How sharp are your clippers? IF it's Red Radiance and IF you aren't one to constantly attempt to force your will on the plant by whacking half of it off, most of the Radiance clan can be expected to be happy at four to five feet tall and almost as wide. Breeders tried for decades to produce a yellow Radiance because Radiance enjoyed one of the best reputations of any Hybrid Tea raised. J. Horace McFarland wrote something to the effect of "anywhere a man can comfortably live, Radiance can be easily grown well" or something like that. I don't have the quote in front of me. Radiance was one of the first to be proclaimed "a world rose" because it grew so well everywhere. Then, you have marvelous quotes like this from Help Me Find, about Radiance, which holds true for Red Radiance.

American Rose Annual

Book (1932) Page(s) 73.

J. H. Nicolas. The Rose “Disease” Radianceitis. ….’Radiance’ happened to inherit Tea characters to a high degree, hence its summer hardiness that gives it such a ubiquitous popularity in the South. ‘Radiance’ is popular because of its performance which is the Tea performance. Naturally, our southern friends are calling for a “Radiance race” of many colors. To them ‘Radiance’ is a symbol, a type….

I hope it is Red Radiance. You could do FAR worse than growing it. Good luck!

I do not grow red radiance but instead the Radiance of which Red Radiance is a sport. I am in southern california. My two bushes get to be about 6 feet by 3.5 each and very healthy, tons of green leaves even now in January. Great rose.

It sounds like a great rose. I had almost bought it last year but it was unavailable. I like that the person in charge of the making labels used something akin to the picture on their Oklahoma labels.

Marvelous! The "like" button worked! Thank you for posting those, Jeri. I wish you could have also found the same photo with all of us standing inside that plant for scale. It is criminal and a source of great disappointment that Camulos destroyed those bushes. There USED to be such a wealth of neat old things there. But, with the drought, increasing heat and other pressures, I wonder if they would have survived anyway?

I'll keep looking, Kim. But I really AM sorry you weren't there for the temper tantrum I had, when I stood there and realized what had been done.

It was epic. I was loud, and rude.

Had they tried to move them or cut them badly or? Plants of that size should have had enough momentum to survive pretty much anything done to them except being sprayed with Vitamin R, improperly fertilized (dry, too much, applied too close to the trunk, etc.) or totally dried out and fried.

My guess is that they cut them to the ground, before running trucks over them.

Some things just bring tears to your eyes...

As I recall, Cynthia Westcott, a plant pathologist, and author of Anyone Can Grow Roses (1965), never tired of praising the Radiance roses and also City of York (a very fragrant once-blooming white climber).

I learned this at the conclusion of a very unsatisfactory visit. It was the crowning moment of an awful day, and I frankly just lost it. I still get angry, thinking about the destruction of beauty there.

I'm able to get the system to record my "like" response, it's just I can't "like" that.