Darn it I wish mine had been so petite and full of Bloom's mind was much more like Ben is talking about it was huge with few blooms but it was gigantic and took over the yard

Mine's dead. I gave up grow the Hybrids in my zone. DAs are good choices. There are around 40 plants include lots of zone4 perennial did not survive from last special winter weather with lots of rain.

My SAVANNAH just started blooming, it is very healthy right now, just hope it stays that way.

I have a 2 year old Savannah ,I like it . It is on Fortuniana rootstock . was slow to grow & establish . Now Very healthy 6ft tall and 4 ft wide bush . blooms in flushes .Have to cut it back hard after each flush . smells great although the flowers blow open very fast .

Funny how Savannah performs so differently for different people or in different climates.

Quite striking photo of Savannah in the opening post.

Are plant growth regulators used elsewhere on the property, or on adjacent properties?

Spray drift comes to mind. The Savanah pictured has the habit of one of the more compact Drifts, albeit with large blooms.

I planted mine last year. right now its at about two and half feet tall and just put out a new basal cane that is about 3 feet tall.

Mine was planted last spring. Didn’t really do much but is looking better(plant wise, that is) this year.

Her first bloom was terribly ugly. I saw it yesterday and was like “Oh,my!” With the big eyed emoji on top of that.

I‘ll go see if there is enough light to get a picture

So here’s a bloom and a bush shot

Oursteelers, I didn’t realize it could be that pink!

Oh it is really gaudy. Even worse when the sunlight hits it. I’m hoping it’s just a bad first bloom

I hope it improves to your liking Oursteelers.

The apricot tones really show in mine. Same bloom as above, fully open. I don’t know if I’m just lucky, but mine is in a pot and I planted a new Beverly also, both on multiflora and they both look great.

Savannah bush shot

rifis - nope, no growth regulators in my yard. I don't think my neighbor would have used growth regulators (his back yard is an artificial turf putting green and a couple of large pine trees), and there are many other roses between this one and his yard. The other neighbors are 50-100 yards away and across a road.

oursteelers - other than the crispy edges, yours looks pretty good to me. What about it do you consider to be "terribly ugly"? Mine has never been that pink.

Well, it’s just such a fluorescent pink with a hint of neon orange. And then yesterday in the sunlight it looked even worse. Really, it’s a hard color to capture but it’s not very nice.

Here is the first bloom from Viking Queen for comparison. Still not a pastel pink or anything but very nice and pretty.

My Savannah was a dud. Two years and gained no size. The blooms were pancake flat, unimpressive. Winter hardiness was poor for an ADR winner. It's long gone, with regrets, because of the wasted money and time.

Moses

I planted mine in September. I really love her so far. Her blooms are gorgeous, and have a lovely frangrance. I planted Earth Angel at the same time - EA I'm not yet so impressed with.

Today she looks better and I think I have a place she won’t look so gaudy. I have some coral penstemon and ivory salvia that I think will soothe rather than enflame her colors.

The question is move her now or wait?

Also, she is very fragrant here. I do not need to stick my nose in her to smell her

Oops, forgot the pic

Moses I was just thinking about you today

I hope you are well

I had the opposite problem, mine was huge but few blooms, too much foliage not enough bloom

I had similar experience with Moses. Looks like this is not a rose for cold zone. I had high hope when I bought her last year, but she nearly died after winter. 2 or 3 weak shoots finally pushed out from under the ground when other roses were already showing buds. Real estate is precious in my garden, and this rose doesn’t deserve a spot.

Claire

Mine lost her new basal cane to a wind storm last night. :(

i do do hope she continues to be have for me her flower smell amazing and I do love their form. Color is usually good but can verge on unnaturally pinky/orange in color.

At the Dallas Arboretum, their Savannah is huge with small flowers.

Noseometer,

I’m almost certain it’s the same Savannah I saw at Dallas Arboretum...it belongs in the Guiness Book of Records.

Our Savannah was a bit slow to get started, but then grew quickly and vigorously. It is now at least 5.5 feet tall and across. The foliage is clean throughout the summer, but we get a touch of foliar disease in spring and fall. The flowers are between 4 to 5 inches across with a very high petal count. The fragrance and repeat here are both excellent. If kept well-watered and dead-headed, it is rarely out of bloom. This is one of my favorites of the all new releases over the last decade or so. But it does not apparently do as well in all areas of the country. I got mine from Chamblees years ago, before there were any photos of it on the Chamblees website or even on helpmefind.com, because of its excellent performance ratings in Europe.

Mine die back badly this past winter and have bounced back nicely. I think might be a rose that does better in z7 and up than where I live. Quite unique in foliage and flower. A worthy one. I am not a HT person, but there is something refreshing about this one before the bloom fully opens up

I came back to this discussion, prompted by Sara Ann’s current discussion on “newly discovered fragrant roses”. In that, she notes Savannah is one of her best.

I also see another poster, above, comment that Savannah was a dud for him, not only because the blooms were “pancake flat”, but also because “Winter hardiness was poor for an ADR winner. ”

Did Kordes, in fact, ever enter Savannah in an ADR trial?

