2003 rose trials

Here are the completed notes on my trial varieties for the 2003/2004 season.

Maman Cochet

A pink Tea, bred in 1893. One of the most popular remaining in cultivation. Will reportedly grow to 2 metres and provide large, fragrant flowers suitable for cutting. Disease resistance to mildew is apparently good in the US.

• September 2003 - sourced as a potted rose from Belrose Nursery in good condition, with two fat buds on it already. Will be trialled in a large pot.
• 5 November 2003 - no major growth in 5 weeks, definitely no mildew but has some black spot. Could be transplant stress.
• 18 November 2003 - more buds on the way. Photos in December.
• 14 December 2003 - I've now placed the bush in my display bed, replacing poor St Swithun which died from drainage problems in the November rain. I aim to spoil the bush rotten, having replaced 60 litres of heavy clay soil with rose planting mix fortified with blood 'n' bone, gypsum and Osmocote.
• 29 February 2004 - the bush is gradually putting on new growth, with a few tentative new stems starting to appear. It seems very much like other 'slow starter' tea roses.
• 28 March 2004 - finally, two new flower buds and some more growth. Black spot attacked this plant quite badly in March. This is possibly because the bush is yet to fully establish, but time will tell.
• 16 July 2004 - after repeated attacks from black spot and only spindly new growth, I've relegated Maman back to a pot. Perhaps some spoiling there will get the plant to a point where it will thrive.

Verdict: undecided but early signs are not promising.

Mme Antoine Mari

A tea with darker rose outer petals blending to pale pink within. The photos look lovely. This is one of the later teas, bred by a little known rosarian (Mari) in 1901. Reportedly very fragrant, it seems to have many fans in the US.

• 18 October 2003 - I sourced a potted bush from Honeysuckle Cottage Nursery and it's barely starting to sprout. It's in TLC mode for now.
• 5 November 2003 - still in TLC mode. Swelling buds indicate it's still alive, but no sprouting yet. Like other recently purchased teas, this is a slow starter.
• 29 February 2004 - this bush is still in near death mode. I'm grimly determined to make it flourish and flower before winter 2004.
• 16 July 2004 - the bush finally died. Out of persistence I've bought another one, this time a much healthier bare root specimen.

Verdict: undecided.

Triomphe du Luxembourg

The historical 'snob' value of this rose makes an interesting story. When bred in 1835, it was the most celebrated rose from the Luxembourg gardens in Paris. Samples of it were so rare that they apparently sold in France and the UK for more than the average weekly wage. It's still a rare breed today.

This is a fragrant, pink/salmon coloured Tea that grows quite strongly. It's on trial in my front display bed.

• September 2003 - I sourced my bush bare-rooted from Honeysuckle Cottage Nursery. It has started off very weak (possibly my fault for planting bare roots in September - not ideal!)
• 5 November 2003 - now growing very strongly, with 3 or 4 buds on the new branches. Seems very disease resistant.
• 18 November 2003 - it's blooming! The rear of the petals is noticeably darker than the front. The centre of the open bloom is a charming mess. Moderately fragrant, about average for a tea.

• 29 February 2004 - the Triomphe is definitely a sucess story for 2004. It's growing beautifully, blooming very repeatedly and is a really healthy, good looking plant.
• 16 July 2004 - winter has brought some mildew to the foliage, but Triomphe is still blooming! Unfortunately the large, luxurious buds aren't opening all that well due to the cold. The bush reached over 4 feet high and wide in its first year, with a strong stem structure to build on for next year.

Verdict: this is a winner. The best of my trial roses for 2003-4.

Duchesse de Brabant

Probably the most popular tea rose grown in Australia. Our grandparents may know it as 'Countess Bertha', an Australianised corruption of one of its French names, Comtesse de Labarthe. Its reputation in Sydney is terrific and doesn't need any confirmation. I sourced this from Belrose Nursery, which has an old specimen growing wild and 2 metres tall in the dirt gutter outside their premises. Thriving on neglect is its strong point, evidently! The nursery sells plenty of this variety on the strength of that bush alone.

Mine is in the display bed.

• July 2003 - Sourced potted and in good condition.
• September 2003 - It has one beautifully fragrant, mid pink flower and several more buds. The foliage is light green and beautiful. The best fragrance of any tea I've experienced. Really promising, this one!
• 5 November 2003 - Very pleasing growth, with good branching from the base of the graft and enormous numbers of buds for a young bush. Has been less resistant to mildew than I hoped for, and has required repeat spraying.
• 21 November 2003 - a flush of almost 50 buds is just starting to open. I've never had such a performance from a newly planted rose.

