I admit: I am not being fair to this rose when I rate it negative. I ran into it at a local garden center in the spring of 2014 and I no...Read Moreticed two things on the tag: the first is that it said "hybrid tea" and the second was that it said "Zone 4 hardy." For someone who lives in NE Wisconsin, finding a hybrid tea that was hardy to zone 4 was about as exciting as finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so I snapped it up.
But it isn't a hybrid tea, no matter what the tag (from "Bailey Nursery") said. (The tag was put there by the nursery, not the garden center.where I bought it.) It is considered a shrub rose, but in my experience its growth habit is more like a floribunda's. It throws very large sprays of smallish (2") semi-double flowers at the end of long (2 to 3 foot) stems. The sprays are too heavy for the strength of the stems, and with any rain getting into the flowers, the stems sag down into the mud, and the flowers are ruined. Perhaps if the rose is not so heavily fertilized. the growth habit would not be so extreme. But in my climate it is typical that only a few inches at the bottom of the rose survive the winter, so I have to push them hard with a lot of fertilizer.
The flower itself is very dark red; too dark for my taste.
I suppose it is not the fault of the cultivar that "Bailey Nursery" mislabeled the one I bought. But I was not at all pleased with this rose.
I admit: I am not being fair to this rose when I rate it negative. I ran into it at a local garden center in the spring of 2014 and I no...Read More