Like you, I recently bought a potted,grafted Shenandoah 'tiny' plant and transpotted it into a bigger pot, where it has grown OK with 2 small branches developing full-sized healthy leaves. An identicle-looking tiny grafted KSU Atwood from the same seller that was packaged the same, growing in the same kind of nursery pot, repotted by me the same into the same kind of tall pot on the same day in the same soil mix with the same fertilizing and the same watering and the same Sunlight....never had one bud on the tiny scion grow out. It's rootstock sent out a couple shoots, but even these declined and died. I have used Miracle Grow, Super Thrive, and some granular fertilizer to nourish both. My conclusion is that the tiny root system is not reliable to support the tiny grafted scion. I have more confidence in clipping off the scion and regrafting it to a mature paw paw with a developed root system. I do not know what the patent restrictions dictate, but if I am going to invest $$ on a valued scion that is only being kept alive by an immature, very vulnerable rootstock, that is not a safe bet to make again. It would be a whole lot better taken care of if it was grafted onto a "Mango paw paw that has been in the ground for several years and is 8 or 9 feet tall". I wish that paw paw roots on tiny plants were as eager to grow and hardy as,.. say,...mulberries. Maybe that would be the best focus of additional paw paw research. Vigorous hardy rootstocks.

msmisk: Yes, I totally thought the Tamora I had was a hybrid Tea last year. The leaves and grow reminded me of hybrid tea. The not yet flowering bud looked like a HT bud, and when fully opened the flower looked like a HT flower past it's prime with the petals just sort of exploded everywhere. I couldn't find a photo of the fully opened bloom, but here are the bud blooms I found from 2009: This year my Carding Mill is pretty much doing the same thing almost. I find DA flowers can be inconsistent during the first bloom of the season, but the 2nd and 3rd flushes often resemble more of what you see in the catalog. Also according to the DA catalog Tamora was one of his older varieties which may explain the different look from the rest of his roses. helpmefind.com is where I turn to for a variety of user photos that help me determine if I got the wrong rose, it got mislabeled or anything else. Here are some of my Carding Mill photos from last year that I came across, looks nothing like this year's first flush: --------------------- Some more photos of this year's roses - not so shy now with the recent warm weather this weekend: Carding Mill Charles Renne Mackintosh Crown Princess Margaretta St Swithun Clg (DA sent me a bunch of these old and unwanted looking bare roots the year they still couldn't provide me with a grafted Generous Gardener - guess they really screwed up the grafting on those guys badly) Tamora Teasing Georgia The Alnwick Rose Windermere Still waiting for the following to open up their buds: Jude the Obscure, Queen of Sweden, Lady Emma Hamilton, Mortimer Sackler, The Generous Gardener, Sharifa Asma, Christopher Marlowe (the only new rose this year)

Very beautiful flowers CJ! I have (had) one almost exact like that. Re bloomed for me one time last year. I split the plant to give one to my friend as a favor. The other half is barely surviving right now but produced some young shoot. I am nurturing them like a baby because I love the flowers. I don't think it liked the heat I had in my sun room that much either. I am very watchful this year. If the heat in the sun room goes up to 27 degrees. I move them into my living room instead... Don't want any more damage. The flowers are very striking! I want to ask you all a question about put them outside. I heard some of you said you leave the orchids outside in summer and bring them in when the weather starts to get cold or cool down. What about rain? We all know and talked about don't let water gets in the crown of the orchids otherwise it will rot the leaves. How can they survive with rain pour on them? Or you do shelter them under some kind of protection? Please let me know. Tanie

Nice thread, beautiful plants! Good job! Yes, it's perfectly normal for seedlings to be very hit and miss with regards to looking like the parent plants or not. Only grafted plants or other cuttings are clones of the original. For one thing with seeds you don't always know if they are selfed or cross pollinated with something else entirely. A lot of sellers don't tell you! Also with white flowers you are dealing with the alba gene with is an 'on or off' switch that masks the real color of the flower. /Some/ hybridizers work very hard to line breed very specific colors through many generations and thereby get much higher results looking similar to the parent plants. But most do not. Anyway, I would be /delighted/ to get such diversity from a white seed parent! All of your plants turned out to be quite lovely, whether they are what you wanted or not. I hope you like them too! They look very healthy and lovely.