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Apr 30, 2010 1:16 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
Rogue Valley Roses - http://www.roguevalleyroses.co... - has one of the more interesting and extensive catalogues, IMO, and is an exclusive source for Paul Barden Roses. I find that it is possible to spend many hours browsing there because of their practice of stocking old and hard to find classics. Emily Gray springs to mind.

One example that was on my order is Chic, a Boerner floribunda that was once out of commerce and of which Botanica's Roses wrote over a decade ago "some rose experts consider it extinct." Boerner's Diamond Jubilee I ordered, too. Also on the order was the perfectly formed deep apricot hybrid tea rose Belle Epoque. RVR carries a nice line of Kordes roses including the remarkable red and white climbers Sympathie and Else Krohn Superior. And I could not resist the promise of abundant fragrance associated with Secret Garden Musk.

I was delighted to be able to order Desiree Parmentier, a gallica with mid pink blossoms that are deeply cupped and possess a kind of formal perfection. And I look forward to seeing Crested Damask and SIren's Keep growing in the same field of view behind a patch of lavender.

I will freely admit that some of their roses seem a little less developed than the bands that I got from Vintage Gardens; but then the VG roses were mostly ready to ship late fall and I asked for a delay of nearly half a year. These, however, I ordered just weeks ago. I must also say that on rare occasion, I have received what I consider to be rooted cuttings from VG, and all of the roses from RVR struck me as being materially beyond that stage.

Included in the order was a number of freebies. And I was surprised with how big that number actually was. I got 3 split stem roses: Duet, Mme Alfred Carriere, Mme Isaac Perreire, and 3 mystery roses.

My garden is beginning to bulge at the seams. Not sure how I will spend rose-ordering season next year. Maybe travelling. LOL.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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Apr 30, 2010 3:08 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Suzanne/Sue
Sebastopol, CA (Zone 9a)
Sunset Zone 15
Plant Database Moderator Region: California Cottage Gardener Garden Photography Roses Clematis
Daylilies Houseplants Foliage Fan Birds Butterflies Bee Lover
Oh Steve, when I read your beautiful descriptive posts, I wish I had room to try all the ones you listed, I'm looking for a bigger property, and dream of what I want to plant! I may have to travel to Prescott someday and visit your garden. Big Grin
I bought my Belle Epoque last year from Rogue Valley after seeing a picture of Zuzu's, it is exquisite! Here is the most recent bloom with an interesting color pattern, what an entertaining rose!

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Apr 30, 2010 3:45 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
Steve, you've made me want to place another Rogue Valley order despite my misgivings.

Here's a link to the nursery:

http://www.roguevalleyroses.co...

I have mixed feelings about Rogue Valley. I've bought dozens and dozens of roses from them in the past, and at least 90% have survived beautifully. On the other hand, I love Paul Barden's roses and I have at least 20 of them, but the only ones that look good are the ones that came from The Uncommon Rose before it went out of business. Rogue Valley is doing something wrong with the Bardens and I can't buy any more Barden roses from them.

There's also the problem of mislabeling. It's so upsetting to wait three years for Wimi (pink and white bicolor) to bloom and then to see blooms of a solid dark red. Or to watch Aschermittwoch (a beige and gray climber) turn out to be a once-blooming dark purple moss rose.

On the other hand, their gallons are sometimes absolutely stupendous. This is a photo of Young Quinn the day it arrived in the tallest box imaginable. This is not a standard-sized garbage can. It's the great big size for yard waste. When I bought this rose 2 years ago, the price of the gallon roses at RVR was only $14.50. An amazing bargain!


Thumb of 2010-04-30/zuzu/16a29c
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Apr 30, 2010 5:13 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
Mislabeling can be quite frustrating. The more you know about roses, and the larger your collection, the more important it seems to get precisely what you were counting on getting. I'm still in the phase where some number of error seems ... not too disturbing. But I guess it hasn't happened to me much, either.