• February 2004 - trial ended. When I originally planted this rose in the ground, I made the mistake of planting it too deeply. It ended up growing in a depression when the rose mix compacted during the spring and summer months. With a solid clay undersoil, it started showing signs of drainage stress in the February rains. I tried to lift the bush and put more soil under it, but too late. R.I.P. This isn't the first strong bush I've lost to drainage problems in the same bed.

Verdict: a good rose, worth growing. The most fragrant of the tea roses I've grown so far.

Ferdinand Pichard

One of the last of the great hybrid perpetuals, the only one of this class I've been tempted to grow. Bred in 1921, the world was switching over to hybrid teas but Ferdinand has held its own. It has striped pink and white blooms. The striping is found on a few very old roses (Rosa Mundi, Variegata di Bologna) and a few newer ones (Oranges & Lemons, Purple Tiger, Hocus Pocus) but I chose this one.

It looks as though this bush will be very vigorous, hungry and huge. But.. will it bloom and repeat well in Sydney? That's always the catch for hybrid perpetuals.... so it's in my picking bed for the trial (I couldn't risk it letting down my display bed).

• September 2003 - Sourced bare rooted and sprouting all over from Honeysuckle Cottage Nursery. Surprisingly, it didn't react badly to late planting like the teas did. Its new foliage is light green, pleated and apparently disease proof.
• 5 November 2003 - The first bloom has arrived, small but pretty, with an excellent scent similar to Double Delight. Disease resistance remains outstanding so far.

• February 2004 - trial ended. I liked this bush, but it just got too big for the space I had allocated to it. I've trimmed it down and handed it over to a work colleague with a less crowded garden! The photo below says it all. It's a pity, because I would otherwise have had flowers all along those sprawling stems in autumn.

Verdict: a big healthy bush that needs a large amount of space. Not all that floriferous.

Souvenir D'un Ami

Bred in 1846, this salmon/pink tea has a great reputation for performing under difficult conditions. It will apparently grow very tall, is quite resistant to disease, and its blooms are very fragrant. Not widely sold, despite what looks like a great set of features on paper. Wonder what's wrong with it...

• September 2003 - Like Triomphe du Luxembourg, I sourced this bare root from Honeysuckle Cottage Nursery. It's struggling with being planted so late.
• October 2003 - No new growth since it was planted more than 6 weeks ago. This one mightn't make it.
• 5 November 2003 - it lived after all! Now sprouting dull red new leafy growth that was mildly susceptible to mildew but responded well to spraying. No new main stems or flower buds yet.
• 25 December 2003 - what a nice Christmas present:

• February 2004 - the bush is growing strongly, with healthy new stems growing outwards at a wide angle. The summer heat seems to have darkened the blooms a little, especially in the bud opening stage:

• 16 July 2004 - the bush has a large flush of winter blooms that are very pretty and quite fragrant. The flowers follow a common 'tea' habit of being too heavy for their stems, making them hang like bells. That can be a pest while the bush is small, but once it reaches full height it should be a charming effect.

Verdict: an excellent tea rose. Strong, disease resistant growth supports lovely large blooms.

Souvenir de la Malmaison

It's hard to say anything new about this famous old rose. It's my first dabble into the Bourbon roses, and perhaps I'm starting with the best. It's certainly the best-known. We'll see. Bred in 1843, it was so famous that the raiser Monsieur Beluze and his wife apparently kept a round-the-clock watch over the bush to ensure that fanatics wouldn't steal cuttings! Part of its success may be that one parent was a tea rose, so it's really a bourbon/tea cross.

Souvenir de la Malmaison has pale pink/cream blooms, quite large and full of petals. The fragrance is reportedly a mix of spice and ripe bananas.

• 18 October 2003 - I bought this one potted from Honeysuckle Cottage as an afterthought. I am trialling it in a large pot. Apart from some mildew it's in good health, with a bud set to open in late October.
• 5 November 2003 - the lovely pale pink/buff blooms really do smell like bananas - quite unique. New growth is not very vigorous and still subject to mildew.
• 4 December 2003 - finally, some flowers that escaped most of the rain allowed me to take these pictures. The blooms age to a virtual white:

• 16 July 2004 - unlike the tea roses under trial, Malmaison is definitely not a winter bloomer. The last few May blooms 'balled' badly in May. The bush was a bit affected by late autumn mildew, but not badly.

