Hi Cass,

I have four different ones. Two I know the name of and the other two I'm waiting to grow a bit and flower to help narrow down an ID. I should state that they don't hold a candle to Mr Moore's wonderful miniatures but... all things considered I'm pretty happy with them. There seems to be a number of distinct groups of these little roses based on leaf type. Older ones have small, narrow, traditional miniature-type leaf, with more pompom style small flowers. I've found these to be underwhelming. The newer ones, however, have a lovely serrated broad glossy green leaf and so far each one with this newer style leaf has performed beautifully. 'Andromeda Hit' is not as good as 'Alicante' but then it also wasn't grown by the same people, it has a leaf intermediate between the two types (a transition variety maybe), and I have been nursing it for two years with some success. My 'Andromeda Hit' has been grown in the ground for the last two seasons and each year it is improving but I think the plan with this rose will be to dig it up and place it in a large pot and pamper it for a while to see if it comes good. The flowers of 'Andromeda Hit' tend to open to a brown centre outside if they get wet and the flowers tend to spot a little too. 'Alicante' is magnificent. The flowers have perfect HT form that last for weeks (4-5) on the bush, never seeming to go fully blown. Mine is in a largish pot outside on the verandah and it is midwinter here. It's been frozen nearly every night for the last month or so with days reaching 10-15 degrees and it still has all its leaves. The flowers have no scent at all, which is unfortunate but not surprising. I bought another one this afternoon actually that has peachy coloured quite large flowers. That also has this newer style broad leaf and it too has most its leaves still and is in the standard small pot they are marketted in. The thing I don't like about them is they are sold generically as 'Parade Roses' here in Australia and because I like to dabble with hybridising I want to know the names. Another thing that, along the same lines, I find annoying is that the Australian propagators have brought in a range of these roses from the 'PatioHit' and 'Parade' series but then stick generic 'Parade' labels on them. When I contacted Poulsen's and the Australian distributors about an ID for 'Alicante' and they identified it as a 'PatioHit' rose my comment to them was that I wouldn't have even thought of looking on the 'PatioHit' list because of the 'Parade' label... so the labelling is very poor. The summers here never get too intense for long. We have scattered days in the 30s and even 40s but these never last long with 26(ish) being about the norm. They seem to like this and it tempers their growth accordingly. I think, given they are grown as greenhouse roses as 'potted colour' and even annual roses, they don't perform too badly... I think they need to be kept in a pot to see them at their best. I would like to see them with a more spreading, mound-like habit.