Laura, Thanks for the info on 'Crescendo' and S&W. I've often ordered from that supplier & have always been pleased with their product. They are, however, "middle men" and purchase all their roses from wholesalers like Weeks and the now defunct J&P. Viewing the small, leafed-out plants visible in the photo I linked to above, and considering the fact that S&W is offering the rose only as a container grown plant, I'm led to strongly suspect that J&P was planning to market this rose only as one of its 'New Generation' (own-root) series, & that's probably what S&W is offering. IMHO, if true, that's not good news. I've been underwhelmed with other 'New Generation' plants -- 'Pope John Paul II' and 'Sedona', for example, are two very promising roses that would probably perform much better if grafted. PJPII recently became available on Fortuniana. I'll wager that on that rootstock it will be vastly superior to the wimpy 'New Generation' plants that I'm coaxing along. Unfortunately, Fortuniana is not an option for me.

HershiGirl--You are absolutely correct. The name is 'Grande Amore.' I copied from a sheet distributed after the luncheon and didn't have the nous to correct it. Thank you. JimD

What beautiful pictures! It's sad that such a lovely rose isn't available. I've been thrilled with my two Jackson & Perkins floribundas 'Royal Wedding', but they stopped carrying it after only a year or so. Of all my 170 roses, it blooms the longest and is most prolific. It's also hardy, quite disease resistant, and the blooms (which are like hybrid teas) are truly beautiful. So sad to see it dropped.

Varieties: Gaye Hammond, Easy Does It, Wedding Bells, Plum Perfect, Poseidon, Winter Sun, Beverly, Koko Loco, Desmond Tutu, Savannah The red ones are obviously Desmond tutu, the big huge yellow ones that are blooming like crazy I believe are Gaye Hammond, the other yellow is winter sun, the light pink one is savannah. and the darker pink is wedding bells. The orange one is easy does it. Carefree beauty and shreveport are our controls. Carefree beauty is there basically to record blackspot pressure, which with no humidity and hot temperatures all summer, has been largely negligible, but will be interesting how that changes this year as we move into fall.