It’s so gorgeous zz! Love those beautiful blooms, you must have done the right thing with them, they look great! I really would love to try this beautiful rose again. Yours look very healthy!

Thank you Sara-Ann.

The motif of my post is: if your patience is running thin with this rose, please give her some more time to mature and prove herself to you. If you haven’t try it, and are looking for a reliable performer with old fashioned large size blooms, healthy vigorous glossy foliage, divine fragrance, balanced bush form, disease resistance, heat resistance and cold hardiness; this rose has the potential to offer you all of the above. You should give it a try.

This rose is truly enchanting at every stage, from bud to wide open flower. From your description it really seems to have every virtue.

That's a really healthy looking plant. Looks great mixed in with the rest of the garden. Your photos show the bloom stages really nicely.

ZZ where are you located?

Mine is covered in buds, can’t wait until it blooms

I wish I'd had the patience to wait on this one, but it did nothing for years and was a thorny beast of a plant. Those blooms though.. Sigh.

JC I’m in Southern Virginia, Atlantic coast. Zoned 7B - 8.

Zz,

Magnificent roses in a beautiful setting, too!

How old are your Summer Romances?

I threw in the towel after three years of mine getting bigger and bigger, even though pruned hard, it just bloomed so infrequently I gave up.

I would like to try again, but please go through your care process so that I can duplicate it, and maybe have success like you have achieved.

Moses

Moses, are you sure yours weren't just midge magnets? Mine are total workhorses! They were stingy their first year as 1gal. from Chamblees that were crushed and broken in transit, and then midged to oblivion their second. However, last year after a good pruning they started and never really stopped blooming in quick flushes. This year looks to be the same. I think with this rose your spraying may need to be more thorough as it's such a dense rose. .. just my thoughts.

zzz, your hedge of them is beautiful. I have another and have been debating where to put, hesitating about SR overkill, but maybe I'll just go for it. I love repetition and it's nice to have a rose that blooms so much and so frequently.

No more reprieves unless she wows me this year, her 4th or 5th season. That should be long enough. This rose is either very, very good, or very, very bad. Nothing in between.

what are her issues for you? I think she likes sun and Heat. She did fantastically for Cori am.

Even with our triple digit summers, Summer Romance isn't happy. I have two. One grew backwards from the beginning, but she is competing with massive tree roots. Bad choice of sites for her and what's left is definitely leaving. The other one is in a prime spot with lots of sun and heat and TLC. In all those years, she gave me one decent flush, two years ago. Great foliage, no blooms. I gave her a good dose of manure last fall, and will give her rose food and alfalfa tea any day now. Last chance for her. When I was pruning, I noticed at least 2 new basal shoots, so maybe this will be her year to shine. I know it's a good spot because she's next to that crazy Peppermint Pop whose blooms know no limit.

Oh well. I hope she does well for you this year. Roses are crazy with a mind of their own that's for sure. :-)

Moses and all, thank you for your kind comments. I am not much of an expert here but I can give a little insight on what I did with this specific rose. As all four of them did equally well, I guess it has to have something to do with more or less the cultivar, the location, the soil, the climate and some luck.

I read reviews on German websites from various owners of this rose, seemed all positive on the concerns we reported here - cold/heat tolerance, reblooming frequency and foliage form. I know soil PH in most parts of Germany is acidic and they certainly have colder weather than my zone.

The cultivar - I bought them ownroot from Lowe's and it says "ADR rose of 2015"; resistance to mildew is 3 stars and black spot 4 stars (4 being the highest).

The location - I offered them prime location in my yard - facing southwest with full day sun, wind protection with a deck wall 2.5' behind them and hollies in between. Dripping tips assigned to each individual rose, watered approx. 15 minutes every other day.

The soil - we have acidic soil here in Southern Virginia due to the predominant Eastern White Pine forest. In my yard, we have a small woodland area of these pines and year round dropping of pine needles help adding acidity to our soil. While I am keeping an close eye on the PH of pond water getting too acidic, it's a paradise for acid-loving plants to thrive, such as Camellias, Azaleas, Hollies and etc. I amended the soil of planting holes with cow manure, coffee ground and local soil in the ratio of 1:1:2. I have not fed any additional fertilizer ever since. As coffee ground adds acid to soil, being ownroot and thriving in this "soil formula" and acidic soil in Germany, does it perhaps indicate SR ownroot likes acidic soil?

The care - I didn't provide extra care to this rose other than watching and being proactive with pruning. During the first season, they focused on growing foliage like many others on this forum reported - sent out 5'+ octopus arms and only bloomed on the tips. The reblooming frequency was average - approx. 3-4 weeks in between flushes. I did pull off all lower leaves (lower than 6" off ground) and prune away weak/crossing shoots to provide better air flow. After the second flush, I felt that the shrub form was unsightly I pruned all the octopus arms back to 3.5'. But then more octopus arms grew right back near where cuts were so I kept cutting. We had a tug-of-war for several rounds until I found basel breaks were forced out at the base of the plant in late September. By Thanksgiving they were still putting on healthy new growth and reacting little towards the much lower temperature. By Christmas temperature was down to 27F-35F at night, as they showed no signs of taking a break, and the basel shoots were substantial size, I hard pruned them to 12" tall and pulled off all the leaves to force dormancy. Prior to then, other roses all went into "hibernation" while SR were the last ones standing/growing.

