While I sympathize with your frustration with your phone, let me assure you your 2nd and 3rd pubs are on point. Lovely.

Thank you oursteelers I love this rose so far. I wish it was healthier, but maybe after it gets stronger it will be. Some people in the past have had trouble with balling, but so far it is doing well here.

Don't know this rose, but that is a gorgeous bloom! I prefer shrub roses in general, mainly for winter hardiness factors. However, sometimes a bloom can be so pretty that you have to try a hybrid tea!

Blondie I feel the same way, some times you just have to try some. Do you grow any hybrid teas you particularly like? My favorite is Moonstone, but I don't have many.

I've been an admirer of Amazing Grace for years, and your rose's blooms are over the top gorgeous, Dianela. No apologies for those pics--they are great. I think, but may be wrong on this, that Amazing Grace was hybridized by John Clements, the original owner of Heirloom Roses. Diane

Wow, it’s lovely, and looks huge! :-)

Thank you Diane. Do you grow this one? I think in your drier area it might be awesome without so much fungus. Thank you for sharing that bit of info about the John Clements, that’s pretty cool. I also would like to mention the bloom has very little thrips damage when all my other pale roses are so bad that make me want to cry.

here is moonstone and tranquility and Madame A are way worse. First crush got crushed down to the ground because I couldn’t bear to look at the brown blooms. Maybe some of it is heat but they have a ton of thrips.

Dianela, I don't grow Amazing Grace, but this is a good place to grow any rose because there is no black spot, rust, and almost zero powdery mildew. My roses do get thrips damage, but not as bad as what you show above. Has it been wet? Because that looks like the botrytis some of my The Prince blooms have from all our rain and wind in this abnormally wet spring. The very dense Prince blooms seem to be prone to that (as well as thrips, too; he's a wimp, but has gotten quite big to my surprise). I get another scourge that I have thought might be thrips because I've seen tiny insects down in the buds of certain roses. They eat out the ends of the biggest, fattest buds mostly in spring. My favorite roses like Evelyn and Augusta Luise can be affected--roses with lots of petals. This, too, shall pass, and the darn thrips will exit your garden before long, I hope. The open Moonstone is very lovely, though. I'm sorry about First Crush. I cut off the worst of the eaten out buds on Augusta and Evelyn, and I need to cut some sodden Prince blooms off, too. Diane

I used to have St. Patrick's; loved it, but it kicked the bucket after a bad winter. I lost a Fiji after it's first winter, it was a bad winter too. But I loved Fiji so much that I'm trying it again this year. I coincidently also picked up a few other ones to try this year, because they look really nice. Some of them are hybrid teas, some are grandiflora and some are floribundas. But my newest ones to trial are Savannah, Moonlight in paris, Maurice Utrillo, Pretty Lady & Fiji. From previous years I also have Big Purple, Abbaye de Cluny, Traviata, Delany Sisters, Wild Blue Yonder and Rainbow Niagara (aka Tropical sunset) which has done well here. I'm hoping to be able to show off some blooms this season! I still really love my English roses, but as you can see I like lots of colours and shapes!

Blondie, I grow Abbaye and Wild Blue Yonder, also, and they are very vigorous and big roses, especially WBY. I used to grow two Big Purple roses, but they didn't bloom enough, just wanted to grow, plus those blooms weren't purple. They were magenta. So BPs have been gone for a while. I grew Pink Traviata and it was a stingy bloomer, too. It's long gone, but I wonder if Traviata is a better rose than "pink" which doesn't seem to be sold anymore. Why did you like Fiji so well? I know little about it, but remember Jim grew it, or grows it. Diane

Ohh Diane I was not familiar with botrytis. I do spray regularly with antifungals, but it was a very wet spring so I might have that on top of the thrips. I am really sorry to hear your beautiful rose also suffer from those disgusting little critters ( I hate thrips). Looking forward to seeing your blooms this year. My AL is maybe a foot tall, but I am so grateful to you for introducing it in the forum.

blondie wow you have grown a ton of different hybrid teas. Looking forward to seeing those blooms. Fiji is definitely worth trying again for those showy blooms are pretty cool. I really expected German roses to be very cold hardy. I would like to recommend Madame A. I know in my warmer area I can’t give good cold hardy advice but in my zone 7 it is pretty much evergreen which tells me it probably can take a lot more cold. The same with Earth angel ( not sure if you have these). My raspberry cream twirl also doesn’t even lose her leaves here, but this rose needs deadheading because the blooms stay hanging on and ugly.

Oh I really want Earth Angel, I've read it's hardy. Some of the Kordes are hardier than others. I planted summer sun two years ago and it has not been very vigorous & does not survive winter well. If it were to completely die I may try another one. Sometimes it's just the individual plant, not the general rose. I think this fall I'm going to do an order from Palantine for spring bare roots. I keep hunting in stores and not getting ones on my actual wishlist, and impulse purchasing others, lol! Basically, I would order almost all of the Kordes because of this forum. When everyone raves about them or the fabulous photos shown, I cannot resist.

@Diane - I planted Traviata (red) last year, had some beautiful blooms, but don't recall a lot of rebloom. It was full cane dieback, slow to get going this spring. Big Purple is rebounding well - bought it at Costco for $5, so thought why not. Abbaye had living cane and is regrowing at a decent pace, hoping it's a keeper. I like wby for it's unusual blooms, it seems to be a vigorous rose. Which is nothing compared to the size of some of the warmer climate roses. I really liked for the one summer. Absolutely healthy, glossy foliage & big bright blooms. The winter I lost a few roses was really cold and they were not dormant when the freeze happened. I also lost zone 5 trees that year. So I'm willing to try a few again because of that.

