We have been growing 'The Impressionist' rose for nearly 10 years and it is among our favorite climbers. It is absolutely a repeat bloomer and we likely get at least 4 flushes of blooms per year, as we get blooms here from March until late November and sometimes into early December (USDA zone 9). The flowers are full and of good size, between 3.5 to 4.5 inches. It is a vigorous rose and produces canes up to 10 feet long. It is not significantly affected by foliar diseases in our climate. We like the range of blossom colors on this rose: yellow, pink, and orange. This rose is a cross between 'Graham Thomas' and 'Distant Drums', and has a pleasant myrrh fragrance. We have 5 specimens of this rose on our 2 acre property, more than any other climber. It roots very easily for us.

Hello ! I had it in Tennessee and loved it . Also have it here but it’s in too much shade and really struggles . Need to pot it up unfortunately.

tonite when my kiddo goes to bed I’ll look for photos for you !

John , any chance you are in an hours or so drive from Temecula? I’d be in heaven to see a two acre garden here. I have 9000 sq foot and want to cry when someone says oh you have a big back yard ! Coming from an acre and half in Tennessee, it’s very sad . I miss my space .

Hi Lilyfinch,

We are in Oakdale, near Modesto, CA, around a 5 or o6 hour drive. We are in the middle of a major garden renovation, so our place is not very scenic at the moment. We started with a home on one acre and recently bought the acre next door. Lots of projects ( veggie garden, orchard, rose propagation, etc.

I have a sister who lives in Murrieta. You may run into her if you have children who need to learn how to swim- she's been offering lessons for over 2 decades.

John and Lily, thanks so much for the thumbs up on Impressionist. I have a lot of sun here (too much for my skin) so maybe it would do well here. I really love the bold multi-color effect it seems to have. How's the growth habit for each of you? I think I saw on HMF that it can be a ttall, upright bush with more stiff canes. Hopefully I'll be able to order a couple when it's back in stock and give it a try here.

John , I just may have heard of your sister as I was looking for classes for my kids but held off once the virus started! I hope your yard Reno makes all your garden dreams come true !

B , mine is tall and slender !

I wish my phone was smart enough to know what rose pic I wanted . Wouldn’t that be some technology! Lol

@Lilyfinch z9a Murrieta Ca Lily, that's ok! Love your flower picture of it. I like the purple-punk tint it seems to have with the orange. Thanks for showing us.

I had it 15 years ago, but it was so badly impacted by Blackspot that it eventually withered and died. Its not a rose I'd bother to attempt again. It is narrow and tall and presents all its flowers at the top. Not an especially graceful thing, IMO.

Paul,

My wife and I used to make annual trips to the Portland/Salem areas in late May/early June to visit a number of gardens featuring irises, roses, and perennials. In our visits to the Washington Park-International Rose Test Gardens and Heirloom Display Garden (when it was opened a number of years ago), we were always impressed with the specimens of this rose. The specimens of 'The Impressionist' at the WPIRT were trained onto a columnar trellis and had large blossoms throughout the plant. The specimens at Heirloom had been trained somewhat horizontally, and so there were large blossoms throughout the plant. I don't recall seeing foliar disease issues at either site. Perhaps they are spraying these plants or perhaps the disease appears later in the season. In our dry climate in central CA, 'The Impressionist' is a standout.

@john_ca You can be sure both of those display gardens sprayed fungicides without fail. Undoubtedly many roses in those gardens looked as they did because of it.

Both of those gardens were very well tended, so I agree with you that it is likely that they were sprayed. I doubt that I would want to grow 'high maintenance' roses here that required spraying, but we don't need to spray here because of the low humidity. We only have a few roses here that have relatively minor problems here.

Rick, thanks for the photo. I saw that in an old post about it and it's what got me interested. Looks beautiful so hopefully I'll be able to get a couple and give it a shot here. Thanks for the helpful info John and Paul. It's pretty dry here during summers lately, so maybe if I give it a good airy spot it'll do ok without spraying. If not, not the end of the world.

