AUSTIN ROSES

Thanks, AutumnD, it’s a very stunning looking bush, and reminds me of my Squire in terms of habit. That description sounds like him, too: put out seven new basal shoots all around pretty much as soon as he went into the ground, about 5 months ago …
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I’m getting a sweet honey fragrance, but only when the temperature is just right
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Oh! I forgot, still have 'Sceptered Isle' so that's two survivers.
There's a young ''Dark Lady' somewhere which is virused. I went to a friend who had DL and hers was virused also.
I'm pretty sick and tired of all the virused roses and budwood sent to me from growers considered to be the best in the industry.

Whinge, whinge, whinge (For very good reason)

i dont have problems with my austins , only few get mildew but they clean up allright .. each climate is different i suppose

Jac2 wrote:Thanks, AutumnD, it’s a very stunning looking bush, and reminds me of my Squire in terms of habit. That description sounds like him, too: put out seven new basal shoots all around pretty much as soon as he went into the ground, about 5 months ago …

I'm really glad my The Squire doesn't grow as big as Tess though - The Squire is a very prickly bush and I can hear it go mwahahahahaha every time it snags me!

Ozeboy, do you think the problems you experienced with your Austins might be related to the root stock rather than the roses; because, honestly, my DAs are all vigorous and thriving: I had three of them in my old garden and planted 17 this year in my new garden; surely, I must have thought they were all right.
I’ve been looking at 'Scepter’d Isle', do you find the fragrance as strong as it’s acclaimed?

Dan, there’s a bit of mildew here in my garden, too, but that’s on all my roses, not just the Austins and easily dealt with …

Lol @ AutumnD, yes I hear a chorus of mwahahahahaha here in my garden. That’s why James didn’t protest one bit when I announced his lawn was going, going, gone …
Good to know The Squire won’t grow quite as large as Tess; I did leave a good amount of space around my roses, but probably not quite that much.

PS. my Munstead Wood pushed out two beautiful strong new basal canes, since I reported on him last; and I don’t know if that’s because I put him into the ground or because I started to foliar feed worm tea (which happened around the same time) or because of a combination of theses events or because it’s just a slow grower and it would have happened anyway.

Hello Guys, I'm pleased you can grow Austins in your area, some are very beautiful with great fragrance. I haven't propagated any DA's myself and am not quite sure what understocks were used by the nursery I bought them from. However I think 4 were on DR Huey and the others on Multiflora.
They are not pampered in any way by deep watering twice a week or sprayed for fungus. I do believe I could grow them as good as anyone by spending a lot of time looking after all their health issues. I do like very disease resistant roses and add these to my small boutique nursery when good roses are located. Some stay and others are culled despite the cost.
Most problems are due to very humid condittions here in summer.
Water is very expensive here as it is town water I'm using so roses do go through hardship.

Regarding Mosaic Virus, I do have a very good program to be completely free of infection. Mother plants are grown from seed and once used cuttings are never grafted the second time. I use a Savlon bath to dip knives and secatures in between different lots of budwood which is where the infection has been coming from (New purchased roses and bought in budwood). I only wish nurseries would not sell virused roses and put in place a program to eradicate it or reduce the number of plants infected. The difficulty is identifying the virus as some roses don't show a great deal of spotting or watermarks and go unnoticed by the average gardener.
THE ONLY NURSERY I HAVE NEVER HAD VIRUSED ROSES FROM IS SWANES.
They obviously have best practices in place to eradicate this infection
There is some merit in buying in very new PBR roses because older roses can become infected over time when precautions are not taken.
What we need is a solution of ???? to dip a leaf in and it reacts to the infeced leaf.

Just went out to Sceptered Isle couldn't smell any fragrance.

I do not tolerate Mosaic Virus infected plants which go straight in the garbage bin despite the cost.

Jaci, love your pictures. Are they all of The Squire? Alao love the blue against the red in the last pic. Is it salvia? Do you which one?

This may not be 100% Austin, but it is 66% of Austin origin. It is called Fine Dressin and as you can see from the buds , flowers quite heavily, does'nt have any real health isues. I was sure I put this on but I could n't find it on Rosetalk . Anyway here it is.
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Ozroz, yes I remember seeing this. Loved it then, love it now. Those crinkly petals get me every time. Wish I could have it here!

Silky it has a pretty powerful perfume as well. In the pic can you see the leaves, they are crinkled as well.

Yes I see, double whammy. I want roses that look good in my garden in their shape, form, foliage, apart from beautiful flowers. Looks like this delivers.....please, does it need a new home?

