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

Beth -- You're Paul Gaugin is still on back order at Hortico, along with mine. I put in 3 orders from them this year totalling 31 roses (which includes 7 that I received but that failed to break dormancy last year and which they are replacing at no cost). On Dec. 3, they sent me a "confirmation" of my order and said it would ship out on Dec. 15, And, of course, all of the roses are still shown as available now on the Hortico website. Today they called me and said of my 31 roses, only 11 would be available to ship out on December 15, and that this is their only remaining ship date to the US for the year. The other 20 (including Paul Gaugin) are now backordered, again. I chose to hold off until January for the whole lot of 'em, rather than pay double shipping costs (which was what they were proposing). At least they didn't hit my credit card early this time. But, it's still maddening. "Available" on their website does not necessarily mean the roses are "available" at all. It means "we might get these roses in someday." And Hortico seems to be getting worse than in the past, in my considered opinion. Kathy

Sara-Ann, I'll be trying fort root stock for the first time this year, too. Perhaps we can compare how they do in our zones? Might be fun. Also, with regard to K&M Roses, do you just place an order to be shipped at a later date? Do you phone in your order or use another method? I emailed them last spring and didn't receive a response so that's probably not the way to order? I'm really enjoying seeing everybody's rose photos this time of year when there are just brown pompoms on my bushes right now. lol Natalie

@dianela7analabama - Nice pictures of Benj. Britten. K&M in Mississippi has BBs. I had one on order, then swapped out to another rose. Being so big, and such a vibrant red, it might be best as a stand alone. @PDXRobertZ8 Robert, thanks for the heads up on the thorns. The one spot I have that might work is next to a sidewalk - soooo that's not a good choice. Sigh. Beautiful pictures.