Verdict: worth growing for its beautiful blooms in spring and summer. Easy to grow. Unique and delicious fragrance. Good disease resistance.

Karen Blixen

Named after the author of Out of Africa, this hybrid tea is a baby compared to the above roses. It was bred in Denmark in 1992.

With so many multi-coloured varieties arriving on the scene, this rose was almost a novelty. The blooms are pure white. They are reportedly very fragrant but also very well formed, suitable for exhibition.

I was after a nice white for picking. I haven't grown one since Honor, which was a lovely rose in its own right. If Karen Blixen has the same fragrance as White Lightnin' and the same long stems as Honor, I'll be in heaven.

• July 2003 - I sourced this variety from Treloar's Roses, bare rooted. It was a very small specimen.
• October 2003 - Now doing well in my picking bed.
• 5 November 2003 - the first two blooms were big and pure white. Not as fragrant as advertised. The bush is doing well and seems fairly resistant to disease - it recovered well from mild mildew after one spraying.
• 4 December 2003 - the following photo shows what appears to be a typical bloom form. The stems are fairly thin and the fragrance is still disappointing, but the bush is still too young to reach a firm conclusion.

• 16 July 2004 - the bush has proven very strong and disease free right through autumn and early winter. Its winter blooms have been large and luxurious, but unfortunately almost fragrance-free.

Verdict: Karen Blixen isn't a keeper because I don't have room for roses that don't smell. White Lightnin' is still my favourite white rose. Having said that, if fragrance isn't a priority, Karen Blixen is about the healthiest and strongest white rose I have seen.

Blue Moon

I wanted a lilac 'blue' hybrid tea rose to try this season. My last attempt, Paradise, died on me in early 2003. I wasn't sad to see it go, either.

My first choice was Ernest's Blue, a rare new variety that interested me. Alas, it died an immediate death as a bare root despite some TLC. Not happy. By the time I pronounced it dead, it was too late to order a replacement of the same variety so I got a very common Blue Moon.

This is one of the staple varieties in Sydney. A big tall bush with big, fragrant lilac blooms. It does well here. My trial will be in a pot, due to lack of space in the picking garden.

• October 2003 - I bought a bush from the local fruit shop, potted. Not a bad specimen, either! It has an early bud on it already.
• 5 November 2003 - Trial suspended. This is not Blue Moon but a fragrant buff/apricot variety (see below). So much for buying roses from a fruit shop! Anyone for a free rose?
• 4 December 2003 - the trial is back on, with a new potted bush from Swanes. This time it's the real thing. Swanes' bushes are expensive but you do get what you pay for - a very healthy bush. A few raggy blooms were on the plant when I bought it. They weren't worth photographing but the fragrance was truly exceptional.
• 29 March 2004 - I'm starting to think this bush needs pampering, although admittedly it's getting less than optimal sun to work with. Seems a bit mildew prone. The blooms are beautifully fragrant, so the effort is worthwhile.
• 1 May 2004 - finally a few autumn blooms. They are truly beautiful and the fragrance is heaven:

• 16 July 2004 - the bush has grown a good deal stronger and new foliage has turned out quite disease resistant.

Verdict: Worth growing for fragrance alone, even if you don't like the colour. I'll be giving Blue Moon a place in my cutting bed for 2004-5.

Valencia

In December 2003, with the assistance of some rose experts, I had the 'mystery' bush that was originally labelled 'Blue Moon' positively identified. It's Valencia, and what great luck to stumble on such a good rose this way.

Valencia is another German rose bred in 1989 by Kordes, a breeder who has more than average success at pairing beautiful blooms with healthy bushes to grow them on. It is a solid bush with thick stems, petals and foliage. As a result the cut blooms last a long time. There is a moderate, almost fruity fragrance.

Valencia's colour is described in books as 'old gold', copper and apricot. It's all of those, but I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

• 16 July 2004 - Valencia stayed healthy throughout autumn and mid winter. Two large late blooms are budding on the bush.

Verdict: A very good rose, with big, beautiful blooms and no special care needs. I can't find any weak points to mention. If you like this colour, grow Valencia.