Great rose with one huge problem. This rose is HUGE. Great foliage. Great blooms. But this rose will easily find itself 6 feet in any random direction by June, even when pruned very harshly. It suffers from octopus syndrome, sadly.
In my climate (Sydney Australia) it is similarly large and very shade tolerant. It covers itself with bloom all season with only four or five hours of sun in mid-summer and continues to spot-bloom quite lavishly as it passes into late autumn with less and less sun each day. It retains most of its leaves during a sunless winter. Another virtue is its long life as a cut flower though it is very thorny to handle. It is certainly not a groundcover but best used as a beautiful and impenetrable security hedge.
Aug 2010, in norCAL this rose is sold at SummerWinds nursery as 'Scarlet' carpet@ rose. I mention it only because my condo Assoc. planted about 30 of these 2 years ago. Now into the 2nd summer, I do declar that this rose is NEVER without a bloom from April --> St Nick's Day (12/06). The color is a cherry red that never fades or blues. It shoots out long canes which are topped with 'instant bouquets' (great to take to the ladies!). The bouquets last a long while in the vase or on the cane. I thank ~HMF~ for identifying this rose's formal name!
