When I uploaded a seemingly "rare" photo of this rose last year, I was nourishing a hope of being able to produce more of the kind this year for the benefit of HMF gardeners as well as for my own satisfaction. I am sorry to say that this was not to be, as the plant has not been capable of producing any flowers at all this season. So for the time being, we just have to be content with the one there is. One might say that my previous hopes for a better developement of this rose have taken a hopefully temporary turn for the worse. My experience with the hybrid rugosas is that although they are repeat flowering , many of them seem to need a year or two, depending on the size of the plant when you plant it, to flower and repeatflower satisfactorily.This plant was given to me as a gift on a Rose Tour to the Baltic countries some years ago. Miss Lydia was then a tiny plant in a ditto plastic container. I have so far done everything possible for her, the last thing being to remove some ground cover poppies to give her more "breathing space" However, if you think you can do nothing more, there are still three solutions left to try : Patience, Patience and Patience. The good thing is that she so far has been practically diseasefree.

23/07/11
Luckily two other members of HMF have given me competition in uploading photos of this rose. Given time it seems to have improved a lot. I must admit I now find the flowers of this rose among the most beautiful of the hybrid rugosas, and impressingly large too at that.It has started to show a good potential. Time will show.