Red and Gold unknown???

As the flower ages it gets darker to almost red:

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It doesn't seem to flower constantly but when it does it does so enmasse:

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The leaves are glossy and mid-green and quite healthy (though this plant is virused... hence my desire to find what it is to replace it becuase despite being virused it is still a doer in the garden):

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Young flowers are quite bicolour:

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The buds are quite round and large:

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Perhaps Granada? Parent of double delight. Web pictures show it quite pink, but my rose book shows it red. Says quite fragrant, flowers in clusters, quick repeat.

Close... HMF shows it as being more yellow and red though... but is pretty close. See how the centre looks like a complete muddle of petals... they always come out looking like this. No nice clearly defined centre on this rose

It has been suggested this rose could be [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. What do you think? It looks to be a pretty good match.

looks a lot lighter Tas

Well... this one has been shovel pruned... the plant was pretty close to 'Bonica' and today I noticed 'Bonica' showing badly virused leaves... and it hadn't shown in last year (though it can go undetected for a while (note my RANT in What's Bugging my Roses forum that I'm going to put up... ) so there is a chance that an underground root graft had formed naturally allowing transmission of the virus... 'Bonica' got shovel pruned too... It makes me so mad

Better late than never Simon. Just thought I'd let you know that this lovely rose is called Chivalry. It is a robust, beautiful rose, with well formed blooms and is quite old. I had it for a few years but ended up replacing it because it didn't repeat quickly enough for my taste.

Yes, I think you are right! I haven't had this rose for quite a long time now (2009) and I've decided not to replace it... Over time I will remove all HT from here. It wasn't a bad performer really... just badly virused.

If it's not a silly question, why are you removing your HTs? And what are you replacing them with?

Disclaimer: The following comments are my own opinions and are not meant to offend anyone. They are based on 30 years of growing roses and nearly 10 years of breeding roses.

It's because I don't like them to be honest. My personal opinion is they represent a period of time in rose breeding history where they seriously lost the plot and focused on entirely the wrong features. Health went out the window and the flower became the only focus. My main aim in breeding roses is to breed good shrub roses that are healthy and require little maintenance that look good in the garden (which in my opinion HT do not).

As such I am replacing most of the HT with roses like Hybrid Musks, Teas, Chinas, Noisettes, Polyanthas, rugosa, a few types of OGR, wichurana shrubs like ground covers, healthier floribunda and minis (especially recent ones from the Kordes camp), and from these I am breeding within them to see what can be made. I also grow a lot of species and hope to incorporate them into breeding as well.

I love looking at people's photos of HT but I hate the HT bush form so I am happy to admire them from afar. DA roses also fall into this group for me. I am not a fan. They grow well in warm dry climates where black spot pressure is low, but down here in Tas such a climate does not exist and black spot pressure is intense... even the black spot gets black spot. The only time they look good here is during winter when they are meant to be leafless.

I do not spray my roses and one of the criteria against which I judge a rose is how well it grows without any chemical intervention. In fact this is the primary criteria I use in evaluating my roses. I don't care if they have the niceset looking flower ever... if they get disease here as a seedlings they will be culled. They don't even get any help as seedlings and if they die.. well... they were meant to.

I have over an acre of rose gardens here and have over 200 named varieties of all kinds and I raise several thousand seedlings every year, which gets culled down to about 10-20 each year. These get planted in test beds and now I would have about 1000 roses in the ground. I have neither the time, the space, nor the inclination to pander to the whims of a group that does so poorly as a whole down here.

So... there you have it... I still have a few HT but I keep them for specific purposes and as I can I discard them once I get what I want from them. The only HT I will keep forever, is one called 'Eliza' because I bought it when my eldest child, Eliza, was born... all others will eventually go (unless I decide to do greenhouse growing for the florist trade... and that's on the cards one day too).

This is interesting, Simon, because I was reflecting only this morning on the number of my HTs that seem to lose vigour and beauty in a relatively short time, say five years or so. I don't know if it's the extreme climate here, having just come through a ten year drought and searing temperatures as high as 47C.

Black spot is the bane of my existence in the last couple of years, and is probably responsible to a degree, but I also have to deal with thrips which ruins all the light coloured ones in the spring to early summer period. It's enough to make a woman take up drinking.

