I planted my own-root Simon Estes September of last year. As a plant, it's small in stature, but very tough. It suffered no winter dieback, even though I only winter-protected the bottom 6 inches of the plant and we had some January lows in the teens. It has never showed any signs of foliar diseases. It balled the first flush(we had some very erratic spring weather) but recovered and now has five flower buds and has grown a new cane. It seems to grow in spurts...spending weeks growing very slowly and then suddenly growing five inches and popping several flower buds in a week. The flowers are large and gorgeous, almost looking like a David Austin rose, but with very light fragrance. The color of the flowers in my garden is very similar to the OGR Crested Moss. The flower shape is similar to the Buck Rose Distant Drums but the plant is much more vigorous.

I planted this rose as a gallon in my Zone 6B(Southern CT) garden this spring, and compared to the 10+ other Buck roses I'm growing, Winter Sunset has, up to this point, not given me a single bit of trouble. It's a fast grower and an eager bloomer(the only Buck rose I have that reblooms as quickly is Silver Shadows), has completely disease-free foliage, and the bugs don't seem to like it very much. It does very well in a spot that gets light shade for part of the day. It would be perfect if it had a stronger fragrance and longer-lasting flowers...on a very hot day, the flowers open completely and shatter in 24 hours!

I have two own root Silver Shadows, one I grow in a pot and overwinter in an unheated room, and another that was mislabeled as another rose that I planted outside. Both are eager to grow and eager to bloom. The one I overwintered indoors emerged in the spring with spotless foliage, even as its neighbor Prairie Harvest was covered with powdery mildew. The one that spent our Zone 6b winter outside with 8 inches of mulch piled over the base died down to six inches from the ground and was the first rose to bloom this year. It got some blackspot last fall but not nearly as much as my problem rose Moondance. As far as my potted Buck Hybrid Tea/Grandifloras go, at this point Enchanted Autumn and Iobelle have cleaner foliage and Iobelle has more flower buds but Silver Shadows is the most vigorous grower.

In my climate(Zone 6b CT), Silver Shadows is a pale lilac color, with some pink showing on the outside of the buds.