The 2011 catalog from Heirloom Roses arrived today. Has there ever been a prettier rose catalog? All of the pictures are gorgeous, and in contrast to the pictures in this nursery's earlier catalogs, these photos haven't been photoshopped to the point of being unrecognizable. At any rate, the colors look true in the photos of the roses I know.

That's one good thing. Wonder if I will get one too. I know my Mom will so I can look through hers. She got 2 Austins from them a few weeks back, Tamora and Sharifa Asma and they looked great, sized like the Burling roses, very respectable. Sharifa bloomed yesterday, so pretty to see this bloom on a small plant.

I got that in today's mail too... *cries* :( I want!!! But I had no luck with Heirloom's teeny little bitty bands that they sent to me.

I didn't either, but I might try them again this year when they have their sales. Maybe they have improved or maybe I ordered at the wrong time of year. I'm interested in the Clements roses because most of them aren't available anywhere else. Lexy and Will-o-the-Wisp are calling to me and I don't think anyone else is selling them.

Sunrise at Heirloom & one other that I looked up wasn't available anywhere else, either. That sucks. But I have Portlandia (sp?) and I'm hoping that it'll be as gorgeous as the picture shows...

They also carry that mini DENVER’S DREAM.

Does that mean that it will thrive in Denver?

Your mileage may vary.

Actually, Denver's Dream is a pretty boring rose, no scent, and is almost impossible to find here in Denver. Been looking for 3 years for it, to no avail. Not many places carry miniature roses. I've seen it only once, and that was before I was into roses (back in '05, right after I bought my house).

Boring?? It's one of my favorite minis! Mine's in full bloom right now and it's such a bright ray of colorful mini blooms.
http://cubits.org/roses/db/ros...

I love Denver's Dream. I just planted mine in the ground today because I didn't think it was reaching its full potential in the pot.

Calif-Sue - Well, that one definitely looks a heck of a lot different than the one that I saw. It was just a blah orangish-red, not even an eye-popping orangish-red, but just a blah, kinda burnt orangish-red. Maybe it was end of bloom?

I'll be very interested to know about everyone's experiences with Heirloom. When everyone reports back that every single one of the dozens of bands they ordered from them came in well branched and over 18 inches tall and lived through a whole year without any special care I'll think about it. Maybe. I grew so annoyed trying to grow their not-quite rooted cuttings ten years ago that I swore never again ... even if their roses produced impossibly beautiful blooms on unconditionally healthy plants.

That's how I feel too, Steve. My experience with them was so dismal. I might be inclined to try again, however, just because of all the people who seem to love Heirloom's roses. I have to wonder, though, when those people say they'd never buy roses anywhere else, do they mean they haven't ever bought roses anywhere else? Maybe they have no basis for comparison.

When I originally complained to Heirloom about the leafless toothpicks they had sent me, they implied that I must have no experience with own-root rose bands, but by that time I had been ordering bands from Vintage, Amity, Sequoia, Rogue Valley, The Uncommon Rose, and others for years, and Heirloom's bands were by far the least viable of them all.

I'm by no measure an expert.. heck, the only thing I'm an expert is is how to get into trouble! but my personal experience with Heirloom is threefold: twice I ordered bands from them, twice I was so sorely disappointed with these microscopic teensy little sticks with 2-10 leaves on them. Way too small for my inexperienced hand.. and when I got these tiny sticks I transplanted them into 1 gal containers w/MiracleGro Potting Soil. They all died, and when I called Heirloom, the nice lady told me that MiracleGro has too much fertilizer in the soil & it burned the roots, which seems kind of plausible, in a Mythbusters sort of way. My 3rd experience was a fluke.. I ordered some miniatures from John's Miniature Roses (Nor'East Roses was no longer selling to the public, much to my dismay), and that's when I found out that John's Miniature Roses was owned/operated by Heirloom. Same teensy itsy-bitsy microscopic roses. I ordered 4, received 2, then 2 like 3 months later because they were too small to ship out all at once. Because I knew they were miniatures, I was a lot more gentle and hovering with them than with, say, roses from Roses Unlimited. They all survived the summer, if they survive the winter is to be seen.

I will not order from Heirloom again.

My Mom bought Sharifa Asma and Tamora from them about a month ago and they looked great, SA is blooming this week.

Steve, in reference to the improbable requirements you listed above, probably knowing they could never be filled, I just received four bands from Vintage this morning and the average height (of just the portion above the top of the band) is over 18 inches. Actually, three of them are between 12 and 16 inches tall, but one is 32 inches, which brings the average up to 18.5 inches.

Vintage is using a bigger shipping box now -- something like the box florists use for cut roses, so they don't have to prune the plants to fit them into the box. I've been amazed by the size of my most recent purchases from Vintage.

Zuzu, Thanks for the update! I cannot say I am surprised. When I asked for 14 inch tall roses, VG complied, even when it meant delaying part of the order. And it only delayed 25% of the order. At Heirloom I half expect they would have laughed in my face, cancelled my order, and charged a 30% restocking fee for that request! I'm saddened by the fact that VG has slashed their list so severely, but I'm glad to support their mission to keep so many great old cultivars in commerce.

Sue, I'm glad that other people have better luck with Heirloom. It has always seemed to me that they have a list of roses that deserve attention.

I'm also saddened by the shortage of new offerings on the VG lists for the last couple of years. I guess I just reached the saturation point as far as VG is concerned. I've bought hundreds of roses from them over the years and I apparently have already bought everything I like on their lists. Now my orders consist mainly of reorders of earlier VG roses that didn't make it or duplicates of VG roses that did make it and are so stupendous that I need more than one. It's very rare that they offer something I like and don't already have.

It does happen, however. A few years ago I saw Kathleen Joyce, a sweet little floribunda, in their garden on one of their open-house days. It was never available on the Website, but when they offered two free custom-rooted roses as part of their Mother's Day Special, I ordered Kathleen Joyce as one of the free ones. I now have that rose and others can have it too, because it finally has made its appearance on their Website. Now I'm waiting eagerly for Caprice, the other custom-rooted rose I ordered.

Zuzu, you are probably aware of their current effort to import a number of early twentieth century Teas, China, Noisettes, Bourbons, and Pernetianas from Ducher and Roseraie du Desert in France. The Ducher offerings are now listed at their website http://www.vintagegardens.com/...