She was much better budded here than own root. Once she got growing, the plant was quite nice as was her foliage. It took some heat energy to get her to fully open without balling and the thrips were often an issue, but K A Viktoria is a gorgeous rose. Kim

A few weeks ago there was a thread where nobody could name a single hybrid tea that does really well on its own roots. Unfortunately, that may mean that the old HTs have little future outside of California zones 9 and 10 where they might get up to speed after a few years. I've resolved not to waste any more yard room on own-root HTs.

Oh, well, I confess I grow it. Planted as a band from Burlington, it has grown to 2 1/2 feet with beautiful foliage but has yet to bloom, in this its second summer. I too, love Devoniensis, and so fall prey to those southern faces with high sun needs.

Maybe one day I will just grow Darlow's Enigma and albas, but not yet. My biggest concern with this rose is not its vigor but the fact it has so many petals. When it blooms perhaps next year, I don't know if I'll ever see a bloom that doesn't ball. In your climate, though, Jeff, I imagine it will be beautiful.

How strange it is too read about KAV balling. It hasn't balled for me in humid AR and in Dickerson there is a quote from the Rose Annual reporting that it was very popular in Houston--where if a rose is going to ball it will. Except for some Pernetianas, the older HTs I've grown have been fairly vigorous. I think the most problematic HTs own-root arrive well after KAV. I'm not an especially skilled or attentive gardener and I've chucked out many a rose for balling. I wonder why KAV has done well here.

Up here the conventional wisdom is that roses with many petals will ball. I hope to see a bloom to go with the beautiful foliage on that rose to see for myself. So glad to hear it does well for you, rinaldo.

I think it's not ENTIRELY the number of petals, but a combination of the number and the TEXTURE of the petals.

Very thin, delicate petals (in my experience here) are more likely to ball than thicker, sturdier petals.

We have had a remarkably cool, foggy year -- a climate more as it was 20 years back than as it has been in recent years. Even "Mrs. Woods Lavender-Pink Noisette" has balled. I have yet to see a normally-opened bloom. She's on probation. I won't live with a rose that balls consistently, and PARTICULARLY not one with 12-ft. canes!

Jeri

Yes ma'am, heavy petal count; larger, papery petals; overlapping petals; humidity/rain or irrigation over head; thrips; high heat; intense sun and water stress will all help them to ball. Any of them can cause it, but heap one on top of the others and you're sure to see it. Kim

William Robinson in The English Flower Garden lists own-root roses that grew well for him. He refused to grow grafted. The list is a mix of many different types but there are hybrid teas among them.

Also I would guess that my 3 Fragrant Clouds are by now own-root. I've had them maybe 25 years.

Cath

Thanks for all the information--much more than I thought I'd get. (Which is great!).

I've decided to wait and not get KAV right now. After hearing what Michael had to say about HTs on their own roots, I'm going to wait to see how the young HTs I already have do on their own roots.

I will say, though, that I have a Moonstone on its own roots. I think it's doing very well. I must have missed that post you mentioned. Grace Darling is also own root and although young, she seems to be coming along nicely. I have several early HTs on their own roots but they are all babies. I certainly hope will not fail to thrive. I'm glad to know that it's possible, though, so I won't be thinking it's some other factor.

Since a primary cause of balling is the botrytis fungus, probably the biggest factor of all is resistance vs. susceptibility to this fungus, plus climate (botrytis needs cool temperatures and free water, not just humidity, to germinate).

To return again to the family of 'Souvenir de la Malmaison'--SdlM is notoriously susceptible. A couple of its sports are resistant, even though they have many and relatively thin petals. One of these, 'Mystic Beauty,' is otherwise indistinguishable from SdlM.

Now of course, balling because of thrips or desiccation are entirely different processes. But balling attributed to rain in many or, I would say, most cases is caused by the fungus sticking the petals together. It is marked by brown rotten spots or, in some cases, pink spots.

Of course there may be some roses such as 'Banshee' that actually can't open if they just get wet. These would tend to have very thin, wide petals.

KAV is an extraordinarily lovely, shapely, floriferous rose for us in the Sacramento Cemetery. It is one of our few budded roses, donated by Burling of Burlington Roses about five years ago. I don't know how it would do own-root or in a different climate, but we have had no problems with budding or disease with it. It has a full growth habit and bears several blooms per stem, so it isn't like the awkward, stiff later HTs.

Another fabulous white rose is La Biche/Mme de Sombreuil, NOT the climber that was mis-identified as Sombreuil. Anybody who can grow teas should love this rose. It threw out a couple of very awkward long canes when it was young, but fortunately we just left them alone and the rose is now very shapely. I visited the cemetery this morning (have been gone for a few weeks) and really admired how it is covered in bloom right now.
Anita

I have the climbing version of KAV from Vintage. It's very beautiful. It was painstakingly slow to get going, but it finally has. Good repeat and a fine fragrance.

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"After hearing what Michael had to say about HTs on their own roots"--

Now I'm thinking I should have kept my mouth shut. With Vintage, the primary supplier of old HTs, closing down next year, people should get these roses if they crave them. Some will work out.

Michael, I read a number of threads from past years about the use of calcium as a spray to prevent or help with botrytis - would you mind talking about that a little? I never did get it clear in my head as to how successful it was. I'd like to try it next year if it does actually help.

thanks for any information.

Yup! Add them to your pot ghettos until you can either bud them or have them budded. I'm sure there are people in your local rose societies who bud. I have known very few exhibitors who actually BOUGHT plants of anything. Kim

One thing to consider, though, in deciding whether to get it - ya'll let me know if you disagree - is that it acts much more like a tea rose than a modern hybrid tea.