I'm hoping The Impressionist is a keeper, as I got mine from Heirloom a couple of months ago, and planted it in my front yard! I'm worried my front yard is going to have some crazy color combinations -- so might move Neil Diamond to the back yard. Except that Ben T says ND definitely belongs in a front yard! I love Distant Drums, so the idea that I could have a larger "version" of that is what sold me. It's funny about how some roses just don't do well for some, and then are like precious diamonds for others. I had Zephirine Drouhin for about 15 years and tried everything to make it happy, but it would rust and blackspot (and I'm in CA and that's NOT a problem on my roses here) and was generally puny. I kept it because I loved the blooms. But I finally just got over it two years ago and haven't looked back. So -- I say -- if you love the look of the rose -- try it. You may love it. If not? You can pass it on to someone else with a different yard! I have about 3 neighbors that have rose gardens because they keep taking my cast-offs! These include Julia Child (another rose "everyone" says is fabulous, but just didn't work in my yard, for whatever reason - but now are gangbusters in my neighbors' yards - I tried two!)...and if Madam Anisette and Dark Desire don't shape up this year, they are going elsewhere, too!

Hi Deborah

Sometimes you plant a rose that everyone (across many climate zones, including yours) say is a winner, and it is a dud in your garden, it is because you have a 'bad plant'. I know that I enjoyed reading the posts of the late John Moody, a passionate rosarian who wrote many beautifully detailed posts of mostly modern roses that were recent releases, on the website 'helpmefind.com'. He described this phenomenon in a good number of his posts and would sometimes discard his original plant, buy a new specimen, and plant it. The performance of his new plant was often similar to that which others were reporting, and he was happy to have kept the new plant of the variety in question, in his garden.

Eight or so years ago, I purchased a band of 'Celtic Pride', a Harkness rose from Heirloom Roses. This rose is supposed to grow to 5 feet tall; in my area with a very long growing season, roses typically grow larger than they are 'supposed' to grow. My specimen, however, struggled to grow much larger than 18 inches. I moved it around and planted it in several different locations on our property and babied it with extra fertilizer and water, but it never grew larger.

Last fall, I took 4 cuttings and 'stuck' them into my rooting area on my property. All 4 cuttings rooted, and they are now growing in 1 gallon pots. They are already as large as the original plant and are growing with more vigor than the original plant. So I think that the problem is sometimes with the physiology of the original plant rather than the genetics of the variety. I will be planting these into the soil in one of our rose beds in a month or so and am optimistic that these new specimens will perform better than the original one that I purchased. And so your original specimen of Zepherine Drouhin may be a 'bad plant'. Perhaps you should try rooting a new specimen. I do think that 'The Impressionist' will do very well in your area.

Thanks, @john_ca ! I also think that I have challenges in my yard that work against my "ideal" climate -- I have lovely coast live oaks that cast shade at different times of day, so in my front yard, they need the morning sun to get the required 6+ hours -- so when we get the May Gray and June Gloom, a few roses are lacking the morning sun they need to be their best. In the back of the house, the oaks cast shade at different times of day. All told, they get more than enough sun if we have no marine layer -- but there are some spots that also rely on the morning sun. And finally, since I have a small area that is not UNDER the oaks and close to the house -- that is primo real estate for the roses, and some are on the edge of the downhill slope...

This year I'm trying to expand that slope area (with the southern exposure) by making rock retaining walls, and hope to have the climbers go wild there -- including Mel's Heritage, Heritage DA, Teasing Georgia DA, and Polka. I also made a retaining wall to re-capture another section of slope for my new Augusta Luise and Jacqueline du Pre! Two roses on the margin of the slope which may benefit from some shoring up with rocks are Dee-Lish and Queen of Sweden. We'll see!

As for ZD -- I think that was a bad plant. Most of the plants I got from the old Heirloom Roses (before the new owners) I think were bad plants. I nursed several old, antique roses through YEARS before finally tossing them in the green waste, including ZD and one of the M'mlle roses. I had two Julia Child roses, and neither were impressive. But when they moved into my neighbor's yard, they took off and look just as they should now. So I think they didn't like ME! Others just don't live up to the hype, and I'm always wanting the "perfect" rose -- hence so many give-aways.