I would be very leery of buying any Delbard roses if I was in zone 5. Even in an English 8, they are iffy roses, suffering horribly in a cold winter and taking forever to recover lost ground. Confession time - I am most definitely not a fan of them and grow only 1 (Nahema....and that is on the compost list) but my long-suffering neighbour persists in her love affair with unsuitable tea-noisettes and miffy HTs (latest failure - Dioressence). Maybe in a warm and sheltered spot? They are probably great roses for the south but I learned some time ago that it is essential to consider the 'place of origin' so roses bred in Lyon and other warm French locations are not going to be happy with the chill and arid fenland winds of East Anglia (a bit like Kansas, I imagine...without the summer heat). I never order from nurseries where the climate is kinder than mine either and am always curious about Californian orders from Canadian rose nurseries - how does that work out? It would surely be impossible to do this in reverse (Texas to Ontario for example)?

I have lotsa stripey roses in my 9b garden. I get temps in the triple digits off and on throughout the summer. GEORGE BURNS does really well. Rarely fries, altho might be cuz he's in a spot that gets some random shade throughout the day. He stays pretty small. Maybe like 3ftx3ft at the most. This was yesterday. Been in the 90s. This morning another bloom. I love it when the stripeys do this random look where it's mostly one color and just a few smatterings of stripes. And with GEORGE, sometimes he's more yellow than this. Right now he's in the red mode. Here he is back in April in the yellow mode. CAMILLE PISSARRO also stays rather small, maybe 2.5ftx2.5ft. Now she's in a bit more shade than GEORGE, and she doesn't repeat quite as well. Could be the shady factor. She blows a lot faster too. EDGAR DEGAS does kinda the same thing as GB. More yellow in the cooler weather, and redder in the warmer. This was in April. Here he is this morning. He also has fewer petals in the heat. He's still in a pot, waiting to get in the next bed. So far, he's stayed small like the others. Don't know if you like the pink and yellow combo, but CLAUDE MONET is one of my favorites. He just got planted in the ground a few months ago. So far, he's staying really low.... like barely 2ftx2ft. But that could always change now that he's getting happy! I just got MAURICE UTRILLO from Ludwigs a few months ago. They call him ARTISTA PANAROSA. He just got in the last bed and is still pretty small, but doing well. This was 4days ago: And this was the first bloom after he arrived in late March: As for ORANGES 'N' LEMONS... if you don't like orange, then you don't want it. And it grows very tall.. almost 5ft and repeat bloom isn't all that great. It's in full sun all day. And you probably wouldn't like ALFRED SISLEY or GRIMALDI either. They are even more orange then O'N'L.

Very happy to find "Ace Hardware pine bark mulch", which are well-composted this Oct, and have plenty of pine-fines inside. I make my rooting-area in advance for next spring .. by that time the pine-mulch/pine-fines will be more decomposed & less acidic. The rooting powder that Bluegirl mentioned helped TREMENDOUSLY. Things take roots much faster. Do you make a slit at the side of the lower cane like Connie of Hartwood? Or do you slice a piece of outer-layer off like Kitty of California? I'm too lazy, so I do it California way, scrape a vertical piece off from the end, with my paring knife. For indoor & winter: I still don't like covering the plant with a plastic dome, it goes against my logic: cover anything up, and it will surely rot & get moldy !! My kid sprouted some mung-bean in a plastic cup, she covered it, and within a few days white mold grew on it, so gross !! This winter I plan NOT to cover with plastic, and simply squirt the soil lightly with a hand-mister. My neighbor kept a geranium through the entire winter. In freezing March I visited her: she kept the geranium on the window-sill (morning sun), and squirt it twice a day. And it was blooming tons !! I kept house-plants indoor in the winter and was foolish to water it, that was messy: water dripped on carpet, then whiteflies, then rotted stem (too wet). Hand-mist lightly is so much better, since leaves do take up water & nutrients .. same with stem I also put hydrogen peroxide inside my hand-mister to prevent rot. Bluegirl shared how Josh in TX put a paper towel on top of the rooting area to hold in moisture, great idea !! I'm convinced that hard-wood and thick cuttings NEEDS MUCH LESS MOISTURE. Versus the "greener & thinner" stems which dry out faster, thus need more moisture. The "alfalfa sprouts" type of root need constant moisture ... folks do keep alfalfa sprouts in a plastic pouch at grocery store. But the woody & chunky Dr.Huey-rootstock rots easily in poor-drainage clay. As own-root matures from "alfalfa sprouts" to hard and woody roots, they become more sensitive to standing-water and acidity.

I grew Marc Chagall this year, unfortunately as is typical, Edmunds shipped so late that he didn't get a fair chance to grow, so I can't really judge... however my sense is not a very vigorous grower. I got one bloom late in the season, which was gorgeous. Despite being small and weak, I can report that I didn't see much blackspot despite no spray and extreme blackspot pressure. Frida Kahlo performed wonderfully for me in her first year. Always in bloom and an ever changing pallete of color. Strong yet well balanced growth. Fingers crossed for winter hardiness. Yes, Weeks rather than Delbard, but hey she's named for an artist and striped!. This picture was taken in later October when all of her neighbors were covered in blackspot but she has just the tiniest bit of spotting. Her leaves were clean all summer.