The leaves on the Bardens I got all were ghostly pale green. It's as if there is a vital nutrient missing, Iron? Nitrogen? I don't know enough about plant nutrition to hazard an intelligent guess. My hope is that good care and feeding will suffice. But I need to learn a a lot more about what that means! I'm so used to slapping plants in the ground and waiting for them to die (or maybe sometimes, not).

I agree that you got a great looking plant for $14.50. I am interested to know what you thought of Young Quinn. I remember looking at photos of it long ago and thinking it was extraordinary.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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Apr 30, 2010 5:14 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
Sue, great photo of Belle Epoque. It gets more and more interesting as I see more photos of it.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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Apr 30, 2010 5:27 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
Unfortunately, Young Quinn turned out to be quite boring. I don't think I've been moved to take more than one or two pictures of it since it arrived.

Here's one of them:


Thumb of 2010-04-30/zuzu/14a053
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Apr 30, 2010 5:37 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
I see what you mean; there are a lot of more inspiring choices. I was expecting something closer to this:

http://www.freedigitalphotos.n...
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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Apr 30, 2010 5:49 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
It has never, never looked like that. Of course, it could be another mislabeled rose, but then we'd have to assume that these other roses in the hmf photos also came from RVR and also were mislabeled. If you enlarge these photos, you'll see that the petals are almost always damaged. They're so thin that they're almost translucent and they're just too fragile.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...
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Apr 30, 2010 6:05 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
The photo in Botanica's Roses depicts something the same color as the link I posted. I wonder if most of the roses pictured at HMF are from common stock or are grown under similar conditions?

It's curious: The yellows in Juliet and Young Quinn, both, have not developed as they do in a few other places where roses are grown. And even the yellow in climbing Sun Flare looked a little more pale to me than I expected, though I've seen Sun Flare fade a bit more, I think. In Juliet, this pallor made the rose distinctly prettier and less garish. But somehow it makes YQ look a little anemic.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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Apr 30, 2010 11:49 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
I went ahead and placed an order for a 1-gallon Tipu's Flame and four bands (Wedding Cake, Wimi, Nahema, and Lavender Lassie).

I obviously missed something or the instructions were in error because I never saw a "popup window" for listing my split-stem plant choice and alternates. The gallon wasn't discounted properly either. So I sent an e-mail to report the failure to discount the gallon and to list the split-stem plant information. While I was at it, I asked for assurance that the Wimi I was ordering was the true Wimi and not the solid-colored dark red rose they sent me four years ago.
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May 1, 2010 7:22 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
There are many problems with the website, I think. They e-mailed me later and asked me to list my preferences for split stem roses. I e-mailed them back. And found out what I got when they arrived. There are problems with inventory control. At least two roses listed as available online in gallons turned out not to be available. There's also a problem with ID management. You can have two windows open and have two different shopping carts. That can cause some confusion. Still, it's an irresistible selection.

I have Lavender Lassie and it is doing remarkably well in a spot that gets three hours of direct sunlight. Nahema looks marvelous! Cupped and quartered, remontant, and fragrant! And Wimi is quite a find, too. It's funny how tastes change. When I was younger I wanted all my roses to be red. Now I appreciate the subtleties of pinks.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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May 1, 2010 3:43 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
Shipping dates apparently confuse the website as well: I was asked twice for a preferred shipping date, the date was approved twice, and at the end of the process the screen said I hadn't chosen a shipping date.

Nahema's also a Delbard rose -- another point in its favor.

Wedding Cake is nothing more than a curiosity -- weird looking and ridiculously fragile. I'll probably be annoyed with myself for ordering it after it has struggled along for a while and finally died, but it's so elusive that I had to jump on it as long as there's a chance of getting it.
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May 2, 2010 3:31 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
The incompetence of this place is astounding. They just sent me an e-mail to ask for my preferences for the extra plants. I already sent them an e-mail with this information as soon as I had placed the order.

