Heather-Welcome Back! Your son sounds sweet. Let him have a garden all his own, maybe some Sunflowers. Another good garden for a kid is a "salad garden" from seeds. let him plant a row of lettuce and one of radishes. He'll have an edible crop by June, and you can help him make a simple salad dressing, oil vinegar, water, salt pepper and sugar to taste.

Duchesse d'Auerstadt, Bouquet d'Or, Alister Stella Gray, Crepuscule, Lady Hillingdon (climbing version), Marechal Niel, Chromatella, Ley's Perpetual, Mme. Berard. Of these the only ones I grow are Marechal Niel, Mme. Berard, and Crepuscule. I have not had luck with Bouquet d'Or (my fault, or weak clones or bad placement...) and the ones I do grow are just babies. Haven't even had a flower from Crepuscule yet but it was very very small when I got it. I have seen the Mamma plant...it was a gift from Hoovb...and it is a gorgeous rose. Robert in Virgina raved about Ley's Perpetual, and the pictures I have seen of it would justify his enthusiasm. I hope others who have more experience answer your very interesting thread. Jerome

Thank you everyone for your replies! Marlorena, both of those varieties are gorgeous and I haven't really heard of either, I will have to look them up, I Iove the looks of both of those photos! After just googling "climbing Lady Hillingdon" and looking at the photos and reading through peoples' overall experience with her, I found myself swooning over this rose, and remembering why I decided to order it in the first place. Olga's photos were certainly a part of that, her specimen is just the epitome of what a romantic garden rose should look like, just absolutely stunning! So now I just HAVE to give her a go. If she doesn't work out for me, then I will probably use either Reve d'Or or Teasing Georgia in that spot. Reve is classically gorgeous & sounds healthy and easy to train, but I do love the huge, lush blooms of TG , even though she is more of a struggle to work with, she seems very vigorous. I was thinking of using Reve in a spot along a (future) fence that is on a sidewalk (soon to be built by the city) that will have pretty heavy pedestrian traffic, so the thornlessness sounds like it might be helpful there. I am still worried about how Cl Lady Hillingdon will fare with Tennessee's notorious late season cold snaps, but hopefully I will be skilled enough in protecting her roots/canes for her to be able to get established. She is coming from Roses Unlimited, and all I ever hear is that their plants are some of the largest 1 gal. roses purchasable from the main few internet nurseries. We are coincidentally supposed to have a record setting low temperature tonight of -7, which seems like a game changer, as I thought I was zone 7a, but maybe I'm more like a 6b? It is a little confusing for me to figure out my little "micro climate" in particular because I live so close to the city, I feel like it is always a few degrees warmer here than it is, say at my dad's house just a couple of miles north of here & more in the country. I really should get an outdoor thermometer for my front porch, since that is where all my young potted roses are residing this winter, then I could compare the forecasted temperatures with my own and see what I come up with. Thanks again all! I'll post some photos later in the spring/summer! Jessica

Vap, first I want to thank you for the offer of a GO plant. If you discover you do have it, I'd be thrilled. I'd be glad to swap anything I have potted, or would try to root anything else I have for you. I do grow Autumn Sunset. It's one of my favorites. I disliked (definitely past tense) Westerland (orrrrrannnnnge!), its sport parent, but I love AS. GO was very healthy, until it got rosette disease. I do spray a few things, but only in have-to cases for roses I love too much to let go, but that have a b**t-ugly case of BS if I don't, lol. Out of almost 200 roses, I spray maybe 10, and GO was never one I felt really needed it. My GO was in full sun from about 1 to sundown. But in a place with not-great air circulation (which probably contributed to the mites landing on it. Don't plant roses where air speed drops!). Autumn Sunset is the much the larger plant here, but it was a few years older, so I'm not sure that's a good indicator. But it does seem to want to throw longer canes. As for rebloom, again AS was the older plant, but it definitely is the bloomier plant after the first flush. AS isn't as thorny as GO, and I'm pretty sure what it does have aren't as quite deadly, lol. As for scent, some say they both have strong fragrance. For me, I'd say middling, but pleasant. I wouldn't rate one over the other, though AS is probably a little more complex, slightly fruity. I think the leaves might be different enough for you to tell the difference. The leaflet on AS is almost a perfect pointed oval, symmetrical lengthwise AND crosswise, the same shape on both ends. You can divide it in half in either direction and the halves almost match (I just went out with a flashlight to look, lol). On GO, the tip end is narrower and more pointed than the stem end, just the typical rose leaf shape. My AS also has very distinct raised ribs between the veins of the leaflets, where GO's leaflet (if I'm remembering right) is much more smooth and flat. Oh, and speaking of remembering right, I think I'm mis-remembering the glossiness of the leaves. The leaves of GO ARE very thick, like I said above, but it's AS that has the glossier leaves. Sowwy :P I hope that's not too muddled for you, and that I answered all your questions. John EDIT: I meant to mention that I don't have any blooms on AS right now, or I'd describe the sepals. My memory definitely isn't good enough for that, lol.