If you are looking for an orange, maybe take a look at Pat Austin. I love this one. Or if it can be a blend, take a peek at Lady of the Mist. It smells devine and really looks like it's picture on Heirloom's site. A gorgeous bush. If it doesnt have to be orange, another one I would look at is Star of the Nile. It has a fragrance and color like no other rose I have ever seen. I agree with you however on getting rid of Heritage. It is such a dud here. Only reason it stays is it is very established and I am too lazy to 1) dig it out 2) all of the other bushes in this row are of the same size and I dont want to start over with a small bush and wait for 3 years for it to catch up with the rest. Marleah

Carrie, you hit the nail squarely on the head -- some days the enormity of planting my roses can get to me. Most days, though, I'm really excited about setting them free from their pot prisons. Our property has been farm land for its entire history, so our soil is not the usual rocky Virginia clay that I'm used to. In most places, I can easily sink a shovel its entire depth, and the soil that comes up is varying shades of brown. My pH is a little low, but I'll be able to work with that. Since you asked, here are a couple of 'before' photos of the area by the barn that I see as becoming a killer rose garden. The soil there is even better than I've seen anywhere else -- I guess it was all those cows and stuff milling around for so many years that did the trick. Under this mound of honeysuckle is an old cattle chute. During the first day of barn renovation a few weeks ago, I had the equipment operator clear out all the rotten fencing and overgrowth while he was waiting to work on the building. Here's the equipment doing its thing: The south side of the barn, after the cattle chute was removed. We've owned this place for 5 years (though we've only lived here for 5 months) and I had never seen this view because of all the overgrowth. I left the gate that had been at the end of the cattle chute because I liked it and I thought I could use it in the garden. I see it with smallish climbers at each corner. Here's the barn progress as of a few days ago. I think it will be a wonderful backdrop to a country rose garden. BTW, it IS all Robert's fault. Without his example, I would probably have gone about all of this in a much more controlled manner. Seeing what he has created in his garden gives me the encouragement to do roses on a much broader scale, and the courage to try things without the fear of making mistakes. Thank you, my friend. Connie

Jackie, I agree with Folly your Anna Olivier is absolutely glorious â¦. and so tall! I think I'll leave plenty of space around Lady Roberts so she can grow as tall as she pleases. I'm planning to develop an area for tea roses and old roses - about 12 metres (roughly 40 feet) wide by 16 metres (roughly 52 feet) long - in my garden. At the moment it's just grass and very tough weeds (think giant thistles with enormous tap roots). So, I have a lot of work to do before I start planting. Did I mention that I have the worst clay soil imaginable??? Now that Summer is upon us it will be impossible to dig a hole in it, even with a pickaxe, until September. So far the roses I have for this area are Lady Hillingdon, Safrano, Lady Roberts, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Old Blush, Cecile Brunner, and three or four unknown old tea roses that I've grown from cuttings taken at our local cemetery. Sorry, I digress â¦. Cheers Tricia

Jimster, They are dramatically different beans. The brown pole is pretty much a standard green pole bean albeit with a light sweet flavor that is hard to find in beans today. IIRC, the beans I sent you will produce 3 different colors of beans from the brown seed. There will be white, black, and brown beans in the offspring. The Purple Pole Beans are similar in many ways to varieties that were common back in the 1930's but with a few traits such as round pods that are more often found in beans that date from the 1960's. Alabama #1 has many of the same traits and it dates from the 1930's. Here are the traits: 1. round pods 2. about 7 to 8 inches long 3. some nematode tolerance 4. some heat tolerance 5. some resistance to bean rust 6. relatively short hold time on the vine, pick em young 7. relatively high 'beany' flavor 8. good canner, just the right firmness 9. Can be frozen, not as easily damaged as for example Fortex DarJones