I did some overhaul to the modern rose bed (prepping my first OGR bed now) this year and so far the best additions in my coastal, no-spray garden have been: Brigadoon - Very healthy plant, not the quickest rebloom, but still young and the flowers have been very large. The flowers have a very long life on te plant, but I generally only cut more fragrant roses. It's next to another winner: Double Delight - No powdery mildew at all which is my most notable issue here a mile from the beach. Great scent, the blooms don't burn or fade quickly. Good for cutting, and acceptable rebloom time so far. Hailstorm - I moved one that was a year old and got another one. I really, really like this shrub rose. I can't say enough good about it. They do wonderfully in part-shade with a very quick rebloom time. Not a lot of scent, but this just strikes me. It stays very pale pink for me till it's about to blow. Not much of the white stage the name would indicate, but it still works with the other white and pale flowered plants around it very well. Abraham Darby- This wasn't my call, but I'm glad we went for it. It's been much better than I expected. Slightly slow rebloom, but little defoliation, no mildew so far, and just incredible scent. Great color variation, usually that wonderful orange/apricot centered with a pink edge, but occasionally a solid pink or apricot bloom will come through. Nice and spreading. It should be a nice, large self-supporting/pegged shrub. Medallion - Really great color, mild scent, nice rebloom time. The foliage has been very clean as well. I have nothing but good thoughts for this rose. Some of my best cut roses this summer have been from Medallion. Hot Cocoa: Maybe the healthiest rose I have besides Iceberg and White Lady Banks. It has been astonishingly quick to rebloom, the new growth looks great, the foliage has been shockingly healthy, and while it generally has no scent, once in a while a bloom will have a very pleasant old rose aroma. Worst: Heirloom - One of my first purchases since getting seriously interested in roses this year. I didn't research it, just liked the bloom color and scent. The rebloom time is great, but the plant is a mildewed mess, the blooms rarely last more than half a day before burning and are nowhere close to the lavender/mauve color I was blown away with at the nursery. It's more of a browning dark red that seldom opens without issue. Probably should have gone with Neptune or just avoided mauve/lavender entirely. Really Heirloom is the only bad rose for me so far. Probably will be shovel pruned next year if it doesn't improve. Just today I picked up a Dark Knight that was incredibly healthy and on sale. It's going to be fun to see how it does. A very sultry, velvety bloom with little fragrance, but the coloration is just great. I had been eying it for a while and was all too happy to snatch it today when I saw it was on sale. I can't report yet on the following newer acquisitions (all of which have yet to even be planted): Marie Pavie Sombreuil Purezza (It's probably going on the opposite side of the house as the 20+ year old white once blooming Lady Banks) I'm personally more drawn to Antiques, but I hold no grudges towards modern roses. A beautiful rose is a beautiful rose. Whatever makes me happy has a place in the garden. Always interesting to see what people are trying out! Munstead Wood looks great, but I'm a little reticent to pull the trigger on most Austins. I may give it a shot at some point. As a white rose fiend I would consider trying Tranquility next year, but there are so many great whites I don't have yet that I doubt I'll be making that call. On the other hand, I think I will give Bolero a shot next year. It may be the closest rose to Madame Hardy with respect to bloom form I can expect to succeed here. Jay

Beautiful photo, Lucy. We have more rain here today, it's been two years since we had this much rain at once. The hummers are crazy about the red canna flowers just like Siam predicted. I will try to get a photo today. Shirley

idie2live, Sorry so long in answering you. The ground cover is called pachysandra (Japanese Spurge). I really love it, it keeps its color thru winter (even the unusually cold and snowy winter we had this year. It does perfect under my maple tree. it does take a bit to start, there is the old saying of "sleep, creep, and leap" " Year 1 is sleep, year 2 is creep and on the 3rd year it leaps-fast growing") Here are some photos of my front yard..as you can see by the photo, I have recently gotten rid of a grass "pathway" (upper right side where you see the black pot with a bush I plan on planting there), soon the pachysandra will cover that area too. Then I planted bushes along the front of the property for winter color and not having to mow there either, plus I will grow them up a bit for privacy, I just need to add some mulch (right now) to that area, but, eventually the bushes get so wide that it will prevent weeds from sprouting and I won't need to mulch. Results are now I have only to move that slightly roundish area in my front yard. You will notice to the front-right under my pine tree is Ivy. That area is sunnier, so I used Ivy there, pachysandra does best in shady to partically shady. The only problem with Ivy is that it is very invasive, you have to stay on your toes to care for it, it will strangle out small plants and bushes, so I can't plant anything there with the ivy (unless you place a pot within the ivy with flowers as you see as I have done. The good thing about Ivy is that it covers quickly.

Hi Spatz, thanks for reminding me of the variety, I would love some seeds from Jaune Flamme, I have just been to visit my mum and I'm pretty sure I can scam a bit of space in her garden for some more varieties, though i haven't really told her that yet, ha ha - I managed to get her to grow a broad bean cover crop without having to reveal my sneaky 'surrogate' tomato patch plan *snickers loudly*. I was wondering if I could trouble you for some seeds of some cherry varieties as well? I was going try a few different coloured cherries in pots this year. I was just looking at Finbars recipe above and noticed the cavalo nero reference, now I have been looking for seeds of this for a while and was talking to the woman at the market who grows heritage seedlings and she informed me that cavalo nero is more often sold as lacinato kale, which I have had seed to all along! Can anyone confirm this for me? I did an internet search, from this I learnt that Cavalo Nero is most definately a type of kale but I'm still not sure if it is actually Lacinato. cheers, mudlark