Nadia, of the tea roses you listed I am only familiar with Maman Cochet, but I can tell you that it does really well around here. There is one in an old garden 3 blocks from my house. I know the homeowners, and one day they called me to come over to look at a "weird rose thing" that was growing out of their privet hedge. I went over and sure enough, there was some sort of rose which the hedge had completely eaten over the years, sticking a cane out into the light. I talked them into cutting back the hedge so that it was 2-3 feet away from the rose. We pruned the ancient rose, and fed & mulched it. That was about 1 1/2 years ago. Last Spring I went over there, and it had put out 3-4 new canes, grew back up to about 6 feet high (it is right against a tall fence, so I think grew up to get some light), and was blooming madly. I recognized it immediately as Maman Cochet. It bloomed almost continuously until about Nov, and is now producing new growth for its Spring flush. Point is that it survived for apparently several decades with no care, hidden inside of that hedge! If you like the look of Maman Cochet I would also recommend Niles Cochet, which is a sport of Maman Cochet - same rose, except that the blooms are a lovely pale pink/cream in the middle, with the outer petals a dark raspberry color. I got mine from a cutting of another ancient old rose growing in a neglected old back garden of a 100 + yr old house nearby. The house was empty, and the back garden was scheduled to have a condo building built on it, so I got permission from the new owners to go back there in the Spring, and there it was, blooming its head off. Here is a picture of my bush I took 2 minutes ago - it is only about 3 years since I planted it as a rooted cutting. It is just leafing out. I expect that it will get about twice as big as this when full grown, but even as a baby the last 2 Springs it has covered itself with bloom most of the time. Jackie

i used to say.. a $100 hosta.. w/o a label.. is a $5 hosta ... and you cant go renaming hosta ... on a whim ... if you have a VERY distinctive plant.. that everyone recognizes from a distance.. we call it the 10 foot rule in the hosta world ... then there is little or no doubt what it is ... [and there are a lot of conifers which fit into this category .. say green arrow, e.g.] but when you have 400 green hosta in a certain size.. all reg'd and named.. the odds of ID'ing it.. IMHO.. are low to nil ... right now.. in my garden i have the following pungens: hoopsi.. thomsen and Otto v. B ... and i find it amusing that 99.9% of us.. could ID them independently.. and individually ... and for someone to suggest a new name for a given plant in your garden .. and you change that name.. and then send out scion.. will only result in further dissolution of naming standards ... it would be my position .. that the plant is the plant that you bought it labeled under .. and if that label is wrong.. so be it ... [and this side steps the nomenclature changing of latin names to cultivar names] if you want the right plant .. under the right name.. then go buy it under such .. and you are all set ... but to go changing stock names.. is VERY troublesome ... and of course.. this has nothing to do with spelling or nomenclature changes ... thunberg was quite a plantsman/discoverer ... and the latinization of that.. has nothing to do.. in my world with 'cultivar' names .... it has to do with tracing the heritage of a specific named plant ... if there is a history.. and that history can be tracked [and i will say affirmatively Joy is REALLY REALLY good at this] .. then there is a basis for change ... but without it.. frankly.. you are basically throwing all the nomenclature standards.. right out the window .... should we change sharp chedder to walnut glen.. which used to be Goldie .. because the pix look the same ???? [not that they do.. its an example] another example.. i have a pungens in the yard ... named 'Stupka's walnut glen' ... he was quite a knowledgeable guy.. and apparently.. he made a selection that he thought was 'better' or different than WG .... is it walnut glen??? is it significantly different than WG??? will it be so in 20 years??? can someone off site tell me any of the above ..???? .. i would submit.. only if they talk with and document stupka's thoughts on the matter ... another example .. can i change the name of my mercury grand marquis to a Ford crown vic... because they are essentially the same car.. under two different corporate entities???? i think not ... as devils advocate [key words there].. it would be my position that you can NOT change the name of a plant ... [as i said.. you can go buy it properly labeled...but you cant change yours] .. w/o substantial documentation ... and right now.. all i see is 'he said; she said' it was said.. in the hosta world.. that all this would be fixed.. if only everything was registered .. and you know what.. that only started a bigger nightmare.. lol ... ken ps: and Will, i take great umbrage in your overly broad generalization that follows; as i am not ignorant, nor a lemming in the sense if being dictated to as to what is proper and correct [i have no problem with your opinion.. but i dont appreciate the implication that it is the ONLY proper and correct thing to do]: while it seems a bit like fighting a rising tide that is the American Ignorance department, it's the proper and correct thing to do. Here is a link that might be useful: thunberg

What you say about "end(ing) up with something that looks like the surrounding countryside that you didn't do anything to . . .pretty futile" is an interesting comment. I visited a show on the history of land use at the Museum of New Hampshire History on Wed. One of the points made was that the white settlers felt they were within their rights in taking much of the land the Indians (Native Americans)claimed because the Indians had not changed the land enough to make it theirs. Had not cut down the forests, farmed the land, made roads, and so on. Their European ethic was that to "own" the land, you must change it appreciably. Not so different, on a deep level, from what we do today. Planting all natives may feel like we are not changing the land appreciably; it doesn't look enough like we have "done" enough to make it ours.. I remember seeing a slide show several years ago that accompanied a lecture by a developer who had designed suburban cluster homes leaving nearly all of the trees, dividing up the lots and laying out the driveways to maximize privacy and minimize damage to the land. I agreed with the design principles, but the outcome was unsettling; the road through the development looked like a lonely road thru the woods; the houses were dark and in deep shadows as they were surrounded by tall trees, small holes having been cut out of the forest to put the houses down on. It seemed rather gloomy and isolated. I think a great many of us need to see evidence that the land has been changed by our hands in order to feel comfortable aesthetically. I plant natives and encourage others to do so to for many reasons. Also plant and love introduced plants. G.

You can get MINERVA from several Etsy stores. She was one of the first ones I bought. These are photos from last summer. She doesn't fade much. Blooms were a little small, but I think once the plant gets better established they'll be bigger.