First Bloom in Brisbane

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Tamora, David Austin
Planted bare-rooted 1 June 2012
Photo taken 31 July 2012

That is a really , really nice rose Jac2 , you have done well !!!!

Looks gorgeous!

Wow. Already? I love the way the light shows up the crinkly petals. Well done Jackie

what a lovely healthy rose jackie .. and so early

Thanks maree, I’m over the moon, and yes very proud to have Tamora, but the only credit I can take here is planting it.

RosyTeesh, thank you, and the fragrance would fit that description, too.

silkyfizz, that was a lucky shot in the afternoon when the sun starts to set around 4:30. Tamora appears a bit lighter around mid-day, and is in a pot so that I can shift her to the back in summer, because she is flagged to fade a bit in strong sunlight.

hariet, I feel sympathy for anybody who lives in areas where the ground freezes over, and has to wait for months until they get to see a bloom. I guess I pay the price in terms of the fungal diseases that thrive here in our climate; and should take this opportunity to mention that some rosarians whom I trail by some decades in experience have pointed out that the David Austin roses generally do not fare very well in QLD with regards to disease resistance (too late I planted 15 of them).
Hey, you get to have the most interesting avatar photo, that’s some plus owing to your frosty climate.

Jac2, what a great and perfect first bloom, and a excellent photo of it to show it off. I love David Austin roses so I hope they all or nearly all go well fo you.

Thank you rosemeadow, for the compliments and the encouragement about the Austins. I really do love them, too, but have been feeling like I’m sitting on a time bomb here with so many of them, and expect them all to be covered in blackspot at any moment; nothing yet, touch wood. Surely there must be more and less disease resistant varieties among this group, just as there are among other rose classes.

Jackie
Nice flower. Hope you have more luck with DAs than we ever did. After the last couple of weeks we are down to one Teasing Georgia and one Graham Thomas. Both yellow and both Blackspot magnets though not as bad as a lot of them that we have tried.
Not too sure if there are too many (if any) DAs that can handle the humidity without spraying them every other day. There was a old fellow in Caloundra that used to have a few and hey were always reasonable but he was spraying and feeding them all the time.
If you are prepared to put in the effort and don't mind the chemicals then you should get decent results. Thats not my idea of gardening though.

Jackie , i live in coastal Melbourne and BS is still a huge problem , as humidity is fairly high during summer and hot north winds to boot , in fact i hate Melbourne summers , would rather be in a cooler climate ( Tasmania would be good ) , but probably couldn't leave the footy down here , I've had some DA ,my favourite was Jubilee Celebration , i loved it , and if i had a spot a would plant it again .

aha another reason i like this forum is people can find positive things to say about frosts! Thanks Jackie.. i grow DA as well and i didn't realise that they needed sprays more than some other types..the only spray i use is foliar seasol so i wonder whether that helps, i.e., throwing the liquid seaweed kelp around.. maybe though it is just the frosts.. it was minus 9 here last night and the dog's water bowl froze again, amongst other things

hariet
The DAs don't particularly like humidity and thus the fungal related problems and the need to be constantly onto them to reduce the occurance.

Garry, I must admit, I don’t spray … I drench them; I’m so worried now, every leave on every cane, top and bottom. I’m also just as much a soil person as a rose person and very tempted to post some pictures of my marvelous worms. So, a mollycoddler, and I really can see how the size of a garden would impact on the viability of this approach.

I’m not proud of it, but have accepted spraying as a fact of life – not an ideal, but still begrudgingly part of my idea of gardening. I’ve never sprayed a thing in my life until I planted roses, and screech and feel sick to my stomach when I accidentally hit a ladybug. So I’m really careful and looked around for “chemical free” (a pet term of mine, just like “fat reduced” cream) alternatives. At the moment I’m trialing the Cornell Formula (a bit controversial with several variations published), which also means that my obsessive compulsive spraying doesn’t cut too deep into my pocket.

I’m glad you reiterated your concerns with the DAs here, so that we get the whole picture. Would hate to think I’ve lead somebody astray by posting a picture of a rose that is not really suited for growing in Brisbane.
If you like yellow, I have an unknown with large dark green glossyish leaves and a good fragrance, that grew over 2m before I pruned a couple of weeks ago (one of my indestructible survivors). All 8 cuttings I stuck into the ground have expanding bud eyes, and one has produced new leaves. I’m guessing that means they all took. Have done the same with Julia’s Rose where new growth is still less obvious, except on one cutting.


maree, sounds like we all have to pack up and move to Tassie, where the climate is kinder to our roses.
If there is any DA that should produce at least half way decent results without mollycoddling here in Brisbane, surely it must be Jubilee Celebration, being on the QLD Rose Society’s recommended list and all. And now you (a sister in the pursuit of only fragrant roses) are telling me JC was your favorite DA; let this be a lesson to anyone reading this before placing an order, whatever you do, join RTA first.
JC came off my list at the last stage of sorting only to avoid colour imbalance, and is unlikely to find its way back on now that I will focus on the Teas, Chinas and Noisettes. Just out of curiosity, if you know, is JC any more or less fragrant than Gertrude Jekyll?



hariet, I’ve been an Aussie since the early 80’s, but grew up in Europe where the people gather round and howl like wolfs at the first sight of a daffodil shoot in spring, so I know all about numb fingers and toes and noses, bare gardens, and frozen pet food.

