Darcy -- You COULD have one vigorous, and one less-vigorous clone, or individual plant.

OTOH, you could just as easily have a situation which illustrates the importance of Microclimate, even within one garden.
Many of us have roses which we have moved from place-to-place multiple times, before finding a spot that rose really LIKED.
Air-flow differs. Soil composition differs.
Temperatures differ.
A couple of years back when we (also on the CA Coast) had our historic freeze, it was fascinating to watch
the path of damage created where the cold flowed down our hillside, just like water flows down hill.
Plants within the path of that flow suffered badly.
Plants a few feet away were out of the main flow of cold air, and were un-harmed.

Jeri

Also...in my state, for example..there are widely different soil, ph, and climatic conditions..so..saying that if one person in a state does well with a rose, everyone in that state should have it do well for them is simply not taking into consideration how different conditions can be just a few miles away.
as for your two bands of the same rose..one may be putting it's energy into roots, and end up to be the stronger rose in the long run. Don't be so quick to judge a band..you should give it 2 or 3 years before you decide that it's a weak clone.
Sometimes luck comes in, but I think that it's more a matter of getting advice, (and taking it), as well as some experimenting with placement. Knowing your growing conditions..ph, humidity average, rainfall average, as well as how to mulch and deeply water go a long way toward a knowledge based choice rather than blind luck.
Most of all..don't try to control mother nature..enjoy it, work within your limitations and enjoy your roses!!Donna

I don't think it is luck, I think it's hard work and choosing roses that do well with your area. CA is a very big state with all kinds of different growing conditions. There are micro-climates all year long for everyone in their beds and gardens.

ie: I have two sets of butterfly bushes on each side of the back yard. Of the four, two are purple and two are pink. The purples get 10-12' easily, the pinks struggle to reach 6-8'. The bushes on one side of the yard in full sun are not as tall as the ones on the other side which are in shade when it hits the hottest time of the day at 5pm. One side of the yard is mostly pure clay, the other side is more sandy clay. I amend it all when I plant and during the year add other nutrients into the soil, around the plants and in the general areas nothing is planted. As time passes I can dig easier in these areas from working the soil. I bought all 4 bushes at the same time, they were all from 1 gal containers, same size.

I think my plants and roses reflect the care I give them and how I planted them and continue to feed the soil in addition. I don't think luck has anything to do with it. I work pretty hard at it. I grow Angel Face very well, yet this rose doesn't do well in a lot of other locations without spraying.

I don't grow multiples except for Iceberg. I have two of them however, one in the front and one in the back. Differences with them is shade, both were planted without amendments and each grows very large. The one in the front is slightly smaller, it gets shade from the house part of the day.

I think getting good healthy roses is very much a plus, your care of them is also. The rose itself and the soil it's in and the surrounding area. JMHO:)

As far as your location, I agree with Jeri.
Leslie

In our climate, disease control is just as important as sunlight. Roses can't do well if the leaves fall off.

Does toweling off wet leaves with cotton rags count as "organic" rose growing? In theory, one could prevent black spot by keeping the leaves sufficiently free of water.

I tend to believe in science.

Well, hi there Mr. Darcy. Good to have you on board. I probably don't have the answers you're seeking. For instance, I had a Star of the Nile for 4 years. The other roses around SOTN have done fine. Star just sat there. I'm afraid he had to go bye bye. Some people believe there are bad clones of roses. I guess that's probably true. I think there are lots of variation of growth where SGMC is concerned. I'm glad I have a good one. I hope this helps.

Carla

I'm not sure I would call it luck. My roses grow like monsters. I don't do that much, but circumstances make roses thrive here.

In most places on my property, there is rich loam 12 - 18" deep. The property used to be farm land and the farmer kept his soil healthy.

My HT rose beds are on the south side of the house. They get extra sun and less winter wind.

The terrain is gently sloping so excess water does not oversaturate my beds.

Of course, all this evens out in July when hordes of midge and Japanese Beetles destroy every bloom.

In my opinion it has more to do with the size of the rose to begin with and how much stress it has to overcome, seen and unseen.

I have two bands that are a year old in the same location
in the garden. One is blooming away and the other one has yet to bloom
this season. What gives?>

Are the two bands of the same variety?

Ann, I believe in science and luck.

Ceterum, yes, the two bands are of the same variety.

Since butterfly bushes were mentioned, I'll talk about mine. Two identical plants, placed in the same soil, with the same amount of mulch and water, about ten feet apart, same sun and wind exposure, everything identical. One is twice as large as the other. I don't know what to call that. Should we just say the vagaries of plants?

Ingrid

And then, there is Âluck in sciences as well as in math. We just have to find the proper Âplace for it.

We used to teach that even if the story about Isaac Newton and the falling apple had been true that would not prove the Law of Gravitation by this incident alone and nobody could verify or falsify NewtonÂs laws by looking at a falling apple.

By the same token, even if it was the case that Kekule could come up with the ring structure of the benzol (benzine?) after dreaming about a snake that had bitten its tail, it does not imply that any other person could verify or falsify KekuleÂs discovery by dreaming again about a snake.

ÂLuck is often reported in scientists account of their discovery. If I recall correctly Watson and Crick also described some Âluck in their discovery of the DNA, or rather, their being the first, and beating Pauling to it who was also very close. [If my memory fails me, I hope Mike Rivers will correct me. I read W&CÂs book many, many, many years ago, and I am not going to Âfess up how many years ago that was, LOL!]

So I would not discount the role of "luck" in science, math or everyday life. The word Âluck usually a summary of physiological episodes or some other incidents out of the usual boundaries of scientic reserach or mathemathical thought process, and labeled Âluck - for the lack of better words.

What we should remember though is, that Âluck wonÂt and cannot play any role in proving (or refuting) a theory in math or verifying (or falsifying) a discovery, a datum, or some phenomenon in sciences. The process of proving or verifying must be some Âinter-subjective method and/or techniques accepted by the scientific or math community and by which the Âdiscovery can be repeated by everyone who has the intellectual capacity (that is: education) and other apparatus, given the same conditions (laboratory or other) to reach the same conclusion.

If no method is provided for verifying or falsifying a scientific statement, then the given Âdiscovery is considered, in the best case scenario just a Âlucky guessÂ, or discarded, most of the time, altogether.

Scientists do not like the term "luck" or "lucky guess" because they cannot work with it.

Mathematicians, on the other hand, are a bit more receptive to it if the lucky guess makes Âintuitive sense or appears to be trivially true. Still, they will not rest till a valid proof will be found. In some cases, like FermatÂs guess (the correct English translation, I think, is FermatÂs Enigma) the unproven theory frustrated mathematicians for several centuries till a valid proof was presented about 350 years later than the theorem has become known.

Sorry for the long divergence from the issue of roses :-((.