Louis Phillipe is a rich blood red, to my eye. There is no orange tinge to the color -- more a slight shading toward blue-red, if any. The color lightens toward the center. I find Cramoisi Superieur to be similar. ?Maybe slightly darker? Maybe not. Louis Phillipe, in particular, is a tough, no-nonsense rose that can take a lot of punishment, once-established, and bounce back. We have a short, south-facing retaining wall which bounces the sun's heat back brutally. That wall killed 4-5 roses we planted there -- but then we stuck Louis Phillipe there, and the wall problem was solved. LP has become quite large, and its foliage protects its canes from the heat. Jeri

Hydrangeasohio, does your detached garage go below freezing during winter? If the pots will not freeze inside, it should be OK. However, I just don't think that you will be happy with the end results if the hydrangeas stay in the pots for a number of years. They really are much happier in the ground. For this same reason, I gave up some of my hydrangeas and gave them to friends, simply because I didn't have the ground space and they were not happy in the pots over the years. They included some Kaleidoscope (oops, I can't even remember the name now!! Ouch...), Forever and Ever, Claudie etc. All I have left in the ground now are my Endless Summer, Annabelle, and a number of paniculatas! I love my Annabelle and the P's because they are so carefree and hardy. OK, they don't have the colors of the macrophylla's but then my philosophy of gardening is, if you need too much babying, you don't belong to my yard! LOL! So, to answer your question, I do NOT winter protect my hydrangeas....just too lazy to do so..... LOL

Sometimes native bittersweet is not that easy to spot. I have lived here 4 years now and started a woodland garden in a patch of open woodland that is across the front yard from my front window. One day I was pulling some of the many maple seedlings that come up in there and noticed some berries on the ground. Sure enough I looked up and 40 feet up a tall hemlock there was bittersweet growing in the tree tops. All that you see going up the side of the tree is a single trunk hugging vine that is about 3" across. I wanted to identify mine so I looked at it with binoculars as the fruit and leaves were so high. Here are some sites I used to help me and some exerpts from them on telling them apart. http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/ceor1.htm http://www.djroger.com/bittersweet.htm http://ecfla.org/articles/badbittersweet.htm http://www.bedfordaudubon.org/seasons/autumn/bittersweet01.html NOTE: Because Oriental bittersweet can be confused with our native American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) which is becoming less and less common, it is imperative that correct identification be made before any control is begun. American bittersweet produces flowers (and fruits) in single terminal panicles at the tips of the stems; flower panicles and fruit clusters are about as long as the leaves; the leaves are nearly twice as long as wide and are tapered at each end. Oriental bittersweet produces flowers in small axillary clusters that are shorter than the subtending leaves and the leaves are very rounded. Comparing the two, American bittersweet has fewer, larger clusters of fruits whereas Oriental bittersweet is a prolific fruiter with lots and lots of fruit clusters emerging at many points along the stem. Unfortunately, hybrids of the two occur which may make identification more difficult. The most reliable way to distinguish our native species from the introduced one is by the location of the flowers and fruits on female plants. In American bittersweet, the clusters of flowers and resulting fruits occur at the tips of the branches. Oriental bittersweet produces its smaller clusters of flowers and fruits along the stems where the leaves are attached. This arrangement results in a greater number of fruits being produced. Also, the capsules of C. scandens are usually more orange than those of C. orbiculata. Other than the difference in the location of flowers and fruits, the plants are much the same in appearance with brownish stems dotted with small, light spots (the lenticels) and shiny, green, slightly toothed leaves that become yellow in late fall. The leaves are variable in size and shape, but those of American bittersweet are generally longer than broad while those of Oriental bittersweet are more rounded in outline giving rise to the species name, orbiculata. Hope this helps. Catrina

Yes even here it's still an evolving situation. For example, I would now rank the damage on Ilex 'Scepter' as being more severe than that on 'Sand Pond'. Once again proving how a 100% American X American hybrid is more resistant to our capricious weather than an Asian X European one...as you'd expect. Because the leaves of 'Sand Pond' are obviously reviving themselves, but those of 'Scepter' continue to dessicate and turn papery brown. I wish I had a male I. integra, it would be cool to make a 'Sand Pond' X integra cross. (I should clarify versus what I said on Feb 23rd: some 'Scepter' leaves were still undamaged at that point. All 'Sand Pond' leaves had minor damage. Now, ALL 'Scepter' leaves are basically dead and some are already falling off. Most 'Sand Pond' leaves still have damage but the green bits are getting greener, it seems. The March 5 freeze was by far the most damaging of the winter) There's some rather odd damage now becoming apparent even on Abies ernestii...sometimes rated as hardy as 5b and I've seen a huge, beautiful one near Rochester, NY. (part of the reason I bought one) The leaves have little yellowish spots...I might post to the conifer forum to see if someone has seen anything like it. They are so subtle they might be impossible to photograph. It's like a very subtle variegation. Certainly not serious, but fascinating. All in all as they say, it still could have been worse. It also makes me feel good about my choice years ago not to invest in trying a big, expensive Trachycarpus palm. Because I thought north of about St. Michael's, MD or maybe Cape May, NJ - and even those locations are really really pushing it- they have no chance of being truly long term plants w/o protection. I knew another winter like 1994 would happen, and it did. What I did not know is we would have 2 in a row! I reiterate that 'Soquel' is my best looking Sequoia...granted it is my oldest but the bigger 'Swarthmore Hardy'/'Chapel Hill' has been in the ground a while, too, and arguably in a better spot. (better soil) Not that it is an appropriate rating, but I'm reminded of Dr. Dirr's former SEO website that rated 'Soquel' as zn 6 hardy. Not true but he apparently had some information about it surviving cold temperatures well, which it does. If you need to try one in the DC area, I'd now recommend that over any of the others. I want to try to see the huge tree in Silver Spring MD this spring, to see how it weathered things, and the 2 that are almost as big in NoVA. BTW - given that exposed Leylands were damaged even last winter in the outer suburbs of Baltimore, I definitely think most of New England would be stretching it for them.