Rosette Delizy

Thank you so very much for all the encouraging comments on my previous post. You can't imagine how much they helped me. I feel happy to have met such wonderful and gracious people through blogging. I feel a little better now and today I finally managed to take some pictures without falling over as I press the shutter release :). My Rosette Delizy, a tea rose, is in full bloom, so I thought I would write about how this rose has performed in my yard.

The best features of this rose are quick rebloom, perfect health and relatively few prickles. The blooms are not big but they are bright without being gaudy, and cover the bush from top to bottom making it a great landscape shrub.

The blooms have a good tea fragrance and last a fairly long time on the bush. My rose is about 5 years old and is much narrower than other teas. This rose is on the header of my blog, and I like it very much.

Still, it does have some drawbacks. Compared to spring, the quality of blooms is markedly worse the rest of the year: they are smaller, have a lower petal count and discolor quickly.

Smaller blooms in the fall are all upright compared to pictures above from this spring showing lots of pendant blooms.

The rose sets hips very willingly and old spent blooms with brown petals persist on the bush much longer than they should. I therefore deadhead it promptly, which is a lot of work given its fast rebloom and the fact that it is now taller than I am....

Picture from this spring

Still, I am willing to overlook these minor blemishes for cheerful displays of color almost year-round. If you live in a mild climate, I hope you can give it a try.