My first ever blackspot at the end of a season in my old garden did not appear at the back of the border where I grew DAs, but the front among my HTs. So I agree that the DAs do not appear to be any more troubled by diseases than other roses. But that some of them can be quite prone to black spot has not only been mentioned by highly experienced rosarians in QLD like Garry, but also other gurus around the world: Peter Beales from England notes this in his Classic Roses, and there are comments on HMF where the feedback is mainly American. So we must keep this in mind, unless of course, if fragrance overrides everything, because this is where many DAs really seem to shine in terms of intensity and complexity, Tamora is a perfect example.

Can’t really comment on the relative effectiveness of Seasol; a conditioner that is absorbed through foliage and "fortifies leave health by helping roses build up their own resistance". I think it mainly acts by producing healthy roots and more blooms. I don’t know how far it goes in terms of deterring pests and diseases or creating a protective barrier around leaves. Seems to do a good job with deterring humans, James always complaints about the fishy smell. But if that’s all you’re using on your several hundreds, and all else is fine apart from some frost damage, I better go and stock up.

Jackie, do you want to go to the sourse of your David Austins and ask them questions.

Jaci
Despite what the books all say I have been told by other older (not you David someone really old) and wiser than I that, if you have enough water, you can hose the leaves every day and reduce the incidence of fungal desease by washing off the spores before thay get a chance to affect the leaves.

I do this with scale but because our teas etc do not really suffer from Blackspot we have not bothered about the leaves. Some of our roses suffer from mildew but we don't really worry too much about it. However I guess that the same would apply for it as well.

This may well be just an old rose growers tale and may make no difference but it may be worth trying. It is not as dangerous as chemical spraying.

@ Gary.....I have heard this before about spraying the leaves Gary...actually I was told in this last June by Bob Melville of Melville Roses about washing the roses with water and when you water the pots twice a day, you give the bush a water down while you are at it....

Jac2 , i'm not sure about the best smelling rose, JC or Gertrude , i just loved the colour , the nodding flowers and the fragrance of JC and it was a fairly trouble free rose , i didn't want to pull that one out , but it came out when i pulled out two other useless DA , and i rescaped the bed . Ahh Tasmania would love to live there , maybe one day .....

David, it might be useful to have a link to where I can ask questions about my DAs, if any come up; thanks.

Garry, I’ve been so careful when watering, crouching down to make sure that I don’t hit any leaves and watering only in the morning; now you’re telling me I should have done the opposite. That theory makes a lot of sense, and if I had my own dam, that would be the way for me. Unfortunately I have to be more careful with my water. But I might test this theory with only one rose in a pot.
Is it true that the spores can only affect the young leaves?

maree, good to know JC is fragrant, my Gertrude J is oozing sweet rose perfume out of just opening buds, and the bees are trying frantically to squeeze into them. Cheers, Jackie

@ Jac2....just a thought Jackie....have you ever being to a rose farm or nursery and seen watering done any other way but from overhead

neptune, good question. I thought the watering without hitting the leaves was in part to avoid washing off whatever has been sprayed to keep pests and diseases at bay.
I haven’t actually been to a rose farm or nursery; is the overhead watering happening in the open or under controlled greenhouse conditions?

not sure about greenhouses, but I have seen out in the open , overhead sprinklers

I really should go to a rose farm and ask some questions as to how they deal with the blackspot on a large scale there, even if the closest one is quite far.

In greenhouse/hothouse situations, drip irrigation is used, it also conserves water as the roses in there require lots of water/food to push the growth

I’ll keep crouching around when watering

Still pretty cute as a granny

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This is what Tamora looked like after 8 days from being open enough to give me the first fragrance. All the petals stayed on together, but I could easily lift the whole cup off the base. If it had been windy, I guess they might have blown. At the time there were 12 more buds all around, and two brand new shoots emerging from the base.
The bloom was out and giving me fragrance for over a week; the fragrance changed gradually together with its appearance, and was strongest when it was warm, but not hot. The flower kept sitting on the branch like a vertical disc, and only looked down very slightly at the end.

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