Needmoremulch,

I still have Firefighter. It is stunning, vigorous, very fragrant, holds up very well in heat (W. PA. heat, not Texas heat), but can get black spot, very little, but it does. Nice strong stems with a rather upright bush habit, not spreading. Its a keeper for me, and I don't like red roses too much. It is changing my mind about reds.

Got rid of Dark Desire. It had a very fragrant, nicely formed bloom, velvety petal texture, and zero black spot. The bush was gangly, The flowers had very noticeable white petal streaks on just about every other petal, not a white color stripe as in a striped rose, but a thick, white, crinkly streak that slightly contorted the petal. The outer petals when fully open turned brown, not burned or diseased, just the color brown. Too many faults for me. Its assets were great, but its liabilities, too detracting.

Moses

I only grow Firefighter, it is an outstanding deep red rose for hot , humid Texas weather. Mine is also on Fortuniana. Very very productive and always fragrant, nice deep true red color. I think of it as a great combination between the 'old reds' (which have great fragrance but don't last and can't hold their color)....and the 'new reds' (truer red, longer lasting, more disease resistant, but alas non-fragrant).

Sara-Ann,

In so many pictures, Dark Desire looks magenta to me. Is that just the camera, or does it turn magenta under some conditions?

Ben, I've been struggling to get a good picture of Dark Desire, it's been difficult so far. When mine bloomed the first time they did have that magenta look, but now they're a beautiful velvety deep red with dark edges, but my camera is not capturing that, but I have seen some gorgeous pictures from others.

I did take one picture that came close to what it looks like, I must have deleted it from my photo library by mistake, I can't find it.

Here is a pic of Dark Desire from my garden. This is my first year with DD so my experience is limited. I am really impressed by its black sport resistance. I have Firefighter on my to-buy list!

I have both. My experience with both has been similar to Moses'. FF is rather upright here in MI -- maybe 2.5 feet by 3' at the end of the season. It is about 90% free of disease; last year during the hot, dry,no rain summer it reached 4' and had zero spotting. This summer is cooler and damper, and there is some spotting, but not enough to detract or affect the plant's health. It receives no winter protection, dies down to the ground every year, but it always bounces right back. It is always somewhere in the bloom cycle: setting buds, developing buds, blooming. It is always strongly fragrant, and lasts exceptionally well when cut and brought inside. Also, once inside they seem to deepen their red color and the color shifts from more of orange based red to a blue based red. Don't get me wrong, by no means is FF orange like a Fragrant Cloud or Tropicana. It is just not a blue toned red. I count on FF for cut flowers, and no one is ever disappointed when they take a sniff. I keep a bouquet on my work table all summer long.

DD has a more rounded shrubby look to it: here it is almost 4' by 4'. Very winter hardy -- prob. 18" of cane lived through the winter with no protection. Beautiful healthy foliage, new growth has a red tinge which is attractive. Very healthy, no disease at all (I think it won the ADR award for health). Heavy flush in the spring, slow intermittent blooms after, and now it is revving up for a big fall flush. No fragrance. I have had it now for 3 years -- no fragrance. The first year the flowers had that white contorted line that Moses wrote about, but it is mostly gone now. The color is a deep purpley red -- one could say a very very dark magenta. The color is best in the fall when it becomes deeper. Cut, the flowers don't last as long as FF, maybe three days (thinner petals). As a display rose, DD is great. In a flower border, the plant would make a good background row with few demands as to its care.

However, as long as I am gardening, I will have FF. I have not found a red, healthy and productive rose with strong fragrance that comes close. I know that DD is rated "strongly perfumed" and Kordes puts it in its "Parfuma" class, but my experience with six plants (yes, I believed the advertisements) has always been otherwise. I have brought in cut flowers of both varieties to work, and everyone always smells the FF before they see them, and DD they don't notice until they see the bouquet. In the landscape, DD stands out as a nice shrub with dark colored leaves. It is a step forward in plant breeding, but I am hoping that Kordes can add fragrance to their breeding of healthy red roses too. They would be invincible!

Sunny

Thank you everyone for the help! Lots to ponder.

My 2x DDs are very fragrant, but not at all times of day. I wish I got that magenta-purpley tone that's often pictured. Mine are a lovely ruby to garnet red with deep black smudging. I wonder if it's soil ph or something like that.

