Keeping in mind that generalizing with orchids is never valid nor a good idea, it is safe to say that in general, white, night-fragrant orchids and flowers in general have the most and best fragrance. They need it after all, to attract their moth pollinators in the dark. Floofy, showy flowers like you're considering don't really need much or any fragrance to attract pollen carriers. For that reason, you might consider an Angraecoid (Angraecum, Jumellea, Aerangis, etc.) which have the most intoxicating fragrances you can imagine. Although finding one in bloom for your birthday would be highly difficult. The suggestion for a Sharry Baby is good and bad. They smell like chocolate which was really amazing for the first couple years. Then it became kind of sickening around the same time that the plant became the size of my TV. They get HUGE! And as people always say, the two happiest days of a S.B. owner's life are the day they get one and the day they finally get rid of it. Lycastes usually smell good. Max. tenuifolia smells like coconut. Brassia hybrids like Brsdm., will smell good and are easy to grow and much better behaved, in my opinion, than a Sharry B. Actually, my recommendation is to get an Encyclia radiata. The fragrance is POTENT, occurs during the day, and the flowers are very long lasting. Plus you could grow it next to your roses except for when it gets cold. Have fun!

Interesting. I give the opposite feedback to newbies, that it is OK to leave more than "recommended" until you understand the growth habits of the plant, the amount of vigor it has in your garden and eventually one becomes "comfortable" with taking off more and more in subsequent pruning cycles. People like to read books without knowing that the books are very general (and usually are referring to how to prune hybrid teas) and then they panic when they go to take their roses down to "18 to 24 inches" and their roses aren't that tall to begin with. Or, their beautiful plant grew to 7' tall last year, and they panic that they will do too much damage by taking it down to 1/2 - 3/4 of that size (or less). So, don't panic. You can always take more off later. And some roses resent hard pruning (at least some of mine do).

A better name for The Best Home Furnishing Company is "The Worst Home Furnishings Company" when it comes to customer service and standing behind their products. Don’t walk away from this brand, RUN QUICKLY! My wife and I live in Minnesota, but have a park model home in Estero, FL. We purchased a Best Home Furnishings recliner in February of 2016 from a furniture store in Naples, FL. Our home in FL is only occupied for two weeks in November, and the months of February and March each year. When we arrived in November of 2018, we noticed that the fabric was cracking on the headrest. Our home is air conditioned all year round, has proper humidity, the windows are tinted, and we have shades that are closed when we are gone. Furniture could not have a better environment to sit in. I took the back of the chair off in November of 2018 and took it to Kanes Furniture where we purchased the chair. My goal was to simply replace the back. We were informed that model had been discontinued so no back was available. That should have been my first clue to how Best Home Furnishings handles a chair that has problems……just discontinue it. The next thing we were told is the chair is out of warranty. I explained that I understand there is a calendar warranty, but further explained how little the chair had been used. I felt that the company should stand behind it due to the little wear and tear this chair had actually incurred, and I was sure there was a problem with the material used to cover this model chair. I totaled up the number of days that anyone could have sat in the chair, and it was 189. We had two Flexsteel recliners in our home in Minnesota that provided over 30 years of trouble free service. Speaks volumes to the old saying, “you get what you pay for”. The furniture store at least listened to me and provided the phone number of manufacturer of the chair, The Best Home Furnishings Company in Ferdinand, Indiana. (at least this was where my call went) When you call with a complaint the first thing you will find is the people who answer the phone have been trained to get rid of you quickly. They have no intention to let you talk to anyone of authority. After a firm back and forth with the lady that answered the phone she finally told me “I am just doing my job”. Really? Discarding a customer with a concern about your product is your job? Fortunately, I was able to push through to someone up the ladder named Pat. Three voice mails and a week later Pat did call me back. From their website and years in business I was sure I would find Best Home Furnishings a reputable company that would be concerned about this product’s failure and would want to have a discussion and find common ground…... NOT THE CASE. Once on the phone with Pat, I repeated what I told Kane’s Furniture and assumed Pat would be familiar with this problem and work with me to find a fair solution……not a chance. Pat is very well trained to hear your concern and then repeat "sorry, it is out of warranty and we can’t help you” multiple times until the discussion ends. He made no effort to keep us as a customer. It was obvious he just wanted to discard us as quickly as he could. The lack of finding a phone number on their website should have been a excellent indicator to me of their customer service. If it is there, they have done a good job of hiding it. Speak with a customer, good heavens, that’s a concept from the 20th century!! The only manner of contact I could find on the site was to email them. Before you purchase any product made by The Best Home Furnishings Company from a furniture store, you may want to visit the Better Business Bureau website and read about them. The BBB shows 32 complaints about this company for various reasons. In addition, on Google they are only able to achieve a 3.6 star rating. I have been self employed for over 40 years, am 65 years old and do not make a habit of writing negative reviews. The Best Home Furnishing Company brags about being in business since 1962 and quality of their furniture building process. It is obvious to me that the original owners of this company are no longer active as I am sure they would have met this problem with a completely different attitude….the attitude that cared about customer satisfaction, quality furniture, and allowed The Best Home Furnishings Company to grow and prosper. Lastly, I will “venture a guess” the reason they took the “cut & run” attitude with me is there are probably hundreds or thousands of customers across America just like me that have a Best Chair with the same defective cover. Class Action Lawsuit time? Let's band together and send a message. When a quality company has a problem with a product, they either extend the warranty or have a recall to make sure people get taken care of. Not run from the problem like The Best Home Furnishings Company is doing. Most successful companies want repeat customers. Shame on you! Dave Nolander

I was just out today looking for recliners or chairs/ottomans as I am to sit with my feet up (swelling). So I found Smith Bros. of Berne and it was heavenly - chair with a round thing on the right side under the armrest that you could adjust the chair back like a recliner without using one of those wood handles. Also it had a ottoman........see the chair would recline but your feet would be up on the ottoman. The chair I tried was #932 and it was more comfortable than all of the Lazyboys (yes, I did sit on all of them that the store had, ofcourse it was not a reg. Lazyboy dealer store but they had more than enough to try out.). Go on the to Smith Bros. of Berne furniture site and you can also see the recliners. There was a very wide array of fabrics that I thought were fabulous. From what I understood you could use any of the fabrics on the chair I was speaking of, they had it on the floor in wonderful leather, with nailheads and the ottoman was a half circle. Boy I can't say enough things about it. Now I just have to decide what I want to buy. Berne Furniture is not longer in business and they had exceeding well made furniture and I don't know it this was an offshoot of them, I have no clue but in the stuff I read on the site, they have been in business for 80 yrs. At least look them up and look at styles, the one I like was wonderfully comfortable.