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Silky and Rosy, Ausrose sums it up , slow grower , and hardly any flowers on Papa , a very frustrating rosebush and not a healthy one at that , yep its coming out ,its in the front of the rose bed , have decided to put in a water feature where it is , ha ha ...

Mine's about 1m high and not many flowers but the flowers are magnificent when they do come out. Wonder if anyone has had good luck with PM? I think I have a couple to come out this weekend.

Can you girls check your PMs petals. What I am looking for is a white line in some or one of the petals, I reckon there are 'different' PM, some better than others.

My PM is over 1.5m high and absolutely fine health-wise. It doesn't flower as much as Oklahoma but it's hardly tardy.
I've had more trouble with Mr Lincoln....

Okay all you guys with healthy PM's , i'm really jealous , cause mine is now dying , i'm absolutely anti pesticide , but we gave it a drink of Roundup as i was absolutely terrified it had a disease and would pass it on to the other roses , bit late after three years though i guess . Roseman couldn't see any white lines on the leaves , but mines definately a dodgy one .......

This is the only photo I have of my PM I don't have an open photo

Mr Lincoln grows the same amount of flowers as PM does for me. Both healthy (but slow growth though).

Have not noticed a distinct white line Roseman but I will keep an eye out when this next bud opens.

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AutumnDamask you mentioned Papa Meilland, Mister Lincoln and Oklahoma in your post of the 22nd September an interesting point about these three red roses are they are all Chrysler Imperial X Charles Mallerin. Papa Meilland was released by French company Meilland in 1963 while Mister Lincoln 1964 and Oklahoma 1965 were both released by Swim and Weeks of USA.

Oh, that's interesting Ausrose. I knew PM and Oklahoma were "siblings" but didn't realise ML was in the same family. I'd also heard that PM x Oklahoma doesn't turn out well...

To me, PM has slightly better flower form as Oklahoma goes through a "rounded" half-bud stage (not sure if I described that very well). But the scent of both is amazing. (I'm so not a "musk" girl. )

0n the subject of crossing roses some years back a mate of mine crossed John F Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe but the resultant crosses turned out duds. Perhaps there is a moral to this story.

Yeah doug dont go for hot blondes MM or you will end up in trouble

Perhaps Warren you could try where others have failed.

Looking at the offspring of both , I would say they are both pretty iffy to me. MM seems to produce alot of very opened blooms, JFK although in itself is a reasonable looking rose, its offspring are sort of average. I take alot of time researching the first generation offspring of every thing I breed with, so I don't have to many slip ups, and waste years of time.

I had read that about Papa and Oklahoma , i planted both those roses at the same time , Oklahoma has flourished, still a bit prone to dieback , but still flourished while Papa stayed stubbornly sickly and slow . Oklahoma flowers not long lived , Papa not real sure , never had enough of them , making me think my Papa certainly was a dud , i do like Oklahoma , probably better than Firefighter , maybe just because of the fragrance ...

Two rose bushes I've found to be well below expectations are Angel Face and French Lace yet I have seen some excellent specimens of the both rose bushes.

I knew Angel Face was tricksy but when I was offered 3 cuttings a few years ago I took them (duh). They grew but in the end I heaved them out as they died off. I purchased a grafted one and it's only a small bush but it is pretty healthy and is generous with flowers and no worse with BS than a bunch of my other bushes.
French Lace.... love it. Mine hasn't been pruned for several years (always something else to do) but it flowers and flowers...

My Angel Face has pretty flowers but it's super small. Very slow growing. But I am going to keep it because it's not taking up too much space and see how it goes. I have a thornless pink rose which gets GORGEOUS roses on it, but looks like a climber? I didn't buy it as a climber and it has no where to climb It's growing like mad but no flowers. Grr.

Warren I was talking about the blondes.

My Angelface is slow growing as well, but the flowers are beautiful so I keep it around

Angel Face tends to be a small bush.
When the triffids went past they ignored that one.