Strawberry Hill-not impressed by 'Summer Song'; it doesn't bloom often and has long octupus arms. Very prone to BS even when sprayed. Blooms have been small and stingy, but color is a luscious tangerine. 'Munstead Wood' is a gorgeous deep raspberry color. Mine has been slow to grow; almost thought I had the wrong rose as its form and blooms were more like a miniflora. Blooms don't last long on bush either. I'm waiting for it to mature since it's only a couple of years old before I decide if it's a keeper or not. I don't think I detect much fragrance.

I've grown two of the Vigorosa series from Kordes, Innocencia and Emely. Both were short, very disease resistant and bloomed a great deal. This was in the southeastern US - it's rated to 6b by default on hmf, but may well withstand colder temps, being Kordes. Emely is one, I think that Pickering is phasing out, but I think it's still available from there. I grow Kordes' Cream Veranda and have found it to be very bs and mildew resistant here; very pretty bloom. hmf rates it to 6b but I notice that Celeste in New Hampshire grows it. New to me this summer, but I really like Tantau's Sweet Haze, which has a very pretty single pinkish bloom; Heirloom rates it to zone 5. I think hmf zone rating is in error, 8 to 9. What colors are you wanting?

If you are looking for something available from local sources I would recommend Kelvin Floodlight. Kelvin is probably the most widely distributed and easiest to grow dahlia on the planet. For me he grows to about 40in(100cm) and if I don't top him, the first bloom will be around 12in(30cm)in diameter with subsequent blooms running to about 10in(25cm). Kelvin does not do well in dahlia shows, but if you plant him anywhere close to passing traffic you will have people coming to you door and asking 'What is that!" I do support Kelvin and I use the inverted plant cage method described at: http://dahlias.net/dahwebpg/Support/NoStake.htm . Here is a link that might be useful: How to find great dahlias for your garden

Tim - I have really enjoyed Margaret Laurence's works so far, and do enjoy this Prairie type of writing. I live on the South Plains - wide open spaces, few trees, big sky... Love it. Some call it barren, but I think it's gorgeous and it's tough to leave for big cities sometimes (claustrophobic with all the high buildings and not enough sky)... :-) Finished up a fun read about U.S. women's history called "America's Women" by Gail Collins. Collins is a big wig at the NYT so is a great writer. A nice extra was that she has a great sense of humor which is slipped in every now and then.... Hilarious at times. Now reading something by Madeleine Wickham, a UK writer who wrotes the kind of domestic dramas as Joanna Trollope et al. Nothing mind-blowing, but just a nice read. Plus it keeps referencing all sorts of very English words which I rarely hear here nowadays. (Perhaps they're not said any more in UK, but they bring back memories to me): dotty, stroppy, grotty, ring road, indicate (as in turning signal on car) etc... AND - big news: we had a blizzard yesterday here in Texas and we had a SNOW DAY. Unheard of, and very enjoyable. Most of the snow is gone now though. It was a bit weird: we were in the park on Sunday afternoon in t-shirts (70's); 24 hours, we're in 70 mph winds and snow; 24 hours later, we're back in the 50's and bright sunshine. We only had about 3 inches in snow (which is not bad for here), but Amarillo (just north of us 120 mi) had 19 inches of snow. Wow.... (Again - these totals may not be that impressive to those in the northern states. But it's a lot here and caused city-wide closing of almost everything official yesterday... Yeah! Free day off!)