Looks pretty good Warren, is it healthier than your other DA's

I dont grow to many Austins I find many of them to legy in their growth

Ozeboy, roses are a bit like dogs, the variety is overwhelming and they’re all wonderful, but the trick is to get the right match for their owners. I can see how an outbreak of any sort would really hit hard on a small boutique nursery and why you would therefore be extra vigilant in identifying roses that might fall short, but must maintain that my DAs are not any more of less prone to bs or mildew than other roses and when I did have an outbreak of bs in the past they were (i) not the first to show the signs, and (ii) when they got bs, showed far greater resilience to it overall.
Maybe you can give me some hints as to how I can identify Mosaic Virus in my roses or refer me to some good sites with relevant material so that I can catch up on that issue. Thanks for your fragrance appraisal of Scepter’d Isle, which is hailed as one of the most fragrant Austins with excellent reviews in that respect everywhere I looked; but there you go …

Thanks, Silky, yes, that’s all The Squire and the Salvia is farinacae, which looks great with all my roses, from white to yellow and pink to read and all petunias as well, a really useful contrasting plant of 40 - 45 cm height.

Fine Dressin looks fine indeed, Warren, and powerful perfum sounds even better. Very nice.

Jac2 , you are so right there , thats a excellent way of putting it, roses need to be the right match for their owners , thats why i keep puling out the ones that somehow just don't sit right for me . Of all the plants in my garden , and i have tried to make it as friendly for birds , bees and bugs as i can on a small block , i still love my roses the best , you just can't get a better flowering plant that can exude such beautiful perfume ........

Just on Austins , have planted four of them , the only good one was Jubilee Celebration ........ the rest were terrible ........ Ozroz Fine Dressing is lovely plant , lovely ......

Jac2 , I believe and agree with all your comments because I can relate two of lifes experiences in that regard.

I went to visit a very elderly gentleman whom I had camped and shot rabbits with over quite a few years. He remarried late in life, probably looking for more comfort. Upon calling at their home I met her in the front spraying roses with a 500mil laundry trigger spray. She was smiling as she tended to her HT's and DA roses talking to them as she went. I introduced myself to her and was told Fred was asleep so I could see him when he wakes. All of a sudden there was screaming and yelling that "Misty Moo" had broken through the gate that confined her to the verandah.
"Misty Moo" was a white long haired dog about 8 to 10" tall barking , trying desperatlyto get out through the front gate.
All was returned to normal when her feet and legs were washed, blow dried, and a new pink ribbon around her neck replacing the slightly soiled one.

In contrast I breed Australian Cattle Dogs and had a property with 4 paddocks situated out near Roseman. The property had 4 paddocks with a road between making it difficult to move cattle. I could rely on my two Bluey's to move them without difficulty. I don't think the local football team plus reserves could have moved them.

So I do agree with your statement how dogs, owners and environments make the difference.

I did look for fragrance on Septered Isle late yesterday in a 25 nott wind and couldn't report any fragrance. This morning before wind came up in still condittions I still can't detect any fragrance. Are you sure it's not the DA marketing people playing up again making wild claims.

Regarding Mosaic Virus I am what I would call one of the significantly better nurseries controlling this problem to a point where it doesn't exist.
When I purchase roses to expand my range or select for breeding I'm faced with several roses infected. This makes me quite vocal with arms waving over my head. Why don't some of these so called nursery leaders do something to eradicate it. When I report it they do not reply but when walking through their roses I see the virus everywhere.
Better you don't know about it, might spoil your fantasy.
Roses can look OK but when stressed out come the signs. Until a better method of detecting infected roses is available then it will remain a major problem. Going back to when this forum was first set up by Simon Voorwinde we discussed how many infected roses were sent to us both from some of the top nurseries in Oz. There were people within the industry on the forum who would not admit it was a problem despite having infected roses.

I don't want to spoil your rose growing enjoyment so just keep on taking pix and smelling the roses. Don't worry about Mosaic Virus as no one else does. Try looking in the arkives and I'm sure you will come up with something

Ozeboy , do you sell and ship roses interstate , also standards ??? on Mosaic Virus i'm sure i had that on four DA standards that i got through a organic nursery ......

Ozeboy, your dog analogy is very clever, I get it … not bad …
I don’t think it might be the Austin marketing team alone who make great claims about S’dI’s fragrance, because I search far and wide for fragrance feedback on my roses, and notice the difference between genuine comments and a marketing campaign. In the pink Austin range, the fragrance hounds acclaim S’dI and also Sharifa Asma, and that is repeated in different rose forums and other places; a painful decision for me at the time, but when I got around to ordering, I took the Austin package deal, which contained the pink Heritage, leaving me curious about how others would rate S’dI and/or SA.
I’ll search the archives and also go to peer reviewed articles on the subject of Mosaic Virus, in fact, it’s my next project. In the meantime I shall ravel in the enjoyment of filling my library with wonderful pictures of my stunningly healthy and marvelously unruly fluffy Austins, whilst getting high on their fragrance.

