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Have a look at photo 74538. Even on road verges Charles de Mills can sucker extensively with moderate rainfall: in good garden conditions it may go berserk. You might want to keep it in a tub for some years, while you think about it! It flowers well in the Adelaide hills, but not much on the Adelaide plains or at Renmark; it needs some winter chill.
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I grew Charles deMills for a number of years and could only get it to flower by packing it in ice several times each winter. It DID eat all the real estate it could access. I finally ripped all of the suckers out of the garden and sent them off to the landfill. It wasn't worth the space and effort to maintain when it refused to bloom here on its own.
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#2 of 17 posted
26 SEP 13 by
Smtysm
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But it looks so cute and harmless in its little pot... maybe Ridley Scott should cast it as a baddie in one of his films. I'm thinking of letting it sucker away among some sasanquas that will be part of the front hedge. Could it really be more of pain in the neck than wandering jew, chickweed, oxalis and couch that already take up 90% of my gardening energy [never use poison]? Or maybe I speak too soon...
The house is rented anyway. That encourages flagrant risk-taking. It's so pretty. I'll let you know in several years whether it took over the front, imprisoning me in the house for the rest of my life. Groceries dropped in by parachute.
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"Could it really be more of pain in the neck than wandering jew, chickweed, oxalis and couch that already take up 90% of my gardening energy [never use poison]? Or maybe I speak too soon..." YES! All of those can be more easily pulled up. CdM can't. It has to be dug and followed through the beds and it does have prickles which make it less "pleasurable" to rip out. But, it's up to you.
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#4 of 17 posted
26 SEP 13 by
Smtysm
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Ripping and following suckers of a plant that has some actual aesthetic value, even though difficult, still sounds more appealing at the moment than the digging and sieving needed to get rid of that damned oxalis. It's interesting. The person who gave me that bit of sucker said it was their favourite rose. Having previously said that pteracantha was the favourite. And gifts people with cuttings of R Foetida Persiana. A lover of rose anti-heroes evidently. Hopefully Charles de Mills will experience suitable conditions to flower here in Glen Iris without my lychee down the back having its marrow frozen in the process. People in this region grow it and enter it in rose shows; that's where I first saw it and fell for it. It's those shades of crimson to greyish purple that are so beautiful. Though it is a pity about the lack of scent.
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If it will flower and you can contain it, CdM can be stunning. It wasn't here.
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#6 of 17 posted
26 SEP 13 by
Smtysm
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It sounds like you're in a great spot for tea roses. It would be incredible to have all that space! If you could, just post me a few spare acres. I wonder what Charles de Mills x Mrs BR Cant might be like. I read that D Austin made it a policy to aim for monochrome roses only. Not me; speaking of suckers, I'd be a sucker for the old blended shades.
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At one time I had virtually unlimited space, energy, time and other resources. No longer. Teas can be good here, provided they can be protected from the hottest sun of the day, or their papery petals turn to potpourri. It takes a fine balance between lower water needs and durability to thrive on this ridge. But, I have found some and I value them.
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#8 of 17 posted
26 SEP 13 by
Smtysm
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I empathise with the heat turning petals crispy. It's a bit that way here too. Mme Isaac Pereire doesn't appreciate it at all. Balling caused by heat instead of rain... oh the delight of the summer afternoon in a warm dry climate...
Not.
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Imprisoned in the house, waiting for Prince Charming to hack his way through C de M!
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#10 of 17 posted
27 SEP 13 by
Smtysm
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#11 of 17 posted
13 OCT 13 by
Smtysm
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Embarking on campaign for world domination; everything you and Kim have said about suckers, I concede :D
Potted it will remain for now
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I believe you will be glad of that!
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Interestingly, despite sourcing mine from a roadside sucker about 4 years ago, mine (in the ground) refuses to sucker own-root. It did throw out a sucker early in the piece that I dug and potted on... but since then it has remained solitary. I have it in a spot where it can go-wild, mixed in with Tuscany (own-root) and Tuscany Superb (grafted). Tuscany is obliging by suckering everywhere and it is steadily consuming Charles de Mills.
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#14 of 17 posted
26 MAR 14 by
Smtysm
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Mine's going like the clappers both outward and upward. I give it a lot of horse poo, and the original potting soil was very clayey. Is it possible your Charles de Mills needs different growing conditions?
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Your plant has come away nicely! One thing to watch is that it doesn't escape through the bottom of the pot into the soil. If it can get its roots down into the ground... away it will go.
I don't think my location is that different to where I found it. The conditions are better than the roadside, close to where I live, that I found it suckering away to its heart's content but I would have expected this to further increase its tendency to sucker. It's just one of those things roses throw at you when we start 'pigeon holing' them too much ;)
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#17 of 17 posted
26 MAR 14 by
Smtysm
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Yes, that's happened with all my cuttings. I wondered why they were looking so good when I was starting to think it was really about time they were potted up. I'd placed them on top of much bigger pots, for the leaves of the more mature roses to shade the tiny pots through the cruelest heat of the summer, so that they wouldn't get cooked [meanwhile their leaves were out in the light]. They wasted no time in extending downwards. Others I had on a plastic-lined tray with all available gaps filled with straw and straw on top to keep them all cool and moist. When I was potting them up I had to cut the pots off them, not to damage the hydroponic root extensions they'd formed. I really admire their opportunism. Charles de Mills I've just moved yesterday actually; that's why the leaf undersides are in view. It had not ventured forth into the big wide ground, probably because it had been balancing on two branches to keep it level at the edge of a bed.
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#16 of 17 posted
26 MAR 14 by
 Jay-Jay
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Tuscany is suckering like mad over here, whilst a budgrafted Charles de Mills behaves "properly"... no suckers.
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