When I grew roses in Melbourne, although I didn't get as many flowers as here, I always had beautiful foliage. And lots of my roses were taller and more vigorous. I think the heat bonzais them. The David Austins tend to sulk here. Their leaves burn badly in extreme heat, and their flowers often revert to buttonhole sized blooms and in some cases, doubles become singles. Lots of them don't repeat as often as I would like. However, three are outstanding - Charles Austin, Pat Austin and Graham Thomas.

I think I might put the question of whether others find their roses lose their vigour to the forum and see if it is perhaps a facet of gardening in extreme heat. I was singularly unimpressed with what I saw at Rustons, where many roses were rather ordinary in appearance, at a time when in early spring, my first crop seems to be 'on steroids' and is breathtakingly beautiful. Now the summer is another thing altogether.

So, guru, here's the point of all this - which other types of roses can I grow that repeat well and grow tall and full? I really only know HTs and Floribundas well enough to make any sort of judgement on their merit.

Lili

Have a look at the Reithmuller roses, might not be quite tall enough

I have Carabella, and it's a beauty. It's actually quite tall because it is in a sheltered position. Having looked up the Wiki heading (I'd never heard of Reithmuller) Titian certainly sounds luscious. Now the next challenge, to find a seller. All part of life's rich tapestry.

Lili, any of the ones from the groups mentioned above are good IMO. Bruce (Ozeboy), propagates and sells a wide selection of these wonderful roses each year and I am sure he can fix you up with many excellent roses. many of these groups mentioned above with give you both height and continuous flowers. As far as being a guru goes... I'm anything but a guru. I'm just the Shmo that put this place together to allow the gurus to come together

Thanks Simon, I have quite a few newly budded Reithmuller at the moment which should be ready in 18 months. Have made a concerted effort to collect and propagate all his roses. Recently I made a trip to the Blue Mountains to see a beautiful garden with Reithmuller roses growing everywhere. This garden was planted out around the 1950's and added to by the current rose loving owners with other Reithmuller's. What a wonderful find it was. I came away with budwood from their 'Carabella ',
two different forms of 'Honeyflow' and two different forms of 'Esmeralda'.
The bees love these blooms.

Collecting these varieties and making them available to all has given me great pleasure.

I also have the Margurite Parkes bred collection budded with the exception of 'Starscent' which appears lost. 'Pink Angel ' won grand champion at the Rose Society of NSW Show. All these buds came from the breeders ( Mrs Margurite Parkes) clones still growing in her garden. She is 90 years old and the budwood was just so healthy. Just goes to show you are never too old to grow magnificent healthy roses.
These plants will be available in about 18 months.

There is also a rose called 'Cousin Essie' 1989. This rose was selected by these people as the Reithmuller roses grow so well and seem to have blooms for most of the year. The breeding is 'Honeyflow' X Unnamed Polyantha bush rose. Small double white flower opening flat, with prominent stamens, fully recurrent. Light to mid green foliage, few prickles.
Flower 30 petals, 40 mm, up to 30 blooms a bush. 1.5h X 1.5w
I have a few of these budded.

'Carabella' is a doer down here. Mine are from cuttings David Clark sent down. I've used it in pollinations already.

Thanks for the information Simon. The garden up the blue mountains has numerous bushes of each and a few Alister Clarks. They claim these do the best up there. They are just starting to cull all their 'Icebergs' because they are such poor doers there.

I've taken out pretty well all my HTs except for some pre-1925 ones, basically because my back doesn't like pruning down low. What's left doesn't get much pruning. I still have Blue Moon because I wanted the colour. I still have some "moderns" - shrub or flori types, which do well without much fussing. Apricot Nectar, Escapade, Rhapsody in Blue, Amber Queen, Yellow Flower Carpet, Altissimo.

Carabella is a nice rose. We had a hedge of them along the front fence but it seems to suffer die back pretty bad up our way and all of the plants died after about 3 years.
All were cutting grown. The original plant (I think it was) died off about a year later.
All were big bushes and flowered well. I guess they did not like the wet or the humidity. I'll try again sometime and plant one in a dryer spot.