Maree, would you say Mosaic Virus is related to Austin roses, based on your experience? What an awful thing to happen, four of them in one go … standards!

Not sure Jac2 , hard to say , i had another couple of off roses too from that supplier , problems with the quality of the roses .....

Sounds like the problem was related to the supplier, rather than to a specific group of roses. I better have a closer look at this virus …

This Mosaic virus is probably due to unclean technique used by the grower, ( using infected rootstock, using contaminated tools then using them on healthy plants and lastly the arrogance by just selling infected plants for the sake of a buck.) I see alot of it around Deniliquin and surrounding areas.

Jac2, I'm pleased you liked the true dog story. That story brings out the worst in me. My friend (Fred) was a big powerful chap that could just about lift a full grown Hereford bull and to see him with that yapping useless dog was right out of character. I didn't get to see their bedroom but I'm sure it would be full of frills,ornamants, 6 pillows and an assortmnt of soft toys.

Despite being thrown off a forum of ladies because my posts were not flowery enough my family think I'm OK. Be aware that I would go to the ends of the earth to fix a rose problem if it was found to be less than perfect and particularly if virused. Most people arn't aware a rose is virused, They look at it and start trying all the minerals like iron etc.
One company in the US supplying fertilisers to the rose people estimate 50% of roses are virused and that can't be corrected with trace elements.

DA can't control the poor practices of the nurseries propagating his roses.
He's in it to make money and issues labels to anyone wishing to pay for them. They claim they grow well in Australia, from Melbourne to Cairns. The only roses I know that will do that are the Riethmullers. If virused DA is not to blame,the buck stops with the propagator.

I'm sorry to have enlightened you for I could see the wonderful feelings and enjoyment you gleened from roses. Don't worry about it as no one else does except Simon and myself. Just be aware if a rose is not doing well and has the marked leaves pull it out and buy another one. Others seem to do well with the virus which can show up anytime in 4 years.

Regarding pix, I don't have a camera but I would be more impressed viewing others work that show the health and shape of the bush as well as the blooms. I like to see a florubunda with 10 or 12 blooms on a stem. One pix of a bloom doesn't do it for me.

I have one rose (DA) in particular that I noticed was virused from a very early stage. But I hate throwing away money (and roses) so I threatened it with death in the first year or so as it wasn't growing super quickly.
But the last 2 years it's really performed better. The mosaic on the leaves is very pronounced however. And I'm not a fan of musk scent. I suppose I should yank it out.... :/

Since I've been more aware of RMV I've noticed slight signs on several other bushes/climbers. Setting up the garden here was pretty tough over the last 6 years or so and that probably helped to get the RMV to show up. It is very frustrating. (And yes, most are from one of the "big" nurseries).

Just a couple of Mosaic Virus articles …
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Rose Mosaic Virus can appear on any type of rose, not just one particular group. Apart from obvious cosmetic irregularities, some of the symptoms include reduced vigor and growth and less blooms; hey, I’m good. Thanks, Ozeboy, for pointing out that we should buy our roses only from reputed growers, who clearly state they have a quality control system in place and guarantee their roses are free from viral infections.
Come to think of it, ALL my mislabeled roses and the only one that didn’t take came from the same place, and I would strongly agree that the suppliers should be very carefully scrutinized.
Don’t think that I don’t take industry standards and unscrupulous “experts” who bamboozle the ignorant public very seriously, because I take them on every time, but also learned that without relevant legislation in place, the efforts of taking them to task are often futile. In the case of MV, I think my time is better spent going out into the garden, making use of today’s soft light, which always results in more true to life colours in my rose photos, rather than making an extended study of it. This hasn’t spoiled my rose-growing fun at all, Ozeboy, but certainly heightened my awareness …

I totally agree with showing the whole bush and not just one bloom, and that is why I stopped posting most of my photos, except I might pop a couple in where a relevant link already exists. The problem is, all my roses are only very young at the moment and showing the whole bush would actually not represent their true habit. At the moment my Angel Face is pumping out new shoots left right and center and I should be able to oblige your request of seeing a floribunda with 10 or 12 blooms on one cane very soon.

Have you contacted the nursery to ask for a replacement of your infected roses, AutumnD. Because if there’s anything the buying public can do to help with eradicating this virus, it would be letting the growers know that (i) we’re aware of this problem and (ii) we don’t accept roses that carry this virus.