Was meant to be 'Madame de la Roche-Lambert' but isn't...

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First flower from a plant I budded a year ago from material sent as 'Madame de la Roche-Lambert'. Pictures on HMF for this plant show very heavy mossed buds which this one clearly doesn't have. It doesn't even look much like a Moss. Will take other photos over the net few weeks. Plant is virused and I keep it only because I want to clean it up... vegetative centre on this, its first flower, may not be a reliably consistent feature. Very strong perfume.

Great colour Simon and also love your friendly aphids. Do you think the vegative centre will grow out with age. If the plant you have is virused, does the person from whom you got it know that their plant maybe virused as well ?

Proliferative centres come and go with variations in the season, but some roses are particularly prone to it. Teas Mlle Franziska Kruger (sold as Souvenir d'Elise Vardon in Aus) and "David's Dilemma" have that tendency in my garden and elswhere.
I have Mme de la Roche-Lambert, definitely mossed. Repeats but doesn't flower all that much, but a very striking colour. Another on the list to send later!

Yes David, as Margaret said, sometimes roses just form these vegetative centres whilst some varieties do it all the time. 'Madam Hardy' does it ALL the time but even she has been reported to form a hip once in a while... aint roses grand

The virus could have come from the cuttings or from the stock so rather than trying to track it down I've decided to just kill the virus and move on. It's a lovely rose but is very lax and untidy at this stage making long whippy canes that want to lie along the ground. Will try it own-root to see if that improves the achitecture.

Simon, obviously you built the hot box. Please keep me posted on how well it works.

Yep... built the hot box... am propagating some virused plants now in prep for heat treatment.

1. Grow rootstck seedlings to ensure a supply of virus-free rootstocks. Strike these in pots and get them growing strongly.
2. Graft infected bud onto any rootstock (virus status not important at this stage).
3. When the activated bud is growing strongly in its second year stop watering to induce a drought response in the rose.
4. Place in the hot box with the thermostat set to 38 degrees with a 6500K light going in it 24/7.
5. Place an inverted softdrink bottle of water in the pot so it drains slowly into the pot to provide some water in the box. Leave the lid on it and make a small hole in it to regulate the flow to a slow drip.
6. Leave it for 28 days.
7. On the 28th day remove it and cut back any obvious dieback until you come to a viable bud. Graft this onto your virus free seedling rootstocks prepared earlier.
8. Allow to grow until leaves appear. In autumn or spring send leaves to a lab for ELISA testing. If it comes back positive repeat process. Testing costs about $80-90 per test down here.
9. If it comes back negative then plant in a place away from other infected plants to keep as 'virus indexed' stock plants.
10. Discard the infected plant.

It's going to take a few years. I've got a good virus free multiflora rootstock seedling growing on that is about to flower (sister to the one I sent you Bruce) that I'll cut back after flowering and strike the prunings and plant in the ground until winter at which time I'll dig and pot them. I'm grafting infected buds now onto potted rootstocks to get the test plants growing. I'm going to use 'Constance Spry' as my first test subject. I can see Teas coping with the heat treatment better so I'll try 'St Francis Xavier' as well.

Looking good the past weekend. It looks like it has stripes. I'm kind of thinking 'Marbree' maybe...

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