Luvs, I had so much fun planning this table. I think I had more fun writing Alexander and Charlotte's story though. LOL! After finishing, I thought of so many more things I wish I had written...isn't that usually how it goes though?? Jeannespines, I feel blessed to have a such wonderful family that tolerates my little obsessions. They just laugh and say "Mom's playing with the dishes again". Punk, not tired of doing the tables...just tired of having to put up stuff when I take it off the table. LOL! Seriously, this many tables hasn't, up until now, been normal for me simply because I didn't have the time and energy. However I am now officially one of the many unemployed people in this country, not by choice though, so I have time to play around with table settings. Although if I want to keep feeding my little dish habit, I'm going to soon need to find a job. Jane, sometimes I wish we could go back to more glamorous days when ladies wore gloves and hats and sparkling jewelry. When I see old photos of ladies dressed like this, they always look so elegant to me. Well, maybe I wouldn't want to do it every day, but once in a while would be fun! Judith, I do adore black and silver together and my daughters had a ball with this one! They helped me pick out the jewelry to use. Although my middle daughter did ask me if I had lost my marbles making up a story to go along with the table. LOL! Mary Ruth, thank you so much! I think we all need a little fantasy now and then. It helps to balance out everything else. Writersblock, thank you for the kind words! I really enjoyed this setting and hated to take it down. Kathleen, I've had problems posting too! Hope this is soon fixed. As for the tiara, it's been with me a long time and is really looking a little sad now. When I was a little girl, I loved the movie Cinderella with Lesley Ann Warren. I just knew one day I was going to be a princess like she was. Yeah, right...LOL! Occasionally my mother would go to the jewelry store and they had the most beautiful tiaras in there. I wanted one so bad and then one day my mother surprised me with this one! It's been alot of years since then and I was really young, but I can still remember how I felt when she put it on me. For that moment in time, I truly was a princess.

@librarian_gardner_8b_pnw Mine is the same with the bare legs. All the growth is at the top. I'm wondering if I didn't prune it back far enough this spring. I left it at 2ft. I may take it back to 12-15in next season. @Tangles Long I just saw the youtube video and it wow......it totally blew my mind! I've only seen pictures of this on DA's website (they've since removed it). Pictures/videos like this are the reason I planted a hedge of PAOK in the first place in 2018. My hedge is still very leggy, but it did bloom frequently this year. Until I saw that video, I started to think this kind of display isn't possible in reality. Boy, was I wrong! To top it off, @jo_pyeweed (z9 SF Bay Area)'s pictures are stunning too! I really REALLY want this type of display from PAOK, and really any rose in my garden. It's not enough to have pretty blooms any more. I want full and lush shrubs, even when they're not in bloom. I've been looking into how to make that happen, and I think it really boils down to hard pruning in warmer zones and buying grafted. I buy own root exclusively, and every picture I see of a bushy rose, it is one that is grafted. I don't think that's a coincidence, since grafted roses can offer a more uniform experience across many different conditions and rose types. For that reason, I think I may transition to deliberately growing more in pots, since soil conditions are more uniform. (Or I just need to be more patient, since I'm dealing with own root roses lol) @noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque) Fragrance is the only thing that disappoints me so far with this rose. It's present, but not strong at all. I've read that it's really strong and that it takes a few years to develop it's power. I've had mine for 4 years and it's only a lite fragrance so far. Nothing really blows me away like the website and stories would suggest. I really did a nerdy ramble here haha, but this thread really speaks to many of my sentiments around growing roses. I want to look outside or walk around and see what I've seen in this thread all the time!

Diane, I'm so glad to see you still have your sense of humor in the face of extraordinary obstacles this season. Things are pretty awful here, too. I haven't even deadheaded all the roses from their first flush, indeed, they didn't even get pruned to begin with. Such high hopes throughout winter, then plans fell flat. The good side of it is that it can only get better. Next year will be our year! Instead of long canes shooting straight up as most young Austins do, PAoK's long canes reached out along the ground, curving and squiggling all over the place among the other roses as if they were searching for something. You may make 'beached octopus' yours as I have made 'bloomiest' an oft used word of mine. I am honored.

I guess I should update my review on this rose. When I wrote my last review earlier in this thread, I had only had Princess Anne for a few months . 2024 will be her third year here in z11, and I have become quite frustrated with the princess. PA is an incredibly healthy plant. She's never had any disease and withstands heat and wind like a champ. HOWEVER... She's just not blooming. Last year she gave maybe six blooms for the spring flush and then a few sparsely scattered throughout the year. Of course I tried upping the fertilizer but nothing could convince her to bloom. This year, all my roses have either started blooming or are covered in buds, but PA continues to put out only foliage. Oh sure, it's lovely, glossy, perfectly healthy foliage... But no trace of any blooms to come. I hate to do away with such a healthy plant, so I'll give her more time, but I think this might be a rose that needs a real winter to bloom properly.