I removed my Savannah from my garden this year and put it in a pot, since it still did not want to grow all last year. I agree that the blooms are very flat, not at all the cup or tulip shaped blooms that I prefer. It did rebloom a couple of times last summer, one or two flowers at a time, with the flowers distorted in the heat. The flowers were indeed consistently fragrant. I removed it because I did not find it to be very satisfying to grow, but previously enjoyed it in a pot. I may "donate" it if it still does not perform well for me this year.

@rifis. Savannah is not on any ADR list that I could find, of current/up to date or former (but removed from the ADR list) winners.

ADR website

Wiki ADR List

I moved mine because it was very neon in its prior location. It is very healthy and fragrant (don’t remember what kind of fragrance or how much) I don’t mind the flatter bloom, I just didn’t care for the garish tones it had in full sun, fingers crossed the shadier home mutes the colors a bit

I just now noticed (it just “sunk in”) that John from California mentioned ( above) that he obtained Savannah “years ago” because of its “ excellent performance ratings in Europe”.

HMF only lists Savannah as being introduced in the US - by Newflora, in 2013.

I wonder where in Europe it was trialed, and why it apparently was never released there, given its reported excellent performance (as per John).

HMF doesn’t list an alternate commercial name for it.

Also: Kristine (above) complained that her Savannah had “few blooms”, yet her photo of it ( before she “pulled the plug”) shows 25 or 26 large, healthy blooms on what is likely a single bush.

That is so funny because the color of mine was a beautiful coral color but it was a giant with few blooms. If it had been huge but was full of blooms would have loved it

Sadly I introduced Savannah to .Mr. Shovel

. Here is a picture of my Savannah before I pulled the plug on its life

Kristine:

Here in NJ, we poor rose people consider this full of blooms. At least I do.

I know , if she had kept that up I would have never gotten rid of her.
She Quadrupled in size and put on only a handful of flat blooms. She grew to be about 6ft x5ft.

I would try Savannah again but on own root

Maybe it wouldn't be such a beast

My own root savannah is two year old now and got really tall about 5+ ft. Did not loose a single leaf, very disease resistant. Very pleasant fragrance

Do I need to prune her hard for more blooms?

How has yours done bloom production-wise, 111plisa su?

Sorry. I didn’t see that answer when I cross posted this question.

Kristine, I agree with rifis that your Savannah in the photo is full of blooms. How long did you give it to shape up? I let roses that aren't good bloomers hang around forever. I need to get crackin'. Diane

I have a Savannah that will be going into its third season with me. Last year she really took off and had a few canes hit 6ft tall. Yesterday I was cleaning the beds and a few low and twiggy canes kept grabbing me and every leaf I tried to cleanup. So I went to remove them and ended up pruning the whole bush. I pruned it back to about 2-2 1/2 feet tall. Hopefully this is a good prune for it. I also hope for a very mild March because I pruned it about a month early.

Riffs, always had blooms, though not as many as your pic,. plant has these 3 or 4.long canes, blooms are on top of the canes. I will prune her back,. Last year was the first year, so idler grow without any pruning.

I was under the impression that Savannah was part of the "Sunbelt" Series?? I was going to purchase it for my Las Vegas garden because of the designation... Could explain the differences in performance...

The picture that I posted was year one and it was fabulous. I loved the color and the fragrance. But by the end of year 3 it had very few blooms and little repeat

Kristine,

Somehow I missed that your Savannah looked so good at one point. I wonder what happened, why it stopped blooming so profusely. Mine was never like that, it’s always been healthy but stingy. This is my Savannah last year to markedly improve or get the shovel.

I wonder what they are doing at the Dallas Arboretum that is causing their Savannah to be a glorious beast, Ben (soil differences etc.)? What I find interesting is Noseometer described this large plant having flowers that were small, unlike John. If the visit was during the hot Summer, that could explain it, or maybe Savannah is one of those finicky roses that needs a specific growing culture to be at its best...

^^^Agree. Add up all the observations about Savannah on these pages, throw in Peter K's comments about her, and what you end up with is confusing tangle of contradictions.

Savannah may just be one of those roses that are very variable depending upon conditions. My visit to the Dallas Arboretum was June 8, 2019, and it was quite hot and humid. I think the day temps were well into the 90's, which could have affected bloom size. I think it's funny that my plant, despite being well watered, well fertilized and in full sun, didn't want to get much over 12 inches tall, but the one in the Dallas Arboretum when I saw it was at least 8 feet tall, and BenT says he's seen it 15 feet tall and Peter K's description of it in Right Rose Right Place is that it is 4 feet tall. Some have commented on this thread that it is a great repeater and other say not so much. I'm just going to conclude that it is a quirky rose.

I would guess it’s because we are hot and humid 7x24 Savannah just grows and grows, without much effort into bud development. Places with cooler , drier nights don’t have this problem, even if their temps are higher in the day. Sort of like Tomatoes needing cooler nights to set fruit. Noseometer’s plants always catch my eye whether Savannah or Abe, because of how compact yet flower packed they are. These same varieties can be long, tall and Medusa-like in TX (thankfully, Abe at least is a very generous Medusa). It’s not just Savannah that’s a stingy beast, Mme Anisette, Summer Romance and some of the other Kordes do the same. At one point, K&M and Chamblees were told by Kordes to pull those varieties (but not Savannah) from their sales due to poor performance in the South.

Here is my Savannah last June.

Here she is after I pruned it Friday.