They also ask for my preferred shipping date, although I gave it to their system twice and the system approved it twice.

They also refer in the e-mail to "the order form below," but there is no order form below.
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May 2, 2010 4:33 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
I agree that there are a number of rather serious deficiencies in their order-processing.

I was happy that the roses I got from them spent only a short time in their boxes.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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May 2, 2010 6:31 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Suzanne/Sue
Sebastopol, CA (Zone 9a)
Sunset Zone 15
Plant Database Moderator Region: California Cottage Gardener Garden Photography Roses Clematis
Daylilies Houseplants Foliage Fan Birds Butterflies Bee Lover
I emailed them the other day that they had a Symphony rose listed in the Hybrid Perpetual class, all the info is correct (light pink color, etc) except there is the yellow David Austin Symphony image posted incorrectly. The owner, Janer Inada (by the way, Paul Bardon has a rose named after her on my wish list), wrote back to me:
"Hello Sue,

Thank you for pointing this out. We have hundreds of new varieties that we are processing here from several different sources and I need to go through the entire website, after several months of data entry assistance from others, to find discrepancies like this. So thank you. This is very helpful. I am almost positive we have the Austin from 1986. Bloom will confirm that. In the meantime I will remove the pink reference!

Janet Inada, Owner
roguevalleyroses.com
541-535-1307

Sounds like she is overwhelmed.
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May 2, 2010 9:30 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
I chuckled every time I saw Austin's Symphony in that group of roses. The number of pages with incomplete info is pretty large, too. And many of them don't format correctly in my browser. But their inventory list is huge. I don't know how places like VG, RVR, and RU figure out how many of which rose to grow, especially when the economy is bouncing all over the place.

I just got through jotting down a wish list from RVR. There are nearly 40 on the RVR list (Thanks to you, Juliet is one of them and thanks to Melva, Malton is also)
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.
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May 6, 2010 3:57 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
Today I received a nice message from Rogue Valley to tell me that they've credited my account for the discount I should have received for the gallon plant and for the full price of Wimi, because the last one they sent me was not Wimi. All is forgiven. I'm very happy.
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May 18, 2010 10:42 PM CST
Moderator
Name: Zuzu
Northern California (Zone 9a)
Region: Ukraine Charter ATP Member Region: California Cat Lover Roses Clematis
Irises Celebrating Gardening: 2015 Plant Identifier Garden Sages Plant Database Moderator Garden Ideas: Master Level
I've been so busy with work that I neglected to report that I got some very nice plants from Rogue Valley last week. All of the bands look good, even the split stem, and the gallon plant (Tipu's Flame) is almost as tall as Young Quinn was when it arrived a couple of years ago.
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Sep 8, 2010 3:07 PM CST
Name: melva wheeler
texas
Birds Butterflies Cat Lover Charter ATP Member Container Gardener I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database!
Herbs Lover of wildlife (Raccoon badge) Roses
Glad to be of help, Steve...ha ha ha!
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Sep 10, 2010 10:52 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Steve
Prescott, AZ (Zone 7b)
Irises Lilies Roses Region: Southwest Gardening
I've been going through the garden looking at roses that have lasted through the summer. There are those that died because I moved them (Tuscan Sun), roses that died because I stepped on them one time (Celine Forestier), and roses that died because they were puny when I planted them (Ovid and Tropical Amazone .. several more from that supplier).

One rose is nearly dead because I did not engineer and properly maintain a conical water-collection pit (Barbara Streisand). One died because it just did (Orange Crush). One died from weeds obscuring it. Several died from not being watered regularly. Two died simply because they were stripped of leaves for shipping, and never leafed out again (Gloire de Lyon and L'Oreal Trophy.)

Only one of the RVR roses died - cause unknown. This puts RVR in the lead for summer performance of its new roses for this season with the lowest percentage of dead plants at the end of the season. Will see how things go this winter. Will I have any roses at all next spring? Stay tuned.
When you dance with nature, try not to step on her toes.

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