She was wonderful here -- until a gopher got her roots.

This brought back memories of a previous house and garden, when it was still quite a bit cooler (about 17 years ago) and Leonie was a happy and healthy plant. Thanks for this post, Jackie.

Interesting - mine is in full morning sun for about 3 hours a day, then the shade of our house gets it - perhaps that is why its blooms don't fry. We had 100 degree temp one day last week, and high 90s for 2-3 days, and all I did was water it a lot - the blooms did not fry.

Jackie

I've been thinking about polyanthas recently. As I recall, James Delahanty just loved them. I heard him give a talk on them once many years ago.

I recently planted two of White Pet to replace the HT Pope John Paul II. PJPII was a wonderfully fragrant plant (and I recommend it for that reason), but I've been removing any large plants that are very close to the house as part of my campaign to reduce fire risk. I'm thinking of adding a third one, as that bed is mostly white and silver plants. That bed is in sun about half the day. I wonder if polyanthas are often good part shade plants, since your Leonie also does so well.

Polys are a bit better in the shade tolerance department than many others. It's the multiflora that helps them in that regard. Our "hybrid musks", which are supposedly also more shade tolerant, aren't "musks" at all but hybrid multifloras. Iceberg and Sally Holmes are hybrid multifloras and both are way above average in the shade tolerance department. White Pet apparently lacks the multiflora genes, but from experience, it did exceptionally well on the north side of the house in Valencia where it ate the center of a huge Yves Piaget.