Beautiful rose, but lots of powdery mildew in Southern California, even with regular spraying.

I bought two more of these Lucille Ball roses from Palatine Roses in Canada in the Spring of 2010. These are grafted onto their version of Rosa Multiflora rootstock and I must say that these two roses are super vigorous!! I started both in large containers as I normally do all my new bareroot roses and now in the fall of their first year each is almost 6' tall already and producing some of the most beautiful blooms imaginable!! The blooms are deep apricot and huge with beauriful form and heavy petal substance, long stems, and very strong fragrance. The fully open bloom are even glorious and last in that stage for many days as well. And yes, they are very thorny as well, so you do have to be careful working around them. Also, I do spray regularly and I do see just a very little bit of blackspot even though the BS pressure has been quite high and some of my other roses have had some real issues with BS even with regular spraying. So far I have not seen any evidence of mildew on my Lucy bushes, even the one I have had for five years, so they must be resistant or just resistant enough that minimal spraying can keep mildew in check on Lucy. The blooms make great cut flowers and last for 10-12 days in a vase in the house with a few drops of bleach and a bit of white sugar or lemon-lime soda added to the water to feed the flowers. The other Lucy bareroots I purchased in the past weren't nearly as vigorous as these from Palatine so it must be the difference in rootstock. I will put them into the beds next year with the other Lucy I have growing and I am pretty sure that with three of them side by side it will make quite a spectacle. Now that Palatine is offering such a high quality and vigorous growing version of Lucy I would highly recommend you get one and get it fast before they are gone again very quickly this year just like they were gone in a minute last year.
All in all, if you've been looking for Lucy or tried it in the past and found it to be too much of a PrimaDonna (too hard to grow), give this version of Lucy on Palatines multiflora rootstock a try because I think you will be absolutely amazed at the difference that you will see in the vigor and health that it makes with this rose. The beauty of the flowers on Lucy have never been in question and they are even more beautiful on these bushes to match the increase in health and vigor.

After three years of holding my breath for this rose to finally start growing reliably, 2008 was this roses year in my garden. I grew it in a container for two years and then planted it on the east side of my home where it gets very good morning sun until about 1pm and then is protected from the hottest part of the day by the house shade. I actually started with two, but one of them didn't survive the first year in it's container which was disappointing to say the least, so I was very nervous with the surviving one.

It was a bit slow breaking dormancy last spring, but it really took off and grew and bloomed beautifully last year. I am hoping that it will repeat this performance this year and maybe even do better than it did last year.

This is truly a beautiful rose. The blooms are large and wonderfully colored and formed and the fragrance is very heady and unique as far as rose fragrance goes. None of my other roses have the same fragrance as this one.

i would like to have several cuttings! does anyone have any?