My flowers improved greatly in year 3. They were pretty bad at first.

Also, plenty of water & fertilizer required for this one, I think.

My Young Lycidas, which I've had about a year, did have purplish and cupped blooms from the beginning, although fuchsia might be a better way to describe the color. Other than that it's been quite a disappointment, especially for a bare-root from Austin that should be fairly sturdy to begin with compared to a band. It's just sitting there, almost leafless, rather moribund compared to the roses around it that are leafing out madly in this unseasonably warm winter. I'll fertilize it to see if that will help re hoovb's suggestion.

Ingrid

I really hope so. I water this rose everyday and feed it with both miracle grow and organic pellets every three weeks,

Mine's pretty disappointing so far as well (two years in ground) and I'm in a similar climate (Adelaide) to you.

I'm going to give it one more season and hopefully it will come good in Year 3, otherwise it's out.

I am extremely happy with mine. It has been busy forming buds now. Mine is very large, in his 3rd year, much bigger than Teasing Georgia! I pruned him hard last spring, but only a moderate clearing here and there this January. So YL is rather husky!

I think I'll follow everyone's example too, and feed him come this weekend.

I want to feed all of my roses too, but I worry about adding too much growth in a drought.

Thankfully YL gets a lot of used water and got to a nice mound about 4x4 last season

Duplicate

This post was edited by Kippy-the-Hippy on Thu, Feb 20, 14 at 10:58

I find Young Lycidas to be a beautiful rose. I love everything about it:
color, form, & fragrance

Mine is healthy. The only problem is the buds don't open out beautifully. The blooms look irregular most of the time.

I guess soil ph is a factor as well as sunlight is a factor. If your plant is healthy and you water and feed it well--my (uneducated) guesses are soil ph may account for the coloration difference, and sunlight and temperature may be the cause for the bud/ bloom distortion. YL loves sun and heat.

What pH does roses prefer?