It is a cross between a tea rose and a very early hybrid tea, Lady Mary Fitzwilliam, which is a cross between Devoniensis and Victor Verdier, a hybrid perpetual.

From the foliage and the way it's growing and the pics of the blooms I've seen, I think it is much more like a tea. And like a tea, I think it needs heat. If you can grow an own root tea, my own opinion is that KAV will do fine for you. My own opinion, of course. Devoniensis is also slow to get going.

I bought it because going through tea withdrawal up here (a notoriously difficult disease) I decided to try some early hybrid teas that I thought might be heavy on the tea, light on the hp side, trying to figure out exactly what might grow up here. It was after that first year it dawned on me that it wasn't the cold that kept the teas from thriving but the lack of heat. Ditto a couple of those early hybrid teas I tried last year. I am not at all sure it was because of the ht's lack of vigor on its own roots that caused their early demise, but their need for more heat than the summer produced.

I fully expect most of my teas and KAV to croak in the next couple of winters because it just isn't warm enough up here to suit them. I'm zone 8a, but that isn't heat index, it's just the winter cold.

Well, that was a long speech and entirely speculative, too. I grow no modern ht's so really am not talking about them. That's a box I haven't opened yet and do not have any understanding of them.

As long as your winters aren't cold enough to do them in, and they are resistant to the prevelant disease pressures, I think you'll find more modern HTs vigorous where you are. If you could get those Tea-like HTs and your Teas budded on a suitable stock, then plant them near a solar collector (stone or concrete patio, walk, wall, etc.) where they'd get reflected, radiated heat, they'd probably give you more of what you want from them. Kim

I just ordered it from RU. Pat said it's one of her favorites (along with Mme. C or Edith Murat--see the other thread).

I'm looking forward to getting it in the spring.

Hoov, Thank you very much for posting the pictures. They look wonderful. Do you grow Alexander Hill Gray? The pictures kind of look like him but a lighter color. Do you see any similarities?

Michael, that was my immediate reaction to your phrase regarding own-root HTs: I only have 3 old roses (balcony gardening), and a HT called 'Betty' (from Vintage) is one of them, and I hereby vow to keep her and protect her as long as I can! I will consider myself to be a GUARDIAN. Of course, I have to say that I may not be able to keep any of my roses, due to encroaching shade and lack of space, but right now they are growing and setting buds wonderfully. 'Betty', in truth, looks a trifle strange, as she is sending up an EXTREMELY vigorous cane while the rest of that bush looks to be at a standstill. However, the foliage on it says to me that she is just now becoming mature. I wait and see... and I guess that if own-root old HTs become California-only plants, I had better think about getting a few more!

Laura

gardenatlanta, no, I don't grow AHG, so can't comment on similarities.

Jeff, KAV is a rose I fell for when I had just been bitten by the rose bug. I tried to buy the climber from Vintage but they sold out. So I got Mme Caroline Testout, Cl, a truly beautiful flower but a bs magnet here. She caused me to be extra leery of HTs without some real proof of their bs resistance. My Mme Abel Chatenay is strong and bs resistant/proof on her own roots, growing into a 4-1/2 ft sphere, and from Hoovb's photo has a similar (but flatter) bloom form to KAV and different color and petal count. (Well, I just checked the petal counts of both roses on HMF after my assumption was that MAC was higher. They say KAV is 100 and MAC is 17-25. I say no way! And I'm right since I just picked my only open flower. The lighter than normal flower had 63 petals, and the bush is still rather sickly from my neglect and the heat which has just ended.) KAV doesn't look like 100 in the photo above but I know looks can deceive.

Anyway I'm tempted to give KAV a shot since she's 3/4 tea, but on the other hand I have White Maman Cochet, a most beautiful white tea that could pass for an HT on her first day or two and then starts looking like a lovely muddled tea. Jeff, if I were younger and more adventurous, I'd definitely get KAV. Maybe she'd like the Florida heat and humidity. :)) I've also been buying lottery tickets lately.

I must say that I see botrytis on Bermuda's Anna Olivier (and previously Rosette Delizy) in the heat of summer, unless it's something else that puts magenta dots all over BAM's older petals. She doesn't ball though generally or get moldy & fuzzy.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I missed harborrose's question about calcium and botrytis.

Truth is, none of us is set up to do a properly controlled trial, and without that, nobody can say for sure whether it works under garden conditions, as opposed to the conditions in the scientific papers.

I thought it helped some, but I haven't been using it regularly. The best tactic is to scrap the roses that are most susceptible.

If you want to try the recipes in the old thread, I suggest spraying only the buds on the left half of each plant so you have something to compare.

thanks for posting that thread, Michael; I saw it on the rose forum side and enjoyed reading it. I'm not responding to it, hoping it will stay up at the top for awhile so it will linger there so maybe others will read it and perhaps someone else has more info or has been using it and will respond.

The whites particularly seem to be susceptible to balling/botrytis up here. I'm trying to grow White Cap, but the blooms ball consistently and it mildews. So sad about this. I ordered Sally Holmes and prob will replace WC next year. Prob the best solution really is to replace the offenders, but, still, the calcium solution idea is helpful. Thanks so much, Gean

Jeff, I hope the KAV does beautifully for you. It is a looker of a rose.

Gean, Kronprinzessin Viktoria is a white rose that resists botrytis quite well. IIRC, Pascali and Evening Star were good among white modern roses, but they kept freezing out on me.

Thanks, Michael. If Mme. Cornelissen happens to thrive over the next few years, I will definitely look into both KV and MB. I appreciate the other names as well. Maybe KAV will do well here, after all, too. thank you for the help. Gean