I planted this cultivar this year for the first time. It was a bit slow gettting started and the first blooms were not that pretty, but the fall blooms are stunning strawberry pink and very large at 5-6" per bloom. I can't wait til next year to see it after it is really established. It was not bothered by disease in my garden this year.
Thanks for your comment. Strawberry Romance is a rose that has traditionally been slow to get going but once she does has done very well. I'd love to see a picture of it if you have any. Here is a picture of mine this Fall and it was huge!
Sadly, my bush didn't survive the winter with no protection. I bought two more bushes this year because I like it so much, and will protect it this winter. I hope that this will give it a chance to grow and mature and help the bush become more vigorous as mine is a bit sluggish as well. Maybe a rootstock change is a good idea to try as noted above. this is a gorgeous flowering shrub.
Strawberry Romance has a problem with breaking dormancy at the first sign of warm weather. This often results in the new growth being killed by subsequent freezes. The best thing is to protect the budunion with a single sheet of newspaper covered by several shovels of loose soil. Prune it down to good wood in the Spring and she should be fine.
Hi John, I was just wondering where you live. I am in love with the pictures of this rose and want to buy it NOW. After reading your posts, I am not real sure. Are the flowers fragrant? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
This rose has no fragrance that my nose can detect. It still has some of the most gorgeous blooms I have ever seen. I have a bush still in my garden that just didn't do much at all all of last year as it stayed very small with just a very few canes and only bloomed about 3 flowers all year. I will give it this year to catch on and grow or else it will have to be shovel pruned. John
I love everything about this rose except that the bush is so small. I think it may be the understock it is budded onto. For myself, I am going to try it own root and budded to multiflora to see if the vigor improves. I am going to cross it to the very vigorous Hopie Girl next year to see how that works.
I'd be very interested in knowing the results of your cross. I have made the same cross many times with outstanding results! Be sure to make the cross both ways and give the seedlings a chance to develop before discarding. I think you'll be very pleased. I'll be looking forward to hearing your response in 2008.
I have had this rose in my yard for two years. It has very pretty flowers with good shape and gorgeous colors and it has not had any diseases. The problem is the bush just doesn't grow and has stayed very small, so it doesn't bloom as much as I would like to see. I am going to winter protect it very heavily and give it one more year to start being more vigorous and if it doesn't improve it will have to go.
This is great; exactly the type of feedback we hope all our HelpMeFind site guests would take the time to share. Imagine how much more useful the site would be with many more of you posting comments about your experience with various plants.
And what we (HMF) need to do is provide a way to include zone information here to put this site guest's comments in better context. We plant on enhancing the registration to include a profile where one can tell us about their general climate and soil conditions.
