Angel Gardens has an Annie Laurie McDowell, but has, to date, been unable to propagate her according to Pam. I haven't heard from Heirloom how the large box of cuttings I supplied them with last fall have performed, but, hopefully, Heirloom should have her available this year. Heaven knows I sent them sufficient material! Burlington's only issue supplying her has been demand outstripping the plant's abililty to regenerate material for cuttings. That's to be remedied this spring as I am set to provide her with a large box of material around March when conditions are appropriate for her to begin propagating. So, Annie Laurie McDowell SHOULD become much more readily available this year. Burling has stated she can root them quite easily. It's been HAVING material to root that's limited her ability to supply them. I told her I wished she'd alerted me to that issue before we appeared on a propagation panel at the Ventura County Rose Society a few weeks ago. I would have happily kept her supplied, as I am now ready to do. I shall also be sending budwood of her (and quite a few others) to Malcolm Manners for inclusion in the university garden. Keep your fingers crossed! Kim

Baronne Prevost: "Meant to be a California girl," or "West Coast girl," oh please. But it's good to know that she repeats and behaves well somewhere. What are the British books that dissed BP? I see that David Austin writes in The Rose: "Baronne Prevost has magnificent, perfectly formed blooms and strong upright growth." (p. 69 with a whole page photograph). Botanica's Roses, 2nd ed 1999, which is largely a British (Peter Harkness, Peter Beales, David Austin, John Mattock et al) plus Commonwealth production, notes on Baronne Prevost: "Extremely popular for many years, this early Hybrid Perpetual retains the shape of the Old Rose form. Large, globular buds open to full, fat, quartered, pink blooms that fade with age and make most attractive cut flowers. The stiff, stout canes are covered with attractive foliage and short red prickles. This tough, compact shrub blooms in summer with an occasional autumn repeat and is best placed at the back of the border. It likes sun and rich soil. ..." (p. 105) Now, of perhaps more interest to the OP, David Austin on Paul Neyron (from The Rose, p. 72): "In the past this rose was regarded as having the largest flowers of all roses, and I suspect that this may not be far from true today. It is in every way a very large shrub, with large leaves and strong upright growth. Unfortunately with size comes clumsiness, as is so often the case, but of the flowers are cut and mixed with an arrangement of other flowers they can be very effective. Their color is a deep rose-pink flushed with lilac; they're cupped in shape and have a light fragrance. ..." Botanica's entry does not add anything (other than a bit of PN's history) to this. My *North Carolinian* experience with HPs in general, notwithstanding a few very notable exceptions, is that they are not good rebloomers and throw out very long canes after their first (which is often pretty much the last) flush. I now grow more HPs here in England mostly because they rebloom and behave a bit better here. However, mind you that, despite their family name, Hybrid Perpetuals are generally known not to be all that perpetual. And regarding location, location, location, Virginia is in most respects probably closer to North Carolina than to England or California, and its, uhm, girls. Andrea

Some thoughts from my experience with growing 'Paul Neyron' in my North Texas garden: * Has very lush, beautiful leaves, but unfortunately they are often marred by blackspot, which sometimes runs rampant on this rose in my garden. And there are many worse climates for blackspot than here in North Texas. *When it's hitting "on all four cylinders", the blooms from this rose are truly spectacular to me. There's really nothing else like them. One of those big, globular blooms cut and put in a vase will literally knock your socks off (and all visitors to your home). *It's rich, lucious pink bloom color has a sort of "blue" cast to it ... it's a wonderful shade. * Sometimes I can smell the most perfect scent coming from its giant blooms. But at other times, I can't smell a thing from them. The scent is hit or miss for my nose. * As the plant reaches maturity, in my experience, it can no longer be referred to as "nearly thornless". Mine produces more thorns each year, but it still can be called "lightly thorned" when compared to your average rose. *Each spring brings high anticipation for the blooms on this rose. But frustration often ensues, because in my garden, this roses balls like mad in cool, wet weather. A somewhat similar, but much better performing rose of this class for me has been 'Archiduchesse Elisabeth d'Autriche' ('Vick's Caprice'). Randy

Sara Ann, My experience pretty much echoes the above comments. He's very tall, upright and rather narrow...so far in his second season about 7 ft tall and around 2 to 3 feet wide. Huge, beautiful, fragrant blooms that repeat quickly with hard deadheading. The heavy blooms will weigh down new canes, but older ones are usually strong enough to hold them high. Mildew and rust are rarely problems in our climate, but BS is a given on almost any rose here. PN will BS some, but not too badly...I've sprayed him a couple of times this year to keep the BS under control. Here are a couple of pictures from this past weekend where he's towering over his companions: This cane wasn't strong enough to hold up its bloom, so had to prop it up: