Please use the new posting,. Thank you. Ron S.

Joanie, You can purchase the rose at: Ashdown Roses P.O. Box 129 Campobello, SC 29322 (864) 468-4900 Goodluck, Ron S.

Anna-Lyssa, I can't provide enabling photos, so keep an eye out for Ingrid's garden photos for those. But I think you might enjoy this passage on 'La France' from a 1912 book called Everblooming Roses by Georgia T. Drennan, pp.17-18: "The Journal des Roses, 1867, gives an account of fifty rosarians of France, called together to vote on the merits of one thousand roses. The almost unanimous vote was for La France. It was conceded to be the most perfect and most distinctly new rose. Guillot fils introduced it as a seedling Tea unidentified. Its parentage is not known. After close comparison and much discussion, experts decided it to be the first rose of a new class rather than the pure Tea its origin suggested. Guillot fils claimed no agency in its creation beyond having grown it from the seed of a Tea rose. The rosarians of France named the new class Hybrid Tea; La France, the representative rose, combining the exquisite delicacy of the pure Teas and the broad petals, large size and striking features of the Hybrid Remontants, perhaps of the Bourbons. An enthusiastic amateur rose grower, young when La France was young, I gave it cordial welcome. No new rose that I read of or knew, had been so much and so favourably commented on, except General Jacqueminot. I planted La France in my garden and tested its merits by careful culture. I was ardently interested in the rose that ushered in an entirely new class, close kindred to the Tea, which I so much loved. It proved to be a constant and profuse bloomer and excelled the Tea roses in size, with sweeter scent than any rose I had ever had bloom in my garden. To reassure myself, I bought other specimens from different florists, with the same result. To this day, I find the same fault. La France blooms itself to death. Mea culpa, if others do not find it a short-lived rose." Virginia

Maybe not all that unusual, but many Brits were sending in lists of roses that survived the big chill. Perhaps- like here- freezing temps generally tend to be short-lived, but temps in the 20's* for 4 nights straight definitely took their toll on Mr. Laxton's roses; the list of uninjured roses is much shorter than the other two lists of the somewhat affected and the not-much-hope roses. So many of those varieties are still around 150 years later, I guess they really were hardier than many others. Did you have a look at 'Jean Cherpin', btw? I especially like the looks of that one... Virginia *I admit that I'm not too savvy about the "degrees of frost" concept... perhaps it wasn't 4 nights of temps in the 20's, but 4 nights with temps under 10F? Brrrrrrrr!