'Wedding Day" ?

(Hope I can get the pics to work...)

Our place is south of Benalla, Vic. Granite based soil, acidic. But pretty well draining.

This was a rose I bought last year and planted, bare-rooted, in August to cover a pergola to shade the entrance way to the house. I was slightly surprised at the speed of growth (!). The following pics were taken in Nov 2010 when I thought to myself, "That is NOT 'Aimee Vibert' that I ordered"!!

November 2010:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

June 2011:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ooops, forgot to mention that I already had a 'Wedding Day' (different Nursery source) carefully positioned a LONG way from the house and the flowers/stems looked identical.

It wasn't a repeat flowerer either.

Hi,

That rose is Rosa longicuspis var. sinowilsonii... one of my favourite roses!!! And yours is a truly beautiful specimen

You can tell it from 'Wedding Day' by looking at the leaves. "Wedding Day' has smooth leaves whilst sinowilsonii is described botanically as having slightly rugose leaves. You can see this in the 'bumpy' texture of its leaves. You will also notice that each leaf is enormous and considerably larger than 'Wedding Day's. It's a fanstastic rose and you have it in exactly the right place. It will grow up that pergola and over it and make a dense covering the length and bredth of it. I can hardly wait to see what it looks like in a few years time (if you intend leaving it there) though be warned that you will need to get up on the roof and keep it trimmed away from the gutters because it will try and send branches up under the iron roof and may lift it. My old laevigata did that and ripped a fence apart by squeezing a stem between the corrugations in the iron and then flexing its muscles until it went 'pop'

Thanks Simon.

I hadn't been able to find pics online of foliage for 'Wedding Day' - the pics I found of the flowers were enough to make me wonder... This probably means that the labelled 'Wedding Day' I bought from {Large Well-known Nursery} is probably the var. sinowilsonii as well.

Once I began to think she was 'Wedding Day' it didn't take long for her to become known around here as "Bridezilla" !!

She's already been hacked back off the roof once... I presume that after flowering is the best time? Or does "when necessary" apply here? LOL

Depends... I prune troublesome parts when they need it.... if you prune this one in winter you'll get very few flowers. I don't prune mine at all except to remove troublesome branches. OzRose put photos of 'Wedding Day' foliage on here some time back. Will try to find them.

Here it is: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I think 'Wedding Day' and sinowilsonii are so similar that it would be easy even for experienced nurseries to get the ID wrong.

Ahhh ... yes. Those pics of 'Wedding Day' made me wonder - the size of the stigma was a major difference and the prolonged yellow of the stamens.
I'm not surprised they get mixed up though.

I wasn't going to "prune" her this winter - just remove the canes headed towards the solar panels! haha (She's already had a major thin out over summer. And promptly regrown about half of them)