I used to grow STL and am trying to find a replacement for the one that I lost in my recent move. Where did you get yours?? I've grown just about every tea rose that's available in commerce and she is my favorite. She'll get rather large, if you let her, but I used to keep mine at around 5ft by 8ft. She has to be sprayed, especially for mildew, during mildew season, but Nova will keep her clean. If you'll keep her clean, she will definitely reward you with the most exquisite regular flushes of eye catching blooms you've ever seen. No other tea can match the color of her blooms.
Ray

Thanks Ray. I ordered it from Vintage. I will give it a try in my garden but if it suffers from PM very badly, I won't keep it. I dislike PM more than blackspot if that is possible!

Carol

If you don't like her, I'll buy her from you.

If I don't like her, I'll give her to you :-) Who knows, she may do well here. Thanks. I'll let you know how she fares in this part of the state.

Carol

Carol, I've seen some pics of this beautiful rose. Doesn't la have this one? I noticed it's available as only a custom root at Vintage now; you must have gotten the last of them. I noticed ARE carries it also, although out of stock. I may need one of these; be sure and let us know how it does.

Did you order Paul Nabonnand also? The pics look lovely.

I have tried forever to get SdTL from ARE - and I live 3 hours from them. No luck. They never have any - I would just keep calling.....I got lucky with one recently from Vintage. The blooms are beautiful, cant wait for it to grow up and bloom.

I do grow it and it is a small bush, which gets some pm. About4by4 here. It blooms all season, bright red in the cool Spring and more pinkish as the season progresses. The red tea that I love more although it doesn't bloom quite so frequently is Souv. de Claudius Denoyal. The scent is quite true rose and the blooms are a beautiful red. SDTL has no scent for me but Claudius always does and he does not get pm. So far he is a lovely spreading, low grower, about 3 feet high and 5 feet wide. I got both of them from Vintage, Claudius via George.
la

I did order Paul Nabannond. I couldn't resist the photo's and description. I love Tea's and most of them do well here with a few exceptions. I also ordered Comtesse Festectics Hamilton, Papa Gontier, Enchantress, and a few non Tea roses. I'll give them a go and see if they earn a spot in the ground. :-)

I guess time will tell how SdTL does here. The photo's are certainly lovely. Thanks to everyone for the information.

Carol

Carol, since we're in similar zones, I'm interested to know which of the Teas do NOT do so well for you.

Robert

Carol, you have exquisite taste for sure. I know nothing about either of these but both are beautiful especially Paul Nabonnand. I hope they're both "keepers"!

Hi Robert, honestly there aren't that many that I have enough problems with to get rid of them. I am fairly tolerant though. For instance, MFK balls so badly in the spring that I rarely have a decent bloom on her, but she is so beautiful in the heat of summer and in fall that I tolerate it. Lady Hillingdon will defoliate here, but she regrows leaves and keeps blooming so I tolerate that too. I've given Tea roses away that I just didn't love because space is limitied in my garden and Tea's are BIG and I don't have room for all of them. Mrs. B.R. Cant was awful here. Big monstrous plant with few blooms and the ones she had always balled, but I have heard so many good things about her that I suspect it was just the rose that I had, sometimes you get a not so good clone. I can tolerate a little PM in the spring if it clears up when the heat comes, but two roses that had PM year round for several years in my garden were Mrs. Joseph Shwartz and Thomasville Old Gold. I tried moving them, I tried everything without success. I got rid of them because I hated looking at that foliage all of the time. It was really bad. As you know, roses perform differently in different gardens, so I'm not saying that they are bad roses, they just weren't happy here. Is this clear as mud? :-) I'm on a quest (and have been for years) to find the best roses for my small garden. Ones that I love and that are happy here. The only way to know for sure is to try them for myself. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I don't want to be aggravated by them all of the time either. PM all year long and roses that defoliate, don't grow new foliage, and sit there naked all year long are two things that get a rose evicted from my garden.

Thank you, Hamp!

Carol

Oh, Robert, I forgot one more Tea that I had problems with. Homere. Nearly every single bloom that this rose produced balled, no matter the weather. The blooms, when they did open were so beautiful. If I had more room, I probably would have kept it for the rare bloom that opened. The bush was healthy.

Carol