Denise, I did order 3 roses from Chamblees in 2011, Duchesse de Brabant, Mrs. B. R. Cant, and Crepuscule, and then last year I ordered 3 more from them--Pat Austin, SDLM, and Mrs. Dudley Cross. This coming fall I am thinking about ordering Maggie, and I might need to find 2 others to complete the order :) I was happy with Chamblees plants, although a couple plants were on the smaller side. But they did replace a small rose that arrived split at the soil surface. I planted the broken one, which is slowly catching up, as well as the replacement, so I have two Crepuscule plants. Rosefolly, my bigger Crepuscule that I planted next to an arbor needs some help. It doesn't seem to have grown much in the last year and is showing signs of what I think is an iron deficiency, green veins in pale leaves. Our calcareous soils make it difficult for plants to get the iron they need. It didn't help that a huge blue sky vine was taking over the arbor as well. Also, the plant is in the hot afternoon sun and I'm not sure that is the best location. The second, smaller Crepuscule is planted where it gets more shade and I'll be interested to see how it looks this fall. I am thinking about trying green sand for the iron problem, after reading about it this spring on one of the GW forums. As we are snow birds, I didn't have time to do any serious amendments this spring before we left for the north. I did fertilize with a fertlizer for acid loving plants and mulched. I will read more about green sand and perhaps try it in the fall. For now, my Florida roses are on their own (sorry to leave them--some were getting ready for a nice flush when we had to leave). I am hoping our area has a nice, rainy summer! Some photos--not many full bush photos--too much other greenery nearby makes them hard to photograph. Mrs. Dudley Cross has been slow to take off and has had just a couple of flowers on her thus far and they were not that nice. I'm hoping she'll improve with age. Marcia Duchesse de Brabant Crepuscule in 2012 Crepuscule bud in April 2013--you can see the darker veins in the lighter green leaves I love Pat Austen's color! Too bad her blooms droop so SDLM was a tiny plant when I received it last spring, so I took it back to PA with me and nursed it in a pot all summer. She was planted in the ground in November 2012. A helpful critter on one of her buds Mrs. B. R. Cant is definitely the plant that took off and grew larger than any of the others that I planted from Chamblees. Before we left Florida, we put a small fence (not in this photo) in front of her so the canes wouldn't droop on the ground and be run over by the lawn mower.

Sherry, best wishes on your quest for that rose! I think I understand Maryl's point that RMV is neither a guarantee of abysmal performance in a given rose, nor is virus-indexed source a "magic bullet." I've seen quite a few roses I knew were virused never thrive; others do fine initially but then decline. BUT, I agree there could be other factors in why a particular rose is not healthy. RMV just happens to be a good suspect. But like Maryl's example, I've also had a few roses I knew were virused (due to the tell-tale marbled pattern on occasional leaves) that nevertheless performed quite respectably. I've had specimens of Peace and Tiffany that did just fine. I only had mine less than 4 years, so how they would have done after 10 I don't know. If the research literature is correct though, a given RMV-infected specimen will still tend to do significantly worse over several years than that same specimen were it virus-free. Whatever the reason for your CI's failing to thrive, it seems a good chance that the stock is weak for whatever reason. If you replace them with a source that has received good reviews (like RU), I think you'll be happy. I hope they'll have some available soon. If not, you might consider ordering from Northland Rosarium in Washington State. You have to order it specifically for spring, but they have a very good reputation for quality own-root roses, and they do try to screen out RMV-infected stock. As for the potted vs. in-ground issue, I should have mentioned my roses are all potted. I have a suspician I can't prove that own-root roses are happiest when given a chance to develop for a while in a pot with good potting medium, rather than being planted in the ground as a little rooted cutting. Plus, if you're in central or southern Florida, you don't want to plant into the ground unless you're planting China rose varieties or roses grafted onto Fortuniana. Potting the roses and keeping the pot out of direct contact with the soil from the ground will help keep root-rot nematodes from invading the rose's root area. Mike

Well, considering how much a fan of own-root roses here in my cold zone, this was an eye-opening exercise. I went through my entire alphabetical list of 800 or so roses, a majority of which are flori/HT/grandiflora roses, and noted any that I considered excellent on own roots. It turns out a lot of outstanding bloomers that I vaguely had considered floris or HTs were actually shrubs, and many of my best HTs were in fact grafted. Dang. I have a bad survival rate with bare root roses, but it looks like I should be cautious with the HT own root roses on a second round. My impression was that the floribundas weren't particularly bothered by being own root and very few of mine were grafted, but by far my best bloomers among the HTs tended to be the grafted ones. Who knew?? Here's my list of the definite prolific or otherwise robust roses in these categories: Floribunda: - prolific Bolero Floral Fairy Tale LavaGlut Mandarin Ice Grand Duc Henri Occhi di Fata Pinocchio Suni Louisa Stone/Guinevere Pillow Talk Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale Impatient Roman Holiday Alice Pat Champagne Moment Bad Worishofen/Pink Emely Eutin Hot Cocoa HTs Beverly Francis Dubreuil Cubana Comtesse de Segur Dames de Chenonceau Acropolis Aloha Headliner Nigrette (no worse than it would do grafted) Papageno Lafter Maid of Honor Spiced Coffee Golden Buddha Birthday Girl Grandif �" Paloma Blanca Paw Maw Lagerfeld Earth Song (extremely well) Mother of Pearl I ended up needing an honorable mention for the HTs, with roses that are robust and vigorous growers, but not terribly prolific or frequent rebloomers. I figure that can be true of any of the HTs and it wouldn't depend on them grafted or not, so for what it's worth here are the good HTs on own roots, for me: Peggy Rockefeller Karl Herbst Intermezzo (surprisingly hardy for a lavender Dot rose) Neptune Henri Matisse Careless Love Charlotte Brownell Harry G Hastings Madame Delbard Break oâÂÂDay Sophisticate I agree that Double Delight is a very weak grower under any circumstances, but virtually microscopic if own root (and I've tried several times). It refuses to die before lingering several years, but never thrives own root. Cynthia

I logged on to ask people about their favorite minis, and your post was the first thing I saw. Thanks! For the record, I don't have much experience, but so far Gizmo Sweet Chariot Red Cascade are doing great, and Celebrate Life Cherry Hi have beautiful blooms but don't know yet about everything else.