A Winter Bunch of Teas

A bunch of Teas picked this morning to lighten up a cool winters day

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Hi,
absolutely lovely.
Does anyone have any tea rose cuttings to spare? I don't know how to bud them but at least some of my cuttings "take".
Barbara B

Barbara, Balinbear has one of the best Tea gardens you will find anywhere. My Tea roses have bloomed all winter, G Nabbonnand is without doubt the most prolific bloomer here. Mrs. B R Cant is also very worthwhile and blooms in flushes. It is certainly cooler in winter here than Queensland but Tea roses do so well in this climate. If I were to get rid of all roses except two then the two above would be the ones I'd keep.

I do have the above mentioned available bareroot which may save you the trouble of striking cuttings.
Please feel free to contact me for details if this is attractive to you.

Hi Ozeboy,
I've sent you a private email.
Barbara B

It's easy to see why Teas are so popular - they are so beautiful!!!

Hi,
all the bare root roses you see in shops are the currently popular hybrid tea roses. I don't know why the teas aren't more popular. I think they're a lovely flower and a real eye-catcher in a garden.
Barbara B

I must be the only person with reservations about the teas. I grow them and love them BUT...

1. Most (well, most of the ones I have) are really too big for a suburban block and have to be massacred at pruning time. Doing M Tillier last week took me a whole day. This leads to ungainly, angular thick multiple trunks on display.

2.In my climate, the flowers are much better in winter. Mine look like Balinbear's wonderful bunch in winter when not a lot else is in bloom - which is great then but depressing in summer when many are covered in inferior bloom. In summer, G Nabonnand/Jean Ducher, for instance, is barely semi-double, General Gallieni blooms are small, mostly burnt and a harsh maroon and Madame Lambard flowers are small, fully blown within seconds and an unlovely uniform strong pink. It is hard to believe their winter flowers belong to the same bush.

3. The scent of most is nothing to write home about IMO (but then tea isn't my favourite beverage).

So there.

I was so much in iconoclastic mode that I forgot to add that Barbara B is welcome to cutting material when mine have regrown a bit. Late spring seems to be a good time for new growth cuttings.

Meryl

Try trimming them a small bit more often rather than cutting them hard the shrubs stay better shaped.

Ours are better in Autumn and Spring than in summer with winter probably the same as summer so far as quanity of flowers go but the flowers last longer and are better colours. Some don't flower in winter and others not in summer.

We generally have other plants in bloom like camilleas and salvias in winter so there is always some colour though is it down a bit at present as we trim plants back.

Tea scent is not overpowering and I have said before that sometimes I can smell our sasanqua camellias over the roses in the garden but visitors can't get over the scent of the roses

So far as comparing them with other rose varieties I think it depends on where you live and how much time you want to put into them and also how much room you have. Around our area you would have to put a lot of time (and chemicals) into Hybrd Teas or DA's if you want to have them look half decent. We have a few HT's (early ones or Alister Clark) and really they are slowly being removed as apart from when in flower they are the sickest looking things. Simply becuase we don't want to spray or spend a fortune on fertilizer to keep them looking well.

Of course other varieties simply will not grow in our climate.

As I said depends on your circumstances.

Indeed it does, Balinbear, and, having seen a lot of your photos, I know how magnificently you grow them in your circumstances. Your pruning advice is excellent and will be followed too. (I had let that M Tillier get away for three years with only a snip here and there.) I certainly plan to keep my teas - well, most of them. But there is a case for the opposition. Which, on reflection, I could have saved for another thread.

Some of the climbing teas ball in Spring too, but what amazing blooms latter on.
I can't see your photo yet Balinbear, maybe latter.

Barbara B, my most mature Tea roses are some climbing Teas. If you want I could send you some of these.