We sure did not know triple_b ! You would be welcome Florence. You can just pick a little amount of rose petals during the summer (Zephy is a good choice!) and keep them in small bags in the freezer until you have enough to make the jam). Btw Here is another great link for all the rose products one´s heart can desire. (Including the Rose Petal Jam). Best Rose Oil, Water (Get the little atomizer!). I use the Rose Oil in aromatherapy lamps and it scents the house those winter days when I long for roses and summer and read rose books. Do check this link there is lots of information and pictures about the production of Bulgarian rose products. Here is a link that might be useful: Bulgarian Rose Oil and products

The recipes all say to cut off the bottom because it's bitter. I haven't found this to be true of gallicas or hybrid chinas so I don't bother with cutting anything off. My biggest problem is getting the oak tree flowers out of the jam, since they are falling at about the same time as the once-bloomers are blooming. My DD wants me to make jam from spinossissimas next year. That sounds fairly labor intensive since it is going to take a lot more flowers than I'm used to using.

mudpie, hooked and baited! Dingo, I can't speak to zone 5, but "PC" is classed as an HP, and I would count on it being pretty cold-hardy. Dark purple aging darker is certainly an appealing description... There's a member garden in 6a (KS) where someone is (or was) growing "PC". Perhaps you could contact 'Greenman' for pointers? summersrhythm, I think you already know more than most of us what zone-pushing is all about. Those are lovely roses, and I hope you can give them a warm welcome in 6a... Virginia

Zuzu I totally agree about the Hortico bare roots being among the smallest in the business. The main canes are somewhat larger than pencil thick and the root systems look like strings (but there are plenty of them). At least they haven't artificially pruned the roots back like another bare root company I order from, but they're still quite small. If you put a lovely richly rooted Palatine bare root against the Hortico bare roots, it's like an elephant vs a mouse. Still, the canes look healthy enough. There still are some problems in their Hortico website though, BTW. I ordered their climber collection because I really wanted to replace my Nahema and no one else had it in stock. Also, there were 5 climbers for $75 listed, none of which did I have (never happens usually). Well when the website rang up the $75 collection for $81, I figured there were some hidden shipping costs and didn't think any more about it. When I got the roses, the climbers were a totally random collection most of which I already had. Turns out the website linked to their "random collection" page rather than the special listed without telling you. Their service representative says she's been working on what to do about this (um, maybe send me what I ordered?), and so far no word yet all this week. At least she acknowledged that it was a website glitch and not my error. Good job making use of the discount for $6 each Zuzu - how did you manage that one? That makes a big difference in deciding to add to your 500+ roses. Hope they do well for you this time around. Cynthia