glib, have you found Gai land to be bitter? Current discussion on the cooking forum says it's a bitter Asian green, and the posters seem knowledgeable. Mine has never been bitter-not in the previous three years and so far, not this year.

It's a long time between now and bareroot season next spring, so you have a lot of time to do your research. There are odd little pocket gardens around that have a rose or two that you can get a sense of how they perform. Local nurseries tend to have an extremely limited rose selection. Most of their offerings are not good for the climate, and it can get very tricky. If you do happen to stumble on something good, if can disappear in the time it takes to do the research to confirm it is good and get back to the nursery. For example, Adams entire rugosa selection can disappear in a matter of days, leaving only the hybrid teas that nobody wants. People here will try to talk you into ordering potted own-root plants, but for a variety of reasons there are issues with those. For one thing, the nurseries that carry them tend to be in warmer climates and don't offer the hardier roses. For another, some of them can be just plain difficult in a cold climate own-root and the nurseries don't necessarily know which ones those are. So to make this very easy, wait until next winter, then order something like three Jacques Cartiers from Pickering.

Thanks Sara Ann! I will try post more this season :) Love seeing how well your roses are doing...they all look great!!! Curdle, I hesitated about Archduke Charles initially since there were mixed opinions on fragrance, but am very glad I went ahead with him...smells wonderful to me & has been a very good rose here. Clothilde will often ball in the cool, wet spring and occasionally if we get really strong rain in warmer weather, but mostly opens here even with our high humidity...seems to need the warmth to coax her many petals open. I would definitely avoid her in a climate with cool, wet summers, though. And to the OP, Jeff, junco has a great suggestion about visiting the trial gardens in Athens. No better way to choose than to see and smell the roses first hand locally in no spray growing conditions!

They actually look nice as is. Grays are funny. I have been down the gray rabbit hole, thinking any popular gray could work. In my case is was for walls. Each one has their own undertone and they can clash badly. Get a sample of the paint, and paint it on a large poster board. You will most likely know right away if it is a miss. Then, if it seems in the running, start looking at it different times of the day, and at night when you use lights. I personally would do a white paint for the cabinets. Side story: we wound up color matching a tile to get a paint color to blend nicely for the walls. Only Home Depot offered to do it as the tile has shading. They chose the lightest spot to shoot. Looking at the walls now, seems like it should have been no big deal, but again none of the popular grays worked.