Sounds like a stubborn child! lol At least you finally got it going,,good for you. I do think it is beautiful!!! Rosie

It is stunning in person. Flowers are fully open now and huge compared to the plant. I think if it's going to finally do this well for me I'll get rid of Private Dancer since I like EK Scarabe's flowers better.

I can definitely let you have my Private Dancer, Joanne. I can always put a leaf down and restart it if I decide later that I regret letting it go. Ditto with my Feather and a few others I really should thin out. Rose Bouquet, etc. My Private Dancer isn't large. It's a medium sized baby approaching first blooming size. Or I can keep it a while and let you know later in the season once it's bigger and I've got leaf babies as a backup. Or start you a leaf pot! Whatever you like, I'm happy to share.

I go in cycles and restart plants regularly and let my larger ones go so to make room for newer things - without really letting go the old favorites either! It allows me to swap things around so I don't always have the same o' thing on the shelves.

Joanne very pretty! Love the variegation! Rosie

Except for being curlier, the leaves on your Grey Haired Duke are a lot like my Ann's. Do you grow Ann? Talk about a really nice vintage. I put off getting one for years and a friend foisted one of her babies on me and ... well, I adore it. The darn thing is constantly smothered in flowers and I've had it about 6 months now. Even with it ever blooming it still manages to grow slowly. The leaves are stunning and I'm thinking about using her in my hybridizing.

I do have a few vintages but I'm not particularly attached to them because they are vintage. If it's a really good plant with great blooms then I am liable to want to try it. Like Ness' Orange Pekoe - until some of the coral Russians started to arrive, you just couldn't beat it for it's color. Even so I haven't seen a coral-orange Russian AV yet that was also variegated. Give'm a little more time.

It's not too hot to ship here if you want me to send you a parcel, Joanne. But if it's pretty hot there we can wait. I'm good either way. I am liable to list them to my Etsy shop though to make room for other things long before autumn.

I have new Russians and they are putting out flower buds! They are going to need more room. Not to mention my ever expanding flats of hybrid seed crosses of AV's and streps... I have two batches of strep seedlings throwing up flowers and I am as ever eager to see what these crosses produce. Some crosses are duds and with others all of the babies are nice and hard to choose between! ;)

Your LE Karusel looks great!!

Ah, but maybe it's not the flowers that I like about Ann that I might like to carry over into seedlings....

You aren't listening, Joan. But that's all right. What I cross or don't and why isn't your concern. I don't LIKE the pinks you mention. Just because you use a plant for a cross doesn't have to have anything to do with the FLOWERS and it doesn't always pass on the undesirable characteristics either. Those can be culled. ;) So don't fret over it. ;)