Because you are in my area and I know how awful the heat and sun can be in the more inland type climates, and presuming you are in one of those types of situations, I would guess the one with the larger flowers of better color and scent are from the plant receiving four hours of morning sun. I would also suspect the bad cut flower might be from the four hour sun plant, also. Perhaps because the oils and alcohols producing the scent don't evaporate out, they are causing the petals to rot faster. Florist roses are traditionally unscented because of the waxy "substance" or skin to the petals. It reduces or even eliminates the chemicals which produce scent. These chemicals heat the petal tissues as they are expressed and cause the petals to deteriorate faster than unscented petals in the same conditions.

I would guess the one which is a lighter color with smaller flower and less scent would be due to the heat/light stress of the all day sun position. Because the scent chemicals are bleached out, burned out, evaporated from the petals, that smaller flower should open better indoors when cut, and last longer.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, but those are my guesses and why. Kim

Well, my Memorial Day grows in a spot of part shade all day long coming from different directions due to several trees blocking the sun at different times during the day. That certainly doesn't produce larger flowers of better color from from this plant. It has ugly, medium sized flowers with no scent when it deigns to bloom. MD is always crisped up from our nasty hot dry summers, or brown edged from thrips. Anyway, I would guess the plant with the least sun has the smaller, inferior blooms and no scent. Frankly, I have a hard time believing all these gorgeous photos of so called Memorial Day blooms are really MDS. They don't seem to have any resemblance to mine. My sun deprived Evelyns right next to MD produce beautiful, scent filled blooms, and this rose is supposed to be such a prima donna-ha! Diane

I was just looking at what I wrote earlier in the day, and my feeble attempts at a joke (how gorgeous all the pics of MD on the forum and HMF are compared the blooms on my poor plant). I know many of you on this Forum love MD and I was way too harsh about it. I apologize--it's getting a another year reprieve. Diane

Diane please try one in a pot in the sun and maybe what it needs is a warmer situation once the weather gets cooler. Mine is always best spring and fall and the summer blooms are smaller. They don't like shade. I'm sorry yours is misbehaving because it is a tall sturdy plant that holds up to wind here.

Thanks for your suggestion, kitty. I may try it this spring (already starting to get cold here). One problem I have, and have hence avoided pots, is that the back deck and patio are shady, and the front porch is nothing short of an oven. Diane

Kim,
You are absolutely right as usual in your educated guess. I'm so amazed by the size and the fragrance of the plant which receives less hours of sunlight: its flowers are bigger, with more petals (or so I think), and extremely sweet smelling and always always fragrant, even throughout the night when I can smell it wafting still, but the color of course is a sad, washed out, pale pink--with faint pink on the reverse of light pink--and the petals are softer compared to the other flower. And the plant which gets more sunlight produces smaller sized flowers but with richer colors of pink, and makes a better cut flower that opens fully, without rotting.

Diane,
the plant with less light--about 4hrs of direct morning sun--has been giving me big, super sweet smelling flowers of pale (inferior?) pink that won't open fully as a cut flower and will rot or mold after a week. I find the fragrance better than the plant getting a full day of sun.

Kitty,
I'm glad Memory Day has been good to you. Mine are in my pot ghetto. But--as an own root MD suckers terribly--I'm considering putting 2 or 3 MD together in the ground and just let them do their thing and go crazy with their sucker offsprings.

This is the best my naughty Memorial Day will do in too much shade. There maybe three of these all summer. Diane

I wonder whose ancient hand that is???

{{!gwi}}

OK, I'm trying again. Diane

This was my last group from my own root plant

Are you guys trying to make me feel bad? Notice the inferior color and fewer petals on my MD bloom. Dratted plant. Diane

That's how mine look in the hot part of summer.

I love this plant because of the fragrance -- no room for it, alas. Also, I planted one for my cousin on Long Island, but it failed to survive a cold winter.

I am so sorry about your situation, Susan. Unfortunately, after a transplant to a sunnier spot, Memorial Day did not do any better for me, and spent the last two or three years "growing backward". So sun or shade, it was one unhappy plant. I removed MD this spring to its final resting spot, a garbage can. There wasn't much left of it. Diane

Nanadoll, were yours own-root? I've had a couple dozen and found them to be very hit or miss as individuals. A four foot one growing next to a ten inch one!

One thing that they hated here was too much water, though Cori Ann reports the opposite in her low humidity.

Once they got going, they have been the easiest and I love them for a landscaping rose for the long lasting big blooms, thick stems, and low thorns. I just skip them whenever I water!

Oh, and the more sun the better here, go figure.

LL, it was grafted on Dr Huey. I'm through with that rose; there are so many more pink roses out there to try. Diane

Thank you nanadollz7. I understand the frustration. That's why I need to focus my intent on plants, not people. Lol. I hope you found a more compliant.... rose. Any suggestions for a well behaved, personable, nice smelling....rose?

The western flower thrips (I think) get deep to the center of my Memorial Day blooms so they're not pretty at all lately. But the bush itself is healthy. It does seem to do better with a lot of water in my yard, but it is almost as hot and dry as h-e-double hockey sticks so who can blame it. I like more water in the heat too.

Cori Ann, I found M-Day to be a thrips magnet, too. I know what you mean by ugly centers due to thrips' damage. I have a rose, very dark, blackish red, called The Prince. He's blooming better this summer, but the current crop of blooms and buds all have eaten out centers, I assume due to thrips. This is another rose that's on the perpetual chopping block, only to achieve a reprieve every year for some reason or another. But the clock is counting down, and he may meet Memorial Day in the Rose Hereafter before long. Diane

Cori Ann, glad you saw this thread! Are you still finding that in your climate that MD likes extra water? We're 100 but heat index at 110 because of the humidity. I have a couple dozen and we have to skip them all the time in the watering on purpose. All in full bloom in full sun.

Every time I try to bump them up, they get ugly leaves so now just leaving them alone!

Sorry to go off topic, but you are the second person who loves Summer Romance in dry heat. So I wonder if SR's problem for so many of us in the sticky south is nothing more than too much humidity? Trying to find a common feature!

Susan, for pink blooms with fragrance, what about Belinda's Dream, Sharifa Asma, Fredric Mistral, Fragrant Memory, or Amazing Grace? BD has the least fragrance for me but is super easy to grow.

I wouldn't recommend Frederic Mistral to anyone living in a zone colder than 7. He is pretty cold sensitive. Diane

Memorial Day still likes lots of water here. I'm tempted to just chop all the forming buds off in the summer while the thrips are partying here and see if maybe the blooms get better in the fall. The blooms now are very funky, weird and sad because of thrips. The photos of this rose in other gardens, reports of wonderful fragrance and the healthy foliage here makes me want to keep trying with it even though it seems to like extra water here. It must be good if the thrips like it this much! If it's good enough for bugs to love it's good enough for me. I just have to figure out how to manage the bugs.

I can't say anything bad about Summer Romance. It has quickly become one of my absolute favorite roses. The BEST fragrance. So many blooms. Heat tolerant (really unbelievable heat tolerance for me actually). So quick to repeat. Pretty foliage, super healthy and graceful growth habit.

Good point Nanadoll about FM. For some reason I thought that she was in the south. Susan, are you wanting the same pink as MD or just an agreeable rose?

The Memorial Day roses I had had the most petals of any other roses. It had a true rose scent. It was my favorite. I got a lot of roses at the time from Jackson & Perkins. Roses are a challenge to grow in Hawai'i partly due to not having a dormant period. Aloha, Claire