Interesting. I couldn't prune that late without risking new growth, but mine also held onto their leaves quite late. I stripped them early spring with a dormant oil spray. You may be onto some with the acid soil observation as my new growth is very pale, almost white. I gave it Hollytone which seemed to help.Following Cori Ann's observations, I gave mine a hard prune and it's thanked me for it.

Thank you, zz, for the acidic soil tip. I will increase the acidity of the amendments. Interestingly, I live among lots of tall pines (lodgepole and ponderosa) where I always have a layer of pine needles on the ground, and my soil is alkaline.

Flower, although the prevailing believe is that pine needles are acidic and reduce the PH of soil over time, there has been debates that pine needles do not acidify soil, neither does acid rain.

Ph is initially determined by the substrate ie. whether it's limestone (basic) or sandstone, although it can be modified by the biosphere. But it's a bit of a chicken or egg type of thing and more complicated. In Ohio there's a juncture where it changes from limestone to sandstone and in these areas one finds all the lovely acid loving plants only found there.

There is also a believe that coffee ground is not acidic.

I love this rose. Did really well for me, both plants planted in clay. Maybe fed in spring???

zzg, I think/hope we're talking about everything here concerning roses, although some is just a matter of taste!!! But even that can change. I've read where many can't abide a rose's stamens and don't yet recognize the beauty of singles and semi's only to "grow" into those later on. Living in a place that gets a lot of heavy rain, I also appreciate SR. Not only do her petals remain intact, but her canes remain upright.

zzg, how roses look in our landscape, be it a back yard or a somewhat larger property, is I think a very important part of rose growing. We've all seen versions of a bright yellow rose plopped next to a bright red one and then a white one "for contrast", and how unfortunate that looks, when a little thought and planning could have produced a harmonious and happy result. I've looked in on the landscape forum in the past, and very little of that seems to have to do with plants, which I think is really unfortunate. The hardscape is an important part of garden design but I still think it should be secondary to the actual plantings. Be that as it may, the most successful and beautiful gardens, with or without roses, involve considerable thought of how different colors, shapes and sizes should be put together for a wonderful result. The English are great at that, but it's something that can be learned by the average person who has the desire to do so. Roses are central to our interest in gardening but by and of themselves they can be boring or jarring when they could just as easily be beautiful and harmonious. This is a very good place to learn how to achieve the latter.

Ingrid, I so agree with everything you say and your garden represents those thoughts in action. : )) I also look in on the LF, but am frequently disappointed. It's a compelling topic.

I am quite particular with landscaping/garden design. When I placed a plant into the landscape, it has to be done in a thoughtful manner regarding their form, to achieve an “unified feel”, or “harmony”, that all the plants/roses in a landscaping design complement each other and have been chosen with one over-arching theme in mind. For instance, small trees flanking a driveway or an entrance should have the same form. Hence a lot of time I used “repetition” to promote unity - in this case, SR x 4. I often couldn’t help off-topic a little on this forum and had to drag myself back as I understand not everybody here is interested in unity, proportion, transition etc. etc. I’m glad some of you are with me.

zzq, as a collector of roses, I try to accomplish proportion, harmony and balance when I place a rose in the garden, which isn't always easy with different types. I think we all want our gardens to appeal to the eye; our own, and the eye of visitors. Collecting makes it harder than sticking to a few colors and types, but I try not to place them where I just happen to have an open spot. I probably over think it. This is a topic that - as far as I can tell - is as important to most of us as the care of roses. I think it's a great topic, too important to relegate to another thread where it might be missed. I'm glad you bring it up.

I agree with Ingrid that hardscape is secondary to the plants. I had to think about that, but she's right. You can have an appealing garden without hardscape, but hardscape alone would look unfinished without the plants. At least, to most growers of roses.

Zzg you are speaking my language.

symmetry Is very important to me.

i don’t have just 1 of ANY plant.

i have to buy multiples.

So glad you love Summer Romance. I do too. Has done great for me, even being only the second year I've had her and in a pot. She was really healthy, minus a tad mildew. Can't wait to see what she does this year! We haven't had first flush yet here. Thanks for the photos!

Thank you everyone for your input. My SR are just finishing up their first flush after two weeks. The petals dropped cleanly. I just gave them a generous prune this afternoon preparing for shapely new growth. I am keeping a close eye on how tall the new shoots are going to be and learn as I go how to keep the shrub form balanced and aesthetically pleasing.