Too impressively healthy… one of my favorite species roses. Pretty much everything else around here is either leafless or showing some kind of spotting.
Tom;
Laevigata blooms I like very much, but this spring I dug mine out due to endless PM attacks through out the seasons.
warren
Nice. Where are you located, Tom?
I have also seen PM globally deform a very large established specimen of R. Laevigata in my climate, making it look totally horrible. Tom, yours looks fantastic!
I don’t have this rose but I wish any of my rose had foliage that looked that good!
I’m in zone 6b Maryland - our summers are notoriously humid and the winters are often cold enough to make it hard to keep bracteata, laevigata and banksia alive. I’m guessing hot and dry might be the recipe for mildew on this one since Warren and George are both in Australia, right? Either that or maybe Australia’s got a strain of mildew that is especially good at attacking this species???
Here I’ve only ever seen it occassionally on the pedicels of the flowers.
Hi Tom,
It is weird, but true enough. This huge Laevigata specimen does eventually put out new unaffected leaves after it gets hit badly with the PM, and survives year after yerar. At times it looks great, other times when the PM cycles in, it looks gross. I don’t think a single leaf is unaffected when it is it with a wave of PM, it really is that bad.
Variations in climates/fungal strains and species clones could likely explain this discrepancy. For us here it is really too bad.
If you’re interested in my climate, look half way down the page in the link below to the weather pattern… Actually in real life, there are often erratic swings into much higher temperatures than you might think by looking at the average temps on that chart. The humidity level is usually 50%+. Hope that helps.
see link below
Hi Tom,
Wow! That really is beautiful foliage. Does it get any black spot?
PM is our most common fungal offender, and in the greenhouse is at its worst, however, I am learning to tolerate less PM resistance when trading it for better black spot resistance.
Jim Sproul
Seems like a good trade-off to me. Mildew will go away when conditions change and seldom weakens the plant enough for other opportunistic infections to really damage them. Black Spot can be so disfiguring and damaging in so many areas, it’s probably one of the worst offenders and needs the most work. Now, add that resistance to rust resistance and you’ll have a real winner! Kim
Tom, this is great information, have you grown the pink/red hybrid laevigata ‘Ramona’, it’s a sport of ‘Anemone’ and looks to be slightly hardier. I haven’t either but it might be worth to take a look.
George, your climate sounds really pleasant! So does laevigata ever drop its foliage there or is it pretty much evergreen (or everwhite when covered with mildew ;0)
Jim, I’ve never seen any blackspot on it here. And Kim, I couldn’t tell you if laevigata gets rust or not. Believe it or not, I’ve never even seen rust in person! I guess some might say that’s lucky, but I’d kind of like to be able to select for resistance and how can you do that when it’s not around. I guess I should be happy with all of the disease pressure we do have.
Max, I’ve never tried ‘Ramona’ or ‘Anemone’. I hadn’t heard that they might be a little hardier - if they are, it might be enough to make a big difference here. Laevigata itself is just on the borderline of being hardy enough for us.
Hi Tom,
The climate here is beautiful, except in our hotter months when temperature swings are typically very abrupt (even from morning to evening) and humidity levels can become exhausting, but usually these bursts are not sustained and there is often relief from onshore coastal winds which fan it all down by the end of the day or by the next day. I count myself very lucky to be living in this gorgeous part of our fabulous world.
This Laevigata specimen is in a rose heritage park near to me which I accidentally discovered many many years ago on a random trip with a friend that landed me there. It is strange that we were not even planning to visit a rose park as such, just stumbled upon it. How fantastic is that!!! (see link below for pix of the Park)
As a matter of fact, I am sure I read somewhere that the rosarian who originally owned many of the species roses on display there had communications with Mr Moore! Who knows, some of the specimens in that park may have been imported from Mr Moore’s gardens. It is an inspiring park to visit.
That Laevigata specimen is huge, and it is always green. It is totally amazing how it recovers from the global PM attacks to put out spectacular leaves such as in your picture when the wave of contagion goes away.
I guess to be fair on this species, and reading what others are saying here, all in all, this rose is obviously one very tough species when it comes to recovering from a bad attack of PM!!!
I also do not recall ever seeing black spot affecting it!
George, Roy Rumsey didn’t just have ‘correspondence’ with Ralph, he was Ralph’s Australian agent. “Rum 10”, the thornless multiflora Ralph grew and sometimes used for root stock came from Rumsey (hence, ‘Rum’). Rumsey likely introduced most of the Moore roses you have there into your market. Ralph visited him several times and spoke of him like a friend. I’m sure Rumsey had to have been to Visalia at least once. I knew of him just from Ralph speaking of him.
It would be quite interesting if we could determine if the Laevigata there was from Ralph’s “Wayside Selection” he grew and bragged about for years. Supposedly, it had larger, heavier foliage with larger flowers and a more profuse bloom. I know he tried it a number of times and never got anything out of it as he said it many times. Kim
Hi Kim, I knew someone like you who knew Ralph very well was gonna jump in here and add to the story! LOL. Thanks for sharing that bit of history, I love it!!!
What a small world we live in.
I speculate that it is very very possible many of the roses in this park have been traded either way
ie. Moore Rumsey.
There is also a R.Souleiana there as well, I wonder if it is a cutting from Ralph’s R.Souleiana, which gives off repeat F1 if crossed with remontant roses?!
In 2010 I found this Ping Lim Viedeo, where he mentions a species rose “wilsonii” used in his breeding programs (eg Love & Peace), which perhaps is sinowilsonii or something totally different.
Your foto from above reminds me definitely on that video … .
Grx!
Arno
And here: Discussion from 2010 on HMF on that video, you find it on the “Member Comments” for that rose with the date April 4th 2010 - and following:
Would be RDR1 then … .
Very well could be, George. Obtain a piece of it and try. Kim
Hi Kim,
Next time I am there I will make enquiries at their reception about this Laevigata specimen, and mention to them the Wayside selection to see if any records can be matched. How fantastic if it was a match!
Formal permission would of course be required in order to get cuttings of things from there. It is a historically significant place. I have never had the need to make enquiries that way, but might do so next time I visit them.