a 9 out of 10 !