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'Sunlit' rose Reviews & Comments
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Regarding whether 'Sunlit' is a Tea or Hybrid Tea:-
I grew this rose years ago before it eventually succumbed (like so many of my other roses) to the dense shade of a neighbour's tree (now gone!). I always felt it had too many characteristics of a HT to be a pure Tea, but it was very Tea-like in a way too. Only speculating here, but it was probably a Tea-HT cross in much the same way as 'Sunny South' or 'Argosy' were. I don't remember seeing many hips so perhaps it was triploid. Interestingly my bush once sported a branch with very, very, double flowers with rosette centres rather like Maman Cochet. It looked much more like a Tea than the regular 'Sunlit' flowers. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful at propagating it, but it was a rather drab, dirty creamy colour, lacking apricot, and didn't open easily, so probably was not a real acquisition in any case.
I love the photos here of Margaret Furness' where it has become very dense and bushy like a hedge.
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Have ripped this one out and thrown it away. Weak specimen. Never really did much. Blooms are good when they're good, but prone to balling. Scent is pleasant but not spectacular. Bush form isn't great, and it's prone to defoliation.
Honestly I think the HMF description 'very disease resistant' is not exactly of ironclad veracity. May do well with a lot of cosseting, but that's not my sort of shrub. I'll replace it with something else.
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In my garden it flowers and flowers and flowers. Nothing in my garden is cossetted, and I don't recall pruning it. Maybe it likes my Mediterranean (Csb) climate better than yours, or maybe you got a weakling plant.
Colour can be less pleasing under artificial light.
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Maybe. At the moment I'm not inclined to delve into why it didn't perform. I'm more inclined to find ones that do.
Never saw it under artificial light.
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Blooms on Sunlit seem to be a bit susceptible to wet weather over here. I've had some turn into soggy, mouldy lumps lately. Others, on the same bush at the same time, are fine. It probably depends on exactly what the buds get hit with, at exactly what stage of development. When they open normally the blooms are lovely, and overall they do seem fairly tolerant of wet weather. Just not totally immune to it.
Totally free of blackspot so far, which is quite something in a subtropical spring. I have not sprayed it at all, and we've had a fair amount of rain and humidity lately so there are plenty of live spores around. I can definitely see myself trying some cuttings of this one as soon as it needs a bit of a trim.
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Have been giving 'Sunlit' a bit of a trim and cut a small bunch of its winter blooms to bring inside and once again am reminded just how good this rose is.
The blooms are lovely - varying shades of apricot. The scent today is strong and pure Tea (the hardest scent to describe in a few words!).
Sunlit has other Tea-like qualities too - the evergreen and ever-blooming - right through winter in warm climates.
The foliage is both bullet-proof and very attractive. It's disease resistance is high for us. There are very few prickles and if trimmed rather than whacked, after a few years it naturally forms a very attractive, rounded shrub, well covered with foliage so no ugly legs, and blooms on all levels.
Sunlit doesn't get as large as many Teas - it's very easy to keep it to 5' x 5'.
The bloom form & colour can be quite changeable. Sometimes you can mix Sunlit blooms in a vase with Anna Olivier and not tell them apart; sometimes it does a fair impression of Mrs A.R. Waddell, sometimes it looks like a classic HT. The colour comes in all shades and graduations of apricot, apricot/ pink, apricot /orange.
I see from the photos that it is in the collection at the Descanso Gardens. Is it commercially available anywhere besides Australia and New Zealand?
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