The color is light pink on rose pink, more subtle than most striped roses. Form , substance and fragrance were all very good. However, after itts first spring flush, this rose has sat like a inert green lump for 5 months...no repeat bloom whatsoever, seems to not grow at all once the heat settles in. Hard to believe a new for 2018 rose originating from Weeks in hot Wasco CA could have such nonexistent summer performance. Meanwhile, I have First Prize, supposedly a 1970s exhibition diva, planted at the same time right next to it, and First Prize has produced an additional 3 spectacular flushes of bloom while Parade Day produced nothing. Go figure.
I totally agree with this assessment. However, I'll say that despite it's inactivity during the heat of the summer, there's something about the coloring on the rose that I love. And, it's scent is my favorite of any rose I grow.
I wanted to comment on the height. I don't know about warmer climates, but mine has never went beyond 4' tall. Its not really a large grandiflora. About the same of 'Love'. Not very large blooms, foliage, stems, or height, to be honest. It produces nice candelabras in place of huge blooms.
I really love the color and scent of Parade Day. She's less of a fan of the heat than most, but definitely not the worst. I have a soft spot for stripes and roses of weird colors, so I can't complain too much. It was also very healthy and I didn't have any issues with disease this season. We will see how she performs after a year in the ground.
1/10/19 Update: As far as pink striped roses go, Parade Day is the best. Excellent color and one of the best smelling roses to me, though not the strongest. I can't wait to see what it does year 2.
Some of mine had mauve tones in the light pink this week. Look kind of cool/eerie.
Definitely hates heat, like New Zealand does. Turned to crispy critters yesterday. It's on Year 2.5, so we'll see if it hates heat at full maturity when the roots are even more mature.
My Parade Day rose was doing great----until the weather turned hot. It's leaves crisped and turned brown and fell off the flowers crisped----It definatly does not like heat coupled with direct sun. I may try it in filtered sun. It may be that I can't grow it here where we get many days above 100 degrees.
Mine got better by the summer flush. I think the root system needs to be very mature to compensate. I'm going to give it one more year, because it is improving every season.
It's otherwise a very nice rose, and the light pink take on silvery mauve tones in the spring flush.
Edit: Went to smell Parade Day yesterday, now that the blooms are not crispy -- no scent! So it went from amazing scent to none. I am guessing that once it adjust and grows out its roots, it can produce blooms that do no fry if the buds are developed in high heat (it was 94-100F for 2 weeks) by not producing fragrance oils. Maybe those oils require an abundance of air humidity to develop intense fragrance? Not sure.
