Beautiful, Lisa!!! Wow! I would love to see a bush shot. If she hasn’t grown very large for you I wonder if she’d be even smaller here in my zone 6 garden. Do you detect much fragrance?

Wow, beautiful! I've been debating getting her also.

What s yummy color

I took a few bush photos for you, but she’s a little hard to see. Remember though, although my Joan Fontaine LOOKS like she’s planted in the ground, she’s not. She’s in a container that is by now, far too small for her. If I had her in the ground, she would be much larger. She is quite fragrant. I’m liking her so much, that I will be letting her out of her 3 gallon pot soon. She’s surely filled the pot with roots by now. It’s been at least two years in that pot. Her pot is hidden by small shrubs, and this keeps her plastic pot nice and cool. I don’t think you will regret getting her. I’m impressed. Lisa

Thank you very much, Lisa! I think I need to give her a try.

I have both Benjamin Britten and Joan Fontaine. Joan Fontaine would be a better choice for a smaller space. Benjamin Britten has an interesting color, but the plant is a monster. Mine easily gets over 10 ft tall and wants to sprawl. It blooms a lot and has flowers all season, but it just gets huge.

Hey, Bustopher - Wow, that is much larger than I thought BB would get! I have to summer prune some of my taller Austin’s to keep them in check but I wonder if that’d help BB much. Do they both stay relatively healthy for you?

Benjamin Britten is also sold in the Austin catalogs as a climber, which it does. As for health issues, both BB and JF need spraying, along with most everything else in the garden.

Shucks, I was hoping one or the other was healthier but I understand. I mean, even most of my “healthy” roses get at least some BS here. I appreciate your input!

Dave Joan is on sale at Heirloom now for $34. Free shipping today with code blackfriday17.

My question is , what do you use to spray?

Yesterday evening, I happened to notice that my Joan Fontaine had very pink blooms. I’ve never seen that before. I took a picture, but it was almost dark. Then I cut them for the vase. This morning there was almost no pink left on the blooms! Only one still has a pink blush.

These are from last night. Sorry, they are very poor quality.

Then this morning in the vase.

Lisa, I love it! I like roses with “personality”. Thanks for sharing these unique pics of her!

Dingo - Thank you!

Kristine - You are likely asking Bustopher but I I thought I’d share. I rotate between propioconazole and triticonazole. Many of my roses do decent without spraying but some require spraying at least in late summer. I’d rather never spray but all things fungal thrive here.

My spray mix is more of a stew. I use and rotate among propiconazole, chlorothalonil, or tebuconazole, if I can get it, along with mancozeb, if needed, some harpin, aspirin, spreader sticker, sometimes insecticide/miticide, and sometimes liquid fertilizer. I have even added deer repellent, which does not usually work all that well. Usually the anti-fungal spray works reasonably well unless we have had a late, hard freeze, which we did this year. Then the plants are so badly injured that they have little or no disease resistance no matter what is in the spray mix until late in the year, if they recover. I lost a bunch of plants this year, just like the Easter freeze of 10 years ago. I hope this answers the spray question.

Does this come in one convienient bottle because that sounds like a whole lot of different ingredients. Lol I guess I am looking to pick up a bottle of something and spray. I have only used Neem. But I did have some powdery mildew I would rather not have again.

Thanks so much for your answers

My spray mix is something I make up myself. It does get complicated sometimes, but when the conditions are right, the spray mix usually works reasonably well.

Kristine, if it’s just powdery mildew you’re trying to treat, you may want to try Greencure. Powdery mildew is less of a problem than BS here in Missouri and so I usually use Mancozeb to treat and propioconazole or similar to prevent on future growth. I’m not sure if you can get Mancozeb out your way, anyway, due to state restrictions.

Thank you