A good rose will come and be the right one. I had an empty place and never was satisfied with any candidates. Then, along came the perfect rose for the spot.

It's hard to go through those kitty surgeries. My kitty lost his toe, then later his leg but he did very well adapting to it. Extractions are painful too. I'm glad your cat is ok now. If your cats' food or treats has MSG type chemicals ( yeast extract, etc. ) switch foods. These MSG impostors encourage rapid tumor growth in mammals. If you don't know which ingredients are MSG impostors, go to Food Babe's website for a listing. As soon as I learned about these and stopped eating them, my migraines stopped. Wish I had known 12 years ago! Chain store pizzas and most soups and snacks are full of that stuff to make them taste good. They use the same thing in pet food to get the pets to eat it.

I had ordered 'Sweet Chariot' from RVR two years ago, expecting it to come with the rest of my roses. What came (and grew and grew!) turned out to be a mistake -- most likely a random Multiflora seedling, since I can't match it to anything else in their online inventory. Via email and phone, I was told I'd be given a replacement, but I'm still waiting.

I do check their website often, and always take a look at 'Sweet Chariot', but I have yet to see it available in two years. At this point, I think either something happened to their parent plant, or perhaps they were getting material propagated elsewhere and mine wasn't the first complaint about getting the wrong plant. I must add that I have had very good experiences with RVR, and I don't fault them making a "whoops". I will definitely order from them again.

But, alas, I couldn't seem to find 'Sweet Chariot' available elsewhere, so instead I ordered its sibling 'Vineyard Song'. I know they are of different growth habits and sizes, so I didn't merely plant one where I intended to plant the other. When I'm in the market to be ordering plants again, I'll seek another source for 'Sweet Chariot', but I'm also glad I got 'Vineyard Song'.

:-)

~Christopher

Burling Leong carries 'Sweet Chariot' at Burlington Rose Nursery. She keeps her inventory listing active on HMF, but does not keep her website up-to-date. You can send her a PRIVATE MESSAGE through her nursery page on HMF and she will send you an availability list and price list.

I think her plants are superior to many of the other nurseries selling over the internet.

Smiles,
Lyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Burlington Rose Nursery

Thanks, Lyn! I still have it on my "list" for when I order roses again. Not to knock Burlington at all, but I'm going to try to use East coast nurseries first to save on shipping. I'm not averse to ordering from out West again for something I can't find elsewhere, however -- and there are a few she carries that are on my "list" which are not easily found.

:-)

~Christopher

I'm glad "William the Conqueror" is improved, Lux. Congratulations! Yes, I've satisfied myself with the substitutes when the original desire wasn't able to be fulfilled, until the original desire became available. The ironic part is, VERY often, the finally available, original obsession, has turned out to be as imperfect and unsatisfying as its substitutions were in the mean time. Also ironic, in the conditions in which I've gardened and grown the roses you wrote of, Notting has proven himself superior to Lyon as a plant and a garden flower. I hope, once you finally obtain Lyon, it doesn't turn out that way for you! Good luck. Kim

Christopher ...

LOL ... I feel the same way about using east coast nurseries.

btw .. Berling uses flat rate shipping and, in general, her prices are lower than many nurseries.

Lux ... I didn't mean to hijack your thread. Sorry.

Smiles,
Lyn

Sweet Chariot is worth some postage, some how Burling manages much better rates than I can get here.

Do you ever feel like you settling if you get a mismarked rose and don't complain or let the vendor know? I am pretty sure I have one right now and hopefully not too many others have ordered after me, I feel bad for not noticing it was a bit different before, I should have watched it more closely.

Kim, I think that is the problem here is the postal worker, it cost $9 for me to mail a friend a $5 calendar last year. I should have folded it myself and put in a the small flat rate box since they folded it anyway

Weight is the prime determining factor, Kippy. I've sent a bare rooted plant which fit in a medium box, but wouldn't have fit a small one, for LESS than the small Flat Rate postage, in the medium traditional Priority box. Fortunately, my local Postal counter people will make the helpful suggestions, but if you take things into the office and use the self service machine, you can quickly figure out what fits in where and for what price. For only mailing a few things a year, that's a pain, but for a business mailing pretty much the same product, repeatedly, you can quickly determine what you need and how much to charge so there are few, if any, surprises. Kim

FWIW, Folly, the ONE flaw we found in Etoile de Lyon was that if the weather was at all humid (which it mostly is, here) the outer petals -- GUARD Petals -- will clamp down, and rot a little, and refuse to allow the bloom to open.

