This was the first tea rose I planted in my garden. I did not know what to expect from this group that spawned such a sickly race of hybrids in later days, but this rose has been a model of good health and has nice vigor as well. It seems to be a once bloomer, but Mike Lowe swears he has a reblooming clone, so I need to get that one to compare mine with. Even as a once bloomer, I would now never be without this beautiful rose. It has a nice fragrance too. I have an organic no spray garden and fertilize wth eggs (yes, chicken eggs...about 3-6 per rose broken and mulched over about 6-8 inches away from the base of the plant) and alfalfa(about 2-4 cups per bush as a top dressing sprinkled on the mulch around the base of the plant) right at the tail end of winter (about mid-late Febuary here in Richmond Virginia, USA), then fish emulsion(about 1 gallon mixed from concentrate per plant) as growth really starts to get going strong and again(one more gallon per plant) right before blooming begins. I then lay off all fertilizer until late August to no later than Sept 10(again, one gallon fish emulsion per plant mixed from concentrate), as roses here put on a tremendous burst of growth in the fall right up through hard freeze. This is the treatment all my roses get, and this old climbing tea seems to love it and is in no need of fungicides should others want to try her organically. She is in her second year and is 15 feet wide tied in along wooden post rails of a fence. I fully expect her to run the entire length of the 30 feet of fence she shares with some other climbers within the next couple seasons. She's just a superb rose and I live smack in the middle of the black spot belt that runs the whole length of the mid-Atlantic through the southeast coastal states. If a rose is a black spot magnet, it will reveal itself in no time flat in my garden and this rose has remained highly reisistant.