Wow. What an embarrassment of riches.
It's the first photo of Cardinal Richelieu that made me think that rose might actually be worth having in a garden. I've been impressed by it, but have never liked it much. The same thing goes for Baron Girod de l'Ain. Each year you and Sue photograph Alchymist and I kick myself for not rushing out and planting it somewhere in the garden. So too this year. I keep being tempted to dig up my Chic, which is still the same two inches tall as it was when I planted it last year, or the year before. But your photo has persuaded me to give it a couple more years. Maybe it's just busy putting down deep roots.
Does Berries and Cream positively cover itself in roses? It seems like the kind of rose that should reward you in precisely that way. Fragrance? Not raspberries and vanilla?
The only time I've seen the other Butterscotch (JACtan) its blooms were exactly the color of your Butterscotch's. It wasn't trained as a climber but as a kind of big, open shrub that kind of leaned up against the corner of a fence, filling up a 6'x 6' x 6' cube in a very lax, open way. JACtan was on my list this year and it is now in the garden. It would appear to be just setting new leaves. And in maybe six years it will be clambering across a big boulder in a semi-shrub/semi-climber way. Maybe blooming, too. Stay tuned.
Cocktail, if memory serves me correctly, makes reddish flowers with a yellow center that fades to dark pink as the flower ages. Do you have any photos of the plant with lots of flowers with yellow eyes? Or is this stage just too ephemeral to capture on film? I have been tempted to buy Cocktail, but I really wanted assurances about those eyes first.
Chanelle is on its way here from VG later this May. OOOh I can hardly wait.
Again, wow. And thanks.
