After 3-4 years, I shovel-pruned this one. Too much disease, not enough blooms, too thorny.

I live in the humid subtropics of the Gulf Coast (zone 9a), and have neutral-pH, heavy clay soil, which I moderately amend with expanded shale or coarse sand for my roses. I top-dress my roses 1-2 times per year with about 2 inches of mulch. Earlier this year, I gave her a fertilizer spike.

I got Colette at an end-of-season sale. I kept her in a 15-gallon tub for the first year and a half. There's heavy fungal disease pressure here, especially with blackspot, and I don't treat. Colette was worse than most of my roses (which, to be fair to her, I mostly only grow roses with a strong reputation for disease resistance). She tended to get black spot unless in the PERFECT amount of sun. Part shade in the cooler half of the year? Blackspot within a week. Full sun in summer? Black spot within a week. Of course, EVERYTHING gets blackspot in August, but I don't worry about that too much. I moved her pot around several times per year, chasing the perfect amount of sun. Then I planted her in part shade (only the toughest of roses can handle full sun here).

I don't want to slander poor Colette. She is not a total, diseased mess. She never defoliates or loses canes to disease. I never fear that she'll die. She's pretty vigorous. But her leaves and canes just never look nice. There's always some minor cosmetic disease going on with them.

Untrained, she grows in a low fountain shape about 3'H X 8'W, with a good number of long canes that grow up for a bit, and then sideways for a while, and only modest branching. The shape can look rather nice planted among low shrubs with the canes snaking between her neighbors.

She puts out about 5-8 medium-sized apricot blooms in early- to mid-spring, with a nice fragrance of classic rose + Earl Gray tea. She's more fragrant than most roses, but like most fragrant roses, the smell does not waft. She shuts down blooming by April, and then gives another 1-5 blooms in fall. If untrained, she only blooms on the ends of her canes.

But training? No thank you. Never tried it, never will. She has big, sharp, abundant thorns--sort of in the 'New Dawn' category of thorniness. When I prune her, I only lift the canes by the leaves because there's nowhere to put my hands on the canes without hurting myself. The thorns were the deal-breaker. Sorry, Colette. Not for me.

She'd probably be a lovely rose in a cooler climate for someone who is more willing to use heavy rose gauntlets to properly train her.

A dreadful disaster in my gulf coadt zone 8b hot .humid. I have tried to kill mine for years but refuses to die . insists on putting out a naked stick with a bloom on the end once in a while. Do not plant in this climate. The Austin Rose, Gertrude Jekyll , is genetically related can't be told apart same everything including fragrance and vigorous here. Especially on fortuniana root stock.