Every Vintage band plant I have ever received has been minimum twice as large as any Heirloom band plant I ever received.

I suppose there may be exceptions to that rule, but I have not received any of them, and I've been buying Vintage bands since there were Vintage bands to buy.

Jeri

Thats always good to hear. I want to rip up some shrubs I have and expand my floribundaville rose bed in the front yard. It will not give me lots and lots more room but it might be enough to get these all planted.

floribundaville rose bed

*** COOL! You need a sign!
"FloribundaVille"

Jeri

I have a habit of nameing certain of my garden beds and not just the rose beds. For instance a large raised bed with daylilies in the backyard I call the plateau. But one rose bed in the front yard is almost all floribundas and instead of always saying the floribunda rose bed, I just started calling it Floribundaville. The name suits it.

I agree with Jeri in that my Vintage bands have, with one exception, always been much larger than the Heirloom ones. Although the teeny little Vintage band is now quite large!

Looks like you have a nice collection coming to join the new babies from Heirloom! Good luck with them all and we look forward to hearing how they do!

Lynn

I had never even heard of most of these floribundas I just ordered today. Not the common ones seen at our local nurseries, thats for sure. Its always impossible to be 100 per cent sure but I really think I will love these new ones. Plus I don't overly worry about it. If it turns out I don't like something I bought (and that happens on occasion) I just give it away.

Vintage bands seem to always take off very quickly for me. I've had mixed success with other vendors and am pretty well at the point where I prefer to order from Vintage only, one reason of course being their huge selection of roses. Customer service and the quality of the bands are the other reasons. Their website is wonderful and I really enjoy the descriptions of the roses and the photographs. A very popular vendor from whom I've never ordered has a very large selection but no descriptions and very poor pictures, and that makes ordering a lot less enjoyable. For me Vintage just has it all.

Ingrid

I hate to say this, but I've been really disappointed with Vintage's bands this yr. I ordered LOTS of them to try and help keep them afloat. It was great, because I got quite a few that I'd been waiting a long time for. However, I lost a lot of them because they were way too small and shouldn't have been sent out yet. Some are not replaceable. And then, I waited and waited for one to open up, and it's a mis-marked rose. I'm really very disappointed. I probably would ask for replacements, but I'm seriously running out of room anyway. I'm having to get rid of lots of my potted roses because I have no more sunny spots to put them.

Anyway, I know Vintage has always been a wonderful, reputable source for our passion, but I thought you guys might wanna be aware of the many losses I've had this yr. Hopefully, you'll have better luck than I did.

I got several excellent bands from Vintage this year. They were in many instances as large as roses I received from other sources in gallon pots.

beth- Your roses are always so wonderful, I love to see your picture posts on the gallery so I know any roses you ordered would be stunners. Sorry to hear about the problems. I know that I have never ordered from them but unless they send something smaller than what I get from Heirloom, I should not have any problems.

Am I living in an alternate universe? I think I must be -- otherwise, I couldn't possibly be reading reportage about how HUMONGOUS Vintage bands are in comparison to Heirloom bands!

I get the sense that it verges on sacrilege, heresy or whatever to say anything even marginally negative about Vintage on this forum. In response to a vaguely unfavorable statement on another recent thread, one commenter indignantly maintained that Vintage NEVER sends a band that is not of 'saleable size' (whatever that means). Too bad that commenter couldn't have examined the root systems on the 4 pieces of plant material I received from Vintage last season.

I'm not particularly enthusiastic about Heirloom either, but I have to say that bands I've received from them have compared favorably with Vintage's (faint praise). IMHO, they could both learn a thing or two from Northland.

hmmm Jaxondel and Beth and Rita, to be honest I have been super furious with Heirloom Roses...because I did feel they sent me bands that were way too young, they looked closer to seedlings than bands... One was 3-1/2 inches that was very badly dehydrated when I received it (too frail to make the UPS journey-- the one stem it had was a very sickly yellow and it had 8 very tiny, yellow curled leaves-1/8"-1/4" leaves- not one of those original leaves survived...the other band was just under 5" (leaf height-with a 4" stem)and had only 6 leaves, but thankfully very healthy 1/2" leaves... Perhaps if I had ordered several bands and maybe got just 2 duds, I wouldn't go so ballistic but again, it seems Jaxdonel and I share some similar experience whether it be Vintage and Heirloom that we do expect the bands to arrive with healthy leaves and viable roots... For me the plant needs to be at least 6" tall with 8 healthy green! leaves at the very minimum! To me the number of leaves (8) is a good indicator that the roots are "ready" and have reached sufficient strength to be transplanted. I'm not picky about the size of those 8 leaves, I just Want Them a Nice, Healthy Color. I would order bands again if this guarantee would be met...At first I was reading yay, at least Vintage sends decent sized bands, but as I read further along I thought, urrrrrk! maybe the only way to solve this problem is to talk with whoever is sending the bands that I do have this expectation. Then perhaps I could protect my band-to-be by making sure it STAYS AT THE NURSERY until it has reached the appropriate size and then! everyone would be happy...

Of the several hundred bands I've ordered from Vintage, a few have been too small to leave the nest. A few of those didn't make it, but most have. The one really bad one I called Vintage on was replaced immediately, no problem and with effusive apologies.
The reason we are all so pro Vintage is because most of the time their roses are excellent and, most importantly, they are are the largest "warehouse" of OGR. We need them and need to support them!

Although I have a couple of their bands, I didn't mention Heirloom when I praised Vintage - the roses I made favorable comparison to were from ARE for whom I also have nothing but praise as far as the health and viability of their roses. I was trying to make a valid point about the size of most of the bands I have received from Vintage. If I have a problem with a vendor I usually take it up with him before I take it to the public - my experience is the established businesses care about their product, their customers and their reputation.

My preference for Vintage has a lot to do with the sort of inventory they maintain but they are not my only source by any means. An admitted rose addict - I have even bought a Sally Holmes at my local Walmart.

I am certain that it is possible to get a dud from time to time from any source. I used to have a friend who said every chicken biscuit order of six had at least one with gristle in it and you were lucky if you ate that one first and got it out of the way.

I received four band roses from Vintage this spring.
Below is one of them and is typical of all four.
They've been great, roses are thriving.
I have a lot of respect for Vintage and what they offer, especially for those of us who value rare, old roses.

Randy

Vintage band:
{{gwi:212206}}

I ordered 19 bands from Vintage this spring and mine were all identical to about the size of Randy's. Having been acquainted with the size of Heirloom's twigs, I was delighted with the size and quality of Vintage's bands.

They've all thriving and doing well in the garden. I'm very pleased with Vintage's roses and their customer service. I'm glad I ordered from them, and will be doing so again next year without reservation.
-terrh

I received an e-mail from vintage saying my order ships 6/29. Two of the roses I ordered were out of stock, Lili Marlene and Cinnabar :-((

Now I am wondering how long it takes to get something if you order custom rooted. Fall would not be good in my climate and it said on the website it can take up to two years. Two years? Were not growing big trees here, just little roses.

My Vintage order came today. At first I thought the pots were bigger than the ones from Heirloom, but after I got them totally unwrapped, I see that they are not. Some were really much, much bigger than the ones from Heirloom (3 of them), one was a tiny, tiny thing much smaller than anything ever gotten from Heirloom and the rest are about the same size as my Heirloom bands are now. Since those Heirloom bands have grown some since they arrived, that means theat the Vintage bands are bigger to start with. I figgure they will all do fine, Vintage and Heorloom. I just need to get them planted.