I went on Friday, with my sister, my mom, and a friend who just wanted to get out of town for the weekend. We actually had a really good time. My sister has a great garden, and has decided to add some late winter flowers, so this worked out well; there were 4 or 5 different witch hazels in the displays - some were labeled and the rest were in gardens where there was someone who could give us an ID. Her favorite garden center, Atlock Farms, was there with some interesting mini irises and some very unusual houseplants, and there was a great selection of hellebores in the display gardens and for sale by several vendors. There were also some camellias, but we passed them up since they were all the early spring varieties and we're more interested in early winter types (because of bud hardiness issues we've read about here on the NE forum). Maybe the gardens weren't completely set up on the first day, or maybe we enjoyed it because we'd had a heads up from Carl and had very low expectations. To be frank, we also had slight hangovers - that may have helped! Anyway, I probably wouldn't miss the Boston show for this next year, but to be honest I liked it much more than the Philly show, which I've only gone to once. We were also planning to go to a behind the scenes tour at Wave Hill in Riverdale on Saturday, but it was canceled due to the weather. So instead of that, we walked a few miles on the HighLine garden downtown - always a treat, even in the snow!

Carol, the rose was last called J&P ROSE' after the wine. It was originally called LOVE'S KISS when it came out in the Disney Princess Collection the yr or so before they offered it as such. It, and 2 other roses, had originally been named in honor of Disney Princesses, but later were all changed to wine names. There's the yellow J&P CHAMPAGNE which was BEAUTY WITHIN for Belle, the "blood" red with white reverse J&P MERLOT which was FAIREST ONE for Snow White, and then this pink blend rose which was for Sleeping Beauty. When they changed them to wine names, they also added J&P CHARDONNAY, which was a test rose I have and I see they added the name CINDERELLA, and J&P CABERNET SAUVIGNON, which also goes by JASMINE, also after the fact, I assume for Princess Jasmine. Those two were not offered when I ordered the original Princess Roses. I seem to remember there was some speculation J&P had used HEIRLOOM as the CABERNET SAUVIGNON rose, but I see they have a codename for it now, so it obviously was not. I lost my BEAUTY WITHIN a few yrs ago, but still have FAIREST ONE, LOVE'S KISS and CHARDONNAY. J&P is just so infamous for pulling this kind of crazy marketing ploy.

They look similar and bloom from November to March for me in Zone 8a. They are very carefree plants. Mine bloom profusely even though I have them in a dry, part shade area. Here is a link: Iris unguicularis

LOL! Chloebud, you remind me. My people are split between wine people and water people. When wine people bring a bottle to an occasion with several different botlles open, I'll usually have them put it on the table for all to share. I rarely know anything about this new thing, but wine people can usually be trusted to bring something some will like. this once, however, I wasn't seated near such a bottle, which was about three quarters gone when I got some. It was SWILL. Tannic, tes, but also acidic, sour, nasty...maybe a bit uric? Just awful. I was so embarrassed! and worried that so much was gone and my guests would be thinking I'd lost my mind. Until I found out that one of the ”plus” people of one of my guests had accounted for most of the bottle, with the guy who brought it on the rest. The former lady apparently is more into drinking than wine. ;)