The remedy is simple. Remove the guard petals, and the blooms will open like a champ. But if the rose is planted at an out-of-the-way location, it can be a pain.

That said, it is a truly lovely rose, and a handsome plant, with lovely foliage.

Oh, I thought of another -- when my 'Jaune Desprez' bit the dust after last year's horrible Winter (its first since coming as a band), I at first wanted to replace it with another of the same. Maybe a gallon plant would be a better bet with a Tea-Noisette in NJ. But I couldn't find it available at the time I realized mine was finally dead....so in its place I planted 'Baltimore Belle' which was already growing like a fiend in its 2-gal pot from the previous year. Ideally, I'd still prefer a Tea-Noisette with blooms hanging down in the Japanese maple, but even more than that, I'd prefer a non-dead rose. So it is what it is....

:-)

~Christopher

Jeri, I love the picture of Etoile de Lyon. Bright yellow roses don't fit into my garden scheme, but the lovely, soft tones of this rose, not to mention its beauty, would be welcome here any time.

Ingrid

I guess I've settled before but can't recall any specifics. I do know that Kim hit the nail on the head. I wanted Summer Fashion desparately after I saw some photos of it online. No one had it at the time. It took me 4 or 5 years to get one and I was thrilled...until I planted it and it sat there like a door stop for the next 4 years. Yes, the one or two blooms it gives me a year are lovely but the plant is the biggest dud ever. The wanting it and the hunt were more satisfying than the rose is!

Summer Fashion was a "spore chaser" here, Seil. Any and every possible fungal issue it actively went searching for, even when nothing else around it showed any sign of infection. That one should have been named, "Perfect Moment"! Though, in most years, it never found its one, perfect moment. Definitely a variety which depended entirely on chemical intervention for introduction! Awful plant. Kim

Jeri, wasn't me! Though I think we discussed EdL on another occasion.

Luxrosa and others, if you are having trouble finding 'Etoile de Lyon' you ought to be aware that "Bermuda Anna Olivier" is thought to be 'Etoile de Lyon'. Knowing that might give you another way to track one down.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Rosefolly

Yes. Poor Summer Fashion was a fungus-ridden DAWG here, too. It WAS beautiful in a public garden near Baton Rouge ... But that garden was sprayed.

I don't think you should ever 'settle'. Get what you love and see what happens. Or wait for something you really want. Otherwise you still yearn for the one you hoped for. Maybe it wasn't the best rose for your area, but it still is good enough to give you great moments of joy.

I have an annual ritual of not getting the rose that I want.

2009, 2010, 2011: I try to order Agatha, but can't find any available in the Americas, it's always sold out.
2012: I finally find it in stock at Hortico, and order it. Hortico sends me Harison's Yellow with an Agatha label on it. Meanwhile, Agatha has sold out.
2013: Hortico removes Agatha from their list, leaving it completely out of commerce in the Americas. Instead, I settle for the other francofurtana, Empress Josephine, from a different vendor. I order one bare root, along with a couple of other roses as filler. The filler roses survive the journey, but the Empress Josephine is dead, dead, dead. And no more until next year.
2014: I order two of Empress Josephine from yet another distant nursery, figuring that one will have to be the right rose and alive on delivery. They only have one left, however, so my order is reduced. The moment they hand my roses over to UPS, UPS decides it's too snowy to deliver anything, so leave the roses sitting in a warehouse. By the time I get them, UPS has had them for 10 days, and guess what's looking dead on arrival?

So every year I wish for Agatha, settle for Empress Josephine, and get dried sticks. It's almost enough to make me like Harison's Yellow.

thanks all, I may re-think my need for E. de L.. I can't be clipping guard petals all the time, I already do that on the brown guard petal ruff around S. de P. Notting, from May through October.
ffff, oh how your story made me laff.
lux.