Well, that is impressive, Blondie, and those blooms are beauties. I see why you like it. Is it a continuous bloomer then? I would love to try some of the roses you and Dianela mention, but lack of space, my age, etc, just keep getting in the way. So, I'll admire your photos and read your reports, and if a space is freed up in my garden, I would love to try something new.

Dianela, botrytis is bacterial rot, and the cure is for the weather to dry out. I also accidentally watered Frederic Mistral too much years ago, and he got a bit of botrytis. So too much rain or watering can cause this stuff. Even in the desert. Diane

Wow Blondie you Fiji looks amazing. How were you able to photograph it so well? Do you have a special camera? I can see why you rally like this one.

Diane I am still so garden ignorant . No wonder whatever I have done hasn’t affected it in anyway. I have looked it up now and certainly looks like I have that added to my thrips.

Dianela, you are an amazing gardener and garden designer. And what an avid learner you are, too. You didn't get where you are by taking it easy. Diane

Fiji shows promise for it's blooming abilities, I'll keep you all updated. I just use my camera phone, I have no camera skills, lol! I do try and take photos of plants in shade versus full sunlight. Usually you can see the colours and shapes better that way.

And don't feel bad I only learned about botyrtis on roses last year too. It was after a lot of rain and cooler temps. I don't spray anything and it's survival of the fittest. So if some of the blooms look awful, I cut them off quickly, so they can create new blooms sooner! I'm always learning new things about plants here on this forum. And I also do a lot of googling!

After still more rain, I did a check this afternoon, and the dark colored, very heavy blooms have quite a bit of botrytis, particularily The Prince. What a mess. The other roses that were rushing out the blooms also suffer from droopy canes and blooms, some almost dragging the ground. I'm done with tying up. If the prediction is correct, tomorrow is the last rainy day. Then we go from cool to fairly hot with no in between. I am very discouraged. Diane

On a more positive note, the roses that have held back opening up may fare much better. We gardeners are optimistic, or maybe just foolish--ha. Diane

I loved our rain here for the plant's sake, but it was sad for some blooms for sure. I guess we gardeners cope.

Hello ladies again. Sorry my post is delayed, it has been a busy couple of days and I just made it home a little while ago. On a happy note my around 60 year old siding got redone this week and to my husband’s horror I am now ready to cover all my new walls with roses (some time in the future) lol

Blondie your phone picture taking skills are top notch. I will try taking picture in the shade and see how it works. I am seriously debating buying some sort of point a shoot camera, nothing fancy but maybe a bit better than my phone because I have to little memory space.

Diane I am so sorry to hear about all the unstable crazy weather you have been experiencing this year. I am sure the roses appreciate some water, but when it messes up your blooms it is just annoying. If the weather prediction is correct like you wrote in your post then today was the last rainy day. I look forward to hearing from you about all your upcoming perfect sunny, and shiny days. Your garden is my idea of perfect and I can’t wait to see all your roses in all their glory. Hoping to see the prince, that’s a fairly new rose, isn’t ? My baby Ascot is not a foot tall and every time I look at it, I remember your posts and the enormous size of that rose in your garden.

Sheila you are so right, the plants definitely love it and I guess they dont care about their blooms like we do. All we can do is enjoy what we can.

This is way of topic and I will head to bed after this, because I am probably no in great shape after a couple of well deserved glasses of Sangria. My husband can’t really tell one rose from another even after I point out each rose every time, but he is a kind man and a loving husband. Since it was going to be late when I arrived and I have no outside lights, he picked up roses for me to have.

The alnwick rose is new this year but I really like it. I’ll share them with you all.

Dianela - your Alnwick roses are fantastic! How is the scent? Mine are finally taking off after two years. The scent is intermittent, when it's there it's really strong but otherwise there's no fragrance.

I have Amazing Grace too and she was about to bloom her first flower but then it started raining and the flower balled and never opened. The foliage is perfect though so I'm hoping that since the rain appears to finally be over and we're getting consistent sun, I'll see another bloom soon!

Ann

That is a very pretty bouquet to go with some sangria! Enjoy your roses!!!

Ann thank you. I really like the color, shaper and so far scent of the alnwick rose. I am glad you are growing it also. The ones here seem to be pleasantly fragrant but not super strong. Maybe the scent will get stronger as they mature?

I think A Grace may definitely have a bit of a problem in wet weather with those big full of petals blooms. I placed her in what I am hoping is a full sun position to try and prevent this a bit since we are so humid. Please share your blooms here when she blooms again, this rose isn’t showing up much in the forum.

Blondie thank you :). It was nice to just relax for a bit last night. I am expecting to have a full day of weeding, watering and deadheading around here. Last weekend our temps went up to 98 degrees and everything went from pleasantly watered to just burning up.

Hi dianela -

Amazing Grace produced her first bloom.

Yesterday it was partially open

Here she is opened up this morning

She does have some disease on the leaves that looks like rust maybe? This isn't common for my climate at this point in the season but we've had an unusual spring - colder and less sunny. A lot of my roses are showing some form of disease where they normally don't. I hope yours develops further to your liking. AG does have a lovely fragrance!

Ann

Wow Ann yours is amazing. Mine has had a few pale blooms since my post, but I haven’t been spraying and it is definitely weak for black spot. Thank you for sharing, I think this rose a very beautiful. I am starting my 2 hour ride home now and I can’t wait to see my roses again. See ya soon!

I wanted this rose this year, but I didn't buy it because i was afraid it would black spot too much. I am jealous of yours!

Any fragrance?

totoro - In my garden Amazing Grace has moderate fragrance.

Ann

Totoro moderate fragrance here also. Have been struggling a bit, not opening very well due to the humidity and definitely some blackspot. It was planted as a band in November so it is very small.