I am a great fan of Vintage Gardens for their huge, rich variety of roses. And for the care with which they describe them. They are the only catalogue that draws sketches of the form or habit of the rose so you have a sense how it will use space in the garden. I find that incredibly useful. They find fragrance to be important, which means that a lot of roses there are very fragrant. And they have an eye for what makes a rose unique, preserving unique phenotypes among roses. I think I bought roses from them in three separate orders last year. Or maybe four. And if half the roses I buy from them make it for five years in the garden, more of my roses will be from VG than from any other single supplier.
I'm a much worse gardener than zuzu, so I found that about 1 in 10 of their roses are shipped before they are garden-ready and they die on me quickly. In addition, voles and rabbits prefer Vintage Gardens roses to any other rose I've planted, except Heirloom roses. So my loss rate easily exceeds 1 in five, before frost. VG doesn't give very good guidance on how frost-resistant their roses are, so I think I have lost a few more due to that, making my loss rate be about one in three. That's a lot better than it is for a lot of other rose suppliers, but a little worse that in usually is with Antique Rose Emporium.
When VG has clearance sales, though, they tend to sell much better developed roses, roses that get nibbled instead of being swallowed whole by critters. In such cases they can be recommended without reservation.
