Oops, fogot about this one:

Anna Olivier des Bermudes

andrea, again

Ask Jackie on the Antiques forum about the size of Anna Olivier/Lady Roberts. She has a huge old 19th-Century plant. In the Sacramento City Cemetery, it is over my head, so it is more than 5-ft. tall.

Susan Louise is very upright, so while I've seen it 6-ft or taller, it was not spready.

Lady Hillingdon is the sort of modest grower that you could actually grow in a big container -- Mine is very mature, and probably about 4-ft.

And I have not grown Devoniensis, which has some reputation for mildew, but I think it is also more modestly-sized.

Jeri

Lady Hillingdon grows more like an older HT than a true "Tea". She's more upright and a bit less twiggy. In a friend's Torrance, CA garden, she's usually four to five feet tall by about four feet wide. She grows her against the white wooden fence inside the front beds with the fence between them and her drive. Not that the rose requires the support, it just keeps most growth from poking into the drive.

Susan Louise is a MONSTER! In that same garden (just over the rise from South Coast Botanical), she's taken off into the trees like the Gigantea hybrid she is. I've tried her a couple of times in more inland heat and sun intensity and gave up. Her wood is too soft and pithy, resulting in too much sun scald and eventual death. She's very pretty when she's pretty, but she IS a "big girl"!

I have never encountered a Devoniensis which didn't want to both chronically mildew and climb. Add as an intense desire for the blooms to ball badly and you get the picture why I never fell head over heals with this rose. Balling and mildew go for Niphetos, too.

I haven't encountered a Lady Roberts yet, but if she's anything like Hillingdon, she's probably a good rose.

I've always had heat and mildew issues with which to deal, so the Teas I've gravitated to have been those with more colorfast pigments. I have resisted most of them for the same reasons I resisted 99% of the first thirty-plus years of anything Austin...they all turned "buff" within a few hours of opening. If the rose is supposed to be buff or russet colored, that's fine, but any other colors which so rapidly bleach to it are just not worth the space, water and time I have for them.

With that said, the "Teas" I've found most pleasing, both for health, bush size and habit, continuous flowering and particularly coloring have been:

William R. Smith
Souv. de Pierre Notting
Mons. Tillier (or what WE grow as Mons. Tillier)
General Schablikine
Rosette Delizy (the more intensely colored form, forget the pale, bleached out version.)
Archiduc Joseph

For climbing Teas, I've always found both Cl. Maman Cochet and Cl. White Maman Cochet to be superb. Of course, tastes and mileage will definitely vary. Kim

Kim -- You'd fall for Lady Roberts in a heartbeat. I can't find a flaw in it. But I would not try to keep it permanently in a container, I think it definitely needs the ground. And I think that is true, as well, for the Cochets.

Jeri

(The Sacramento Cemetery, IIRC, has my 'Rosette Delizy.' I wonder how it holds its color, in the summer. See Below)

I believe that Lady Roberts is a color sport of Anna Olivier,which I have. I would guess that the "Bermuda Anna Olivier" is also - there is an all yellow, all of the time sport of Anna Olivier (which is only yellow 5% of the time) in Europe, and it is probably the one (which I am told is yellow) they have in Bermuda.

I have a Lady Roberts, but it is a tiny baby, so I will tell you about my 3 Anna Oliviers. My old old one, which we think is around 100 years old, grows in dappled shade under tall trees happily. It is about 6-7 feet high, and 15 feet across, but I think it got that way searching for more light. I have another mature (about 10 years old) one growing in more sun. It is trained as a climber because it is growing in an area about 1-2 feet deep between our house wall and the driveway. It has gotten about 9-10 feet tall and 7 feet wide. My third one is trained on a short rose folly, and is much younger - I think it is thinking about breaking out and spreading a bit.

So, I think Lady Roberts and the Bermuda Anna Olivier could do with some support, and will be fine in the 3-4 hours of sun you mentioned.

Jackie

Thanks all.

I thought I had extra room for some of these gorgeous teas, (sunny or not) but after reading your posts and the sizes that they get to be, I was wrong. I only have extra room for the sizes that the HTs and Austins get to be - 3 or 4 feet wide. Actually, I could find space for ONE of these at any one of a couple spots , but I don't want to keep butchering a beautiful rose that wants to be large.

Any suggestions for HTs or Austins That smell like and/or look like the old teas?

disappointed Andrea

Andrea, try Potter and More and Pretty Jessica from Rogue Valley. They are smaller than some of the varieties of Austins that have octopus arms that reach out 6 feet or more. Sophy's Rose is also a smaller Austin with more of an old rose look (mine are from Chamblee's).

I have a baby Devoniensis and it's as clean as a whistle in my hot and dry garden. This rose generally stays quite small for years. If you can grow Bourbons, a small and pretty one is Romaggi Plot Bourbon (I thing Rogue Valley has it). La France is an old hybrid tea (said to be the first) with beautiful cupped and fragrant pink blooms on a small upright bush. I love mine. None of these have any disease for me except for some mildew in the spring on Potter and Moore, but that's long gone. I think Lady Hillingdon might work for you; mine never got very big.

Ingrid

Thanks a bunch to all.

Ingrid, I will do a HMF on your suggestions. MAYBE one will work for me. I was rather disappointed. Now, maybe, I can get the perfume and look in a smaller model.

Have a great weekend all.

andrea

Andrea, my teas in full, all-day, unremitting Florida sun are much shorter and compact than the same rose planted in partial shade. I have Mrs. B.R. Cant in full sun, and she's about four feet tall and about as wide. I have her in partial shade, and she towers over my head and is about as wide. So I think it will depend on how much sun they get. Florida's sun and heat are so different from California's.

My Bermuda's Anna Olivier is in full blazing sun, and she also has remained more compact.

It seems that most of my roses that get no protection from the afternoon sun are slower growing and more compact--perhaps it's too much sun and perhaps my sandy soil, although I amend heavily.