I’ll probably take a few arrows for it, but I find most rugosa hybrid flowers unattractive. They seem to me to all be unruly and have petals that are lacking in substance. I love rugosa leaves and the twiggy shrubby architecture of the plant but those flowers meh.
It’s simply personal taste. We all have our likes and dislikes. My “hard no” has always been Margo Koster. It seemed it was the most requested rose with all of my gardening clients and I absolutely HATE it. Those stale cantaloupe flowers which refuse to ever open, then hang on until they are way past “used Kleenex”. How badly they clash with the brilliant yellow-green foliage which never met a mildew spore it didn’t adore. In that environment, the only way to make the plant anything resembling “green” was to highly acidify the soil and mulch with Camellia Planting Mix. So not being attracted to Rugosa flower forms nor petal substances are nothing to be concerned about. That’s why we have so many brands of cars and everything else. To each her/his own.
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There’s a place for unruly, I say. And when you smell as good as rugosas typically do, it fades in significance quickly, as my eyes roll back in ecstasy…
If only it were easier to expand the colour-palette of the rugosa-clan. That would be A Thing!
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