The Real Colour of Dark Desire

In my zone 5 Dark Desire is not a stable colour. It is very changeable and what's more it is sometimes 2 or 3 colours at once, and sometimes there is purplish splotched over top of red. But on the whole it is pretty spectacular and I value it. Sometimes it is dazzling, and it is always deep coloured. The bush is very healthy, I've never had a problem with it re blackspot. Sometimes even aphids won't touch it but one summer they were bad and chewed up the leaves. But on the whole the plant is nearly invincible, though the upshot is that it's a bit coarse. The leaves are very thick, somewhat stiff. This is not your fragile hybrid tea, it's a pretty rugged rose bush with quite spectacular deep reddish (or purplish) blossoms. And yet the unopened buds of this rose are amongst the most elegant in form that I have ever seen. The buds are elongated and very hybrid tea like, but the full-blown blossom, when it really fills out, looks more like an Austin rose packed with petals. The first photo below shows the colour about as good as it gets. The second photo suggests the variability and a bit of the splotchiness that some of them have, although this one isn't too bad. It's more obvious on others. For all its unstable colour, I would much rather have it than a light-coloured red.

That's the color I hoped for but never got. In my garden she used to be 'Drab Undesirable', and now, she is compost. I see you are in a far milder summer climate than me, maybe that's the difference.

I hated my Dark Desire. I couldnt wait to pull it. The bush form was a tall cane, super thorny with one bloom at the end. I kept cutting it back hoping to get a bushier shape, but nope, one tall cane, one bloom

Her blooms are beautiful, just never the colour shown here. It must be the sun we get., although her buds are gorgeous and I find her fragrant most of the time. Very tall odd growth in a space I really needed something bushy. Not the rose's fault, I just didn't understand the HT shape. She also has a lot of BS and almost total cane death over two winters which I was not expecting. She blooms all the time however, even if just a couple at a time and never shuts down so she stays. I am looking to move my two once I find a bushy, floriferous, fragrant dark red to replace her! I've tried Darcey (not bushy and BS),MilanoKolorscaped (too bright) and am waiting to see a bloom from Bordeaux Kolorscape. I had Barcelona, but he didn't make it through last winter in a pot. :(( I'll find one eventually and my DDs will go elsewhere in the garden.

I only grow Dark Desire and I love it. You need space as it throws up 7fret tall canes all the time. Totally clean in my garden.

Posted this before. It has buds but no blooms yet this year.

I am so jealous!

Vapor is so weird how roses behave differently I would expect her to do well with BS every where since my pressure is so high. I also love Darcey but it gets lots of BS here too. Have you considered The Ascot rose? I just got it this year and have no idea about its bs resistance, but Diane’s looks supper bushy.

We think alike! I got The Ascot last Fall! :)) I would think we have similar BS pressure, but I guess there are so many strains and they can't breed for all of them. : (( Let's hope our Ascots are beauties knowing they'll never compete with Diane's : ))

Vapor you comment made me smile. =) Whenever I want to impress someone with a rose picture, I come to the forum and show them Diane’s front yard with all those huge roses lol. Absolutely looking forward to seeing how our Ascots do this year.

Without starting another thread! I just received an order of 2 grafted Firefighters from KandM roses yesterday. To my surprise there was 1 big bud on one of the plants. I looked at that bud and it was a very dark purple. As it is opening today, it is a very dark magenta purple like what has been described on here for Dark Desire. Also the new growth is burgundy if that helps with identifying this rose? If people can chime in, that would be great. I will post a pic later today! I am very confident that this cannot be Firefighter as of now and is a huge disappointment!

@chuckurso1, I would never describe FF as purple/magenta, and mine came from K&M too. Perhaps you could post pics and we can try to identify.

That is what I was trying to actually say Ben. Thank you for the amazing pics of your roses. I know what I have is not Firefighter and was a labeling mistake made by James. I have waited another year for this one rose and struck out again. lol

Chuck
Dark Desire is EXTREMELY thorny, that would be a clue.
Can you post photos?
Carla in Sac

Dark desires new growth is purple.

Yes, I have seen the new growth and researched it a little bit. I do not see it as Dark Desire now that it has opened slightly. At this point it really doesn't matter for it is not Firefighter but will post it on here for all to see. There is no fragrance so that leaves out Buxom Beauty and Big Purple as well.

The color is looking like plump perfect. please post pictures of the leaves also and we can compare.

Plum perfect has no scent here,but also it is not unusual for new roses even fragrant ones to not have a scent. Sometimes the plant needs to mature more. I will be happy to go take pictures of my plump perfect foliage ( if I have any). We had snow and it burned all my new leaves

Very good job Diane! I will get a shot of leaves. I actually think I took one but did not send it to my pc.

