My first impressions of 'The Australian Bicentennial Rose' are very favourable. Its flower are large! I planted my bare-root specimen in a pot to see if I liked it before planting it in the ground and in a pot with no special treatment it's pushing out blooms that are easily 13cm/5 inches. They start out a velvety primary red but subtly shift to a more crimson shade. The foliage is dense and nicely shiny with no indications of disease so far, and a nice shade of green that complements the colour of the flowers. The fragrance is terrific too being a strong sophisticated blend of sweet damask and sharper tea scent. The stems are long enough for a good display in a vase too, in fact I think its size, perfume and boldness make it a great cut flower for the house. I'm anticipating even larger flowers from it after I plant it in the ground. I like it very much so far.

I just bought a bagged bare-root plant of this rose on impulse at a local Bunnings nursery. I remember seeing a bed of it in the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens decades ago, maybe early 1990s, and it remained in my memory ever since, yet I don't think I've seen it on offer at a nursery before. It's good to know that at least one Bell rose is still available. There are lots of very early shooting buds on this plant so it looks like it could end up being bushy.

And just a minor point, but the only name in the file here is 'The Australian Bicentennial', and when reading the references it's more likely to be 'Australian Bicentennial Rose' or 'The Australian Bicentennial Rose'. That latter is the name on the label of the plant I just bought.