Rose photo courtesy of billy teabag

"Ferguson Valley A", Ferguson Valley, SW Western Australia, November (late spring) 2011. This is one of four Tea roses we were invited to see that day. The others were the shrub form of White Maman Cochet, an enormous plant of Mrs B.R. Cant that had built on itself over the decades until it covered most of the wall of a building, and a deep purplish red Tea rose ("Ferguson Valley C") that has been found in several other locations in Australia. The owner, Lesley Gibbs, told us that these roses had been planted in the 1920s. They had been tended for the first decades of their lives, but had been left to their own devices for the past fifty years. They were all healthy and vigorous and showing no signs of diminishing vitality. At some point, a tree has sprung up next to this rose and done what trees do - grown tall and shady. This Tea rose has adapted well to the increasing shade - pushing long canes up through the tree towards the light. It is unlikely that the habit of the plant we saw on that day, and what is recorded in these photos, is necessarily typical of a younger, tended plant of the same variety.

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Rose photo courtesy of billy teabag

"Ferguson Valley A", Ferguson Valley, SW Western Australia, November (late spring) 2011. This was the dominant bloom colour on the day we first saw this rose, though there were many blooms where the pink wash was more developed.

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Rose photo courtesy of billy teabag

"Ferguson Valley A", Ferguson Valley, SW Western Australia, November (late spring) 2011.

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Rose photo courtesy of billy teabag

"Ferguson Valley A", Ferguson Valley, SW Western Australia, November (late spring) 2011. The plant was well armed with prickles extending high up the stems, in some cases, even as far as the bracts. The pink shades were quite well developed in some blooms. The blooms appeared one to a stem or in airy inflorescences. More than two bracts at the base of the pedicel was not unusual.

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