KandM does not show that he grows Plum Perfect but his lists are outdated.

My Dark Desire in British Columbia has very few thorns. It tends to be two-toned and variable with purple splotched over top of another colour. However, as the bush has aged to about 7 years old now, it's colour has become more stable, less two-toned and more red. Firefighter is never purple, but it also is variable in its tones. I like a pure, dark red rose evenly balanced so that it leans neither toward purple nor toward orange. Such a rose is Taboo, aka Barkarole. Firefighter is a strange tone of red. I would call it subdued medium red, which is attractive, but sometimes leaning toward coral red, while bright sun can reveal a touch of orange. I like it best in the shade. Both of them have exquisite buds. Firefighter's is solid hybrid tea shape. As I said in previous post, D. Desire, both leaves and blossoms, are a bit sturdy, Firefighter more feminine in both blossom and leaves. A real asset in both for me has been they are not disease prone at all. Below, Firefighter top, D. Desire bottom. You can see the masculine/feminine difference.

Very informative bcroselover and appreciate the pics and insight. In my yard I only have Munstead Wood which I really like but wanted Firefighter for it is more in the open and in the sun a little more. The back yard has sun till 2 and then shade which is perfect for my Austin roses and then by the pool cage I will have sun till about 2 and then double pool cage screening which softens the intensity quite substantially and that is where I am putting my hybrid Tea roses. Your Taboo sounds great but I do not want to hijack this thread asking about it now. I will look it up!

Thanks again!

bcroselover: It is so interesting you mentioned your dark desire not having many thorns. Mine is very thorny. Would it be ok for you some time, if you have time to share pictures of your foliage and thorns to compare? I’ll go outside and do the same.

These are old pictures. does my rose looks like yours?

In BC we are a bit sun starved, and I have big trees on my property so no roses have 6 hours full sun and I don't get the kind of abundance of blossoms that people south of here get. My Dark Desire has thrived for 7 years with only 4-5 hours direct sun a day. Firefighter gets about the same amount of sun, but this will only be Firefighter's 3rd year, so I don't know how long it will last. If they get too little sun, I think the spend more energy blooming than they can recover year to year, so after 2 or 3 years of ample blooms thay start to decline and quickly fail.

@dianela7analabama

Our flowers look the same, mine bush not as big and prolific as yours. It's nice to see how big it can get. My photo below shows that my Dark Desire does have thorns, but less so than other roses on my property. That being said, going through my photos I see that there are just a few small places on the branches where the thorns are abundant. Maybe your larger, more prolific bush produces more thorns. This photo shows the colour at its very best. This is why I keep it and am endlessly fascinated by its tonal variations even though sometimes I don't like them. Other times I do very much. The leaves are tough and leathery.

bcroselover that rose reminds me of Darcey Bussell, at least for a split second. Very nice!

My Dark Desire is disease free and floriforous.

Its definitely not red, but not purple or pink either. Its very much how someone else described it earlier- like a thin layer of purple laid over a dark red.

All of these photos of Dark Desire look amazing. I have never grown it due to reports of its huge size.

Firefighter has been a vigorous grower and extremely reliable bloomer for me on its own roots. This summer will be the third season with it. It dies back quite a bit in my winters and needs well drained soil and winter protection to survive. Last year it grew like gangbusters, reaching 5 feet tall x 2.5 feet wide by the end of summer, producing flushes of blooms seemingly every 3 weeks. Very few thorns and strong raspberry fragrance. During cooler autumn temperatures it developed blackspot on the lower 10% of the shrub. No powdery mildew. I do not spray.

@jc_7a_MiddleTN

Wow, gorgeous!

Did i say jealous?

@dianela7analabama Im not sure if it was on this thread or not but I just wanted to tell you how GENIUS your idea was to peg your Dark Desire. Pure genius. And it looks sooo good!

I'm glad my can't-sleep-4am-musings lead me to this thread! I had no idea Dark Desire would get so tall so I'll more it HERE to the corner of the house, where I need something that tall. Then when Bolero arrives I'll put it THERE in the small space by the path... and maybe my new Darcey Bussell goes in a pot for a year to see how she does? And Lady of Shalott can get tied to the fence like a climber once the fence is built...

Does everybody else do have these late-night musings on rose musical chairs?

Yes! That is when I do my best musings. They are also much easier to move At night.😆