Sorry, I cannot help you with any of the roses you have chosen, I do not have any of them, but I do want to comment on Hortico. Have had the odd problems and what you say have been true in some cases, but I have to say the last order I received from them was impeccable. They obviously have a new way of packaging, unless this was an isolated case. I swear the roses would have stayed fresh and healthy for some time.

When they did ship me St Swithuns instead of Lilac Rose, (on a past order) they entirely went out of their way to supply the real thing, though this is what they received from the growers they ordered it from. They offered to find the real Lilac Rose, but I took a substitute instead, which they honoured.

I have also had problems with Pickerings re mislabelled roses. A lot more difficult to prove it to them, as their computer will not take photo attachments, and after a lot of work sending in my pictures, they wanted me to send them hard copies, which would have been a hastle for me to do, so I gave up, this involved two roses which I ordered as The Cottage rose, heavens knows what they are!

But I will still order from both companies - I think they are trying.

Good Luck with your choices. Always make sure you put down your own substitutes in case they cannot supply the ones you order, (make that a bunch of substitutes) that way, you are rarely disappointed.

Pauline - Vancouver Island

Or if you want the ordered rose(s), and only the ordered rose(s), clearly state/write that you will except "No substitutes, please." When I state that, nurseries have always sent me what I wanted. When I forgot to state that, I sometimes received a substitute/wrong plant.

Kate

I have Champagne, got it through Ashdowns. I really like it.

Betty

For quite a while Hortico was the only supplier of roses hybridized by Ben Williams who lived in Maryland. He created a line of roses named for great painters and I think the one I really wanted was Rembrandt, a rose with spots on the petals (as opposed to the not good spots on leaves).
Take a look at Hortico's sort by hybridizer and see if anything of Ben's is a must have for you.

Thanks for the extra information on Hortico's customer service, that helps!

Betty: Can you describe what Champagne looks like in your garden? I don't grow white roses but thought this looked interesting - not too white, but a very light apricot. What made you buy yours?

Anntn: Thanks for the excellent suggestion. I looked up B. Williams and liked Boulie's Dream. I will add it to my list!

Oooh, I just saw Slava and Twilight Zone, the lavendar w/ yellow reverse. That would be a big version of the famous "Icognito" miniature...

It'll be kinda hit-and-miss with them. I have been ordering for over a decade from them, only because they are THE only source for many of these roses. They are getting a good bit better at getting the roses to us tho. I was told they count how many roses they graft the season before and anticipate a certain amount of crop failure due to weather conditions, etc. Then they lower the percentage again just to cover any boo-boos, etc. If they end up with more than what they anticipate then it's a plus for us!! Often tho, they end up with complete crop failure once they dig the roses up in winter! Cold storage issues make the percentages go down also.

This season, I had better luck with the roses shipped in Fall and Winter than the humongous batch I got in late spring. All the roses arrived green and healthy, but I lost many in the last batch because they just never broke dormancy and turned brown and died. Even mulching didn't help much. I also had two mis-marked ones for the first time in many yrs. That really doesn't happen THAT often, for me anyway.

As for your list, all of those are excellent choices. I would add some Poulsen varieties tho too. FLORA DANICA and JOSE CARERRAS are drop-dead gorgeous! You might also look at another Delbard lavender, BLUE NILE. I recently replaced mine that died, and they were the only source for it. Also take a look at some of the Ben Williams roses, like Ann suggested. There are some beauties! I particularly love his striped roses in the Dutch Masters series.

You might want to see if Ashdown has Claude Monet. You'll have to get on the waiting list but they have most of the Delbards. I've had much better luck with their roses. My Hortico order had very small roses, and one was out of stock. One of the roses had canker when it arrived and I had to cut it down. One of other roses (Imperatrice Farah) died after it started to leaf out and unfortunately they won't pay shipping on a replacement. I decided to get it from Ashdown instead.

But if you want suggestions, Barkarole is supposed to be a great fragrant red that only Hortico has. Mine hasn't bloomed yet. Sandra Renaissance is a very nice lavender but I don't see it on their website anymore. I'd like to get The Nightwatch from them too. Beth had a very nice picture of it on the gallery. There's also the lavender Shi-Un which is supposed to be great. There's a thread about lavender roses around here where it was mentioned. Too bad their roses just didn't do well for me or I'd have no problems finding other roses to get.