I had one last year growing in a 5-gl bucket where it did reasonably well. Below is a picture of the best of the flowers that it had.

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As you can see from the picture, it did not look like the advertised old garden rose flowers in its usual pictures. It made me wonder if it was the correct bush. If it is Happy Go Lucky, it did rather well. I did plant it in the ground in the fall. I will wait to see if it makes it through our rather dry and highly variable winter temperatures. I think it is worth a shot to see how well it will do for you and what yours will look like.

Thank you bustopher. I think I will go ahead and get one, hopefully it will be a good one. I saw a few of your roses on the "A" thread, they're gorgeous!

Just curious bustopher, how did this rose over winter and how has it been doing so far this year?

Mine came thru winter fine here they were own root. Had them for three years before taking them out. They got very tall like six feet but thats tall for here. They were planted in a tough spot so ymmv. They did have the old fashioned look for a few hours after booming. Blooms shattered quickly and not very many of them. Never saw any disease on them. I guess they just were not pretty. Not the bush or the flower.

Mine came through the winter okay. It has been flowering on and off but hasn't done much in hot weather like many of the other ones.

Did either of the two of you do any winter protection?

No winter protection used here. As expected with grandifloras it would die to the ground each winter. Regrowing to six feet each year. Sorry for the negative report earlier like I said it could have been where it was planted.

No problem, thanks for all the feedback. So 6 feet tall and how wide? Also do you grow any of its parents, Julia Child and Strike it Rich? If so how does it stack up against them?

Awesome! Thanks for that great report. I have all the parents but they are all still young, SIR is a second year own root and JC is a first year band. I like SIR so far, when in bloom it really brightens up the side of the garden where it is planted. It gets BS in my garden but not too bad, I do spray though but not regularly and I don't do chemical sprays.

In my garden anyway no other yellow has beaten Julia Child. I had Strike It Rich but it had severe blackspot here so it's gone now. Happy Go Lucky grew much like a large hybrid tea very up right but since the foliage was so clean it looked a bit bushier. It does have nice branching. It was narrow at the bottom and maybe 3 feet wide at the top after 3 years. JC is bushy and blooms a lot more and I just love it. It does seem thou the more sun the better with this one.

Long ago I had three JC on the side of my house. There were more trees here than and this side did hold to much moisture. They were a mess and constantly without leaves. After a few years I had enough and started to take them out. When I got to the last one for some reason I decided to move it to the empty lot. There it could live out it life as it wished. The lot gets no extra attention. Out in no mans land she turned into a glorious beautiful bush. Full of flowers no disease what so ever. Even in the years since the trees out that way have grown larger providing more shade. She retains her beauty. There are now more JC's in the yard. With luck they will do as well as the first.

I have had Happy Go Lucky for two years in a prime spot right in the most visible part of my garden. Southern exposure in full sun in my hot/humid east TN climate with winter temps that occasionally dip below zero. It blooms more than any other rose I have, so that makes me want to like it, bit i think I have but I agree with Patty, it is just not my favorite to look at, the shrub or the individual flower. The bush is very much Hybrid Tea-esque, it gets very long, straight canes which produce lots of clusters of blooms that weigh down the canes to the point that they start leaning this way and that & overall the shrub looks pretty angular & leggy. I admit that this year I didn't cut it back as much as I should have, or at least I realize that now, it may not have gotten quite as sparse and leggy with more intensive pruning in the spring and early summer, so next year I'll prune more and see what happens.

The flower is very simple, they not my favorite but I enjoy them still, they are cheerful & abundant. In it's very beginning stages it almost has a more classical cupped shape, but when touched by the sun the petals quickly reflex and it becomes a very open, frilly flower. Also, for me they are not unfading, they almost start out half faded for me, like the outer part of the petals were dipped in white, but the center is still golden yellow, then they eventually fade to white completely. I never have bright yellow blooms like the one pictured above unless it opens on a day with absolutley no sun, there is always some fading on my flowers. Also, if you are one of those people who cares about this, the petals don't completely drop from the spent flower, so every few days I am out deadheading this thing, since it blooms so much it requires A LOT of deadheading.. at least it does if you are like me and you can't stand looking at those brown dried up petals.

HGL also has not been extremely disease resistant for me, by midsummer it is hosting a fair amount of blackspot, and will partially defoliate, but that still doesn't slow down it's blooming. I initially purchased it because Julia Child was it's parent & last year my JC was my best rose, however they both struggled a bit through winter & have been more disease ridden this year. If you don't have high BS preassure in your area or if you spray you may end up loving this rose for it's profuse blooms, if the blooms are to your liking, I'm just not sure it is worth the trouble for me anymore. (sidenote on JC : I can't help but think this rose declined because of some mysterious disease that manifested this spring when it was coming out of dormancy as small reddish spots all over the canes. I have had disease/dieback issues with almost every locally purchased {& therefore grafted} plant I planted in spring of last year. HGL was one of these as well. I think I may try JC again as an ownroot & see if she does any better, perhaps HGL would be more resistant from another source as well?)

Overall I think HGL is a good rose, but I have been considering moving it out of it's prime location to make way for something with a bit more of a shrubby growth habit, better disease resistance, or a more refined flower shape, I just know it will be difficult to find something that blooms as much as HGL.

Here are a few photos I snapped of HGL today

Dinglehopp, I noticed the uneveness in pigment also when I saw it in the spring. I love shaded roses but not this.