We've had this variety in the college gardens for well over 20 years, and over that time, have done various things to it. In recent years, we just let it grow to be a huge bush, and shorten it back by perhaps 1/3 in the early spring pruning. Otherwise, just dead-heading. In the past, we kept it much shorter through frequent pruning. I think it reblooms better when left large, though. The best ours ever looked was one year when we pegged it for the spring bloom. It was astounding. But what a job to peg it, and then to undo it afterward! We've never done it again, although I've often threatened to. So, I don't think it's at all picky about how you train it.

R.des V. is one of the roses I am considering as recommendation for foundation planting at my church which is celebrating its centennial this year. It is a small wooden building, light-colored, with 2 northerly-facing inset corners to be filled . (Fairly open with good light despite N-exposures)

The characteristics I am looking for include: scent, deeply-colored blossoms, near-thornlessness, large graceful shrub, high autumn color and plentiful hips (4-season interest), introduction 1909 or prior, and tolerant of aridity/soil tending to alkalinity (roses will be watered, but care likely to be somewhat uneven over the years). Recurrent bloom to be weighed against generosity of first flush, production of hips, and color/form of canes in winter. Hardiness. Health.

Yes, R. des V. boasts many of these qualities, but not all. Does such a rose exist ? Your thoughts much appreciated.

tolerant of aridity/soil tending to alkalinity

*** RdV, as much as I love her, suffers terribly from chlorosis
in alkaline conditions. I've seen it with snow white foliage.

Soil sulfur helps with it more than anything else I've found, but I just HATE
to have to stay on top of things like that.

Jeri

Hi Karima, first let me say I'm sooo jealous u were in Sri Lanka! I'm from Sri Lanka too and am dying to go home for a visit but time and finances don't permit right now ... he he he ... hope you had a nice time.

I have my RdV as a free standing shrub, it get's pruned quite a bit during the year to keep it manageable and at a height that I want (around 5-6 feet) and does not seem to be showing any adverse effect for it.

Aprille

I'm going to train mine by wrapping around a rebar teepee...whenever it gets that big :)

I have alkaline "regular brown clay" soil and here's poor RdV the first year:
{{gwi:221207}}

Here's the 2nd year after adding iron solution as drench a couple of times:
{{gwi:221208}}

Eric...from the land of pink hydrangeas.

I'm sorry that I got a bit off the track of the original message- but grateful to those who humored me with very useful info on R.des V. in alkaline soil.

I went back to GS Thomas and Beales and others to see what they had to say about training R.des V.; but aside from remarks on pegging down, there was little aside from appreciations of this rose in "mixed shrubberies" and GST's recommendation of treating the old roses as flowering shrubs (minimal pruning).

Lucky you to have a Reine des Violettes reaching for the sky !

first of all sorry for not responding earlier, just tring to get back into working mode after the holidays.

Aprille, we had a wonderful time in SL. But the hardest part is getting back to your normal day to day routine after that.

This is my RdV reaching for the sky.

{{gwi:221209}}

Janice, I got my RdV by mistake. Nursery sold it to me as Reine Victoria. After seeing it's vigour I decided to keep it. I had it only for six months now, I it gave me two gorgeous flowers, almost thornless, lush blue green foliage and I'm not sure about the smell and the hips.

I soil is Alkaline, so my RdV is showing some signs of Chlorasis on older leaves.

{{gwi:221210}}

But before i left on my holidays I used a fertiliser with sulfur, so the newer leaves looks very healthy.

{{gwi:221211}}

jeri, Randy and Eric thanks for commenting on this issue, and thank you for the pictures. Randy your RdV looks sooo healthy.

I will try and peg the long canes.

Karima

Randy, etc -- my RDV after a mere 90 days in my small garden had canes almost 8 ft. tall. When the winds came this fall, it was being whipped all over the place, and a couple times it tipped itself over in the pot it was in.

So I repotted it into a very large heavy stone pot (it had been trellised, but was way beyond the trellis)...I didn't want to trim it, I was afraid that I wouldn't have any blooms at all in the spring. So...

I found some metal long tent stakes and pegged it over into neighboring large pots. I couldn't peg to the ground the canes would have snapped, but going halfway down made them nice and rounded. Also -- my foliage right now is turning a nice shade of gold and orange - its not disease, it seems to be changing with the cold nights we've had.

So I kinda pegged it. This is a vigorous rose, isn't it?

Karima -- your bush looks like mine -- it just takes off doensn't it? Your foliage is luscious.

Patty

Hi Karima,

Thanks for posting the pictures of your RdV. I wish mine were that tall. I don't think that's chlorosis in the picture you posted...it looks like classic rose mosaic virus to me. Hopefully someone will chime in and confirm..if it is RMV, it certainly hasn't affected the vigor.

Eric

Patty, yes, Reine des Violettes is a vigorous rose!

Karima, the few times that my Reine des Violettes has shown a handfull of chlorotic leaves, they did not look anything like the squiggly yellow lines on that one photo above. I think that Eric may be correct, those leaves on your plant don't look anything like chlorosis. The other photos of your plant look great though!

Randy

Now i have two things to worry about. Trainning the RdV and the rose mosaic virus.

All this while i didn't entertain the thought that it could be RMV. Cause I heard it doesn't exist in Austraia.

Anyway I have sent these pictures to the nursery owner( she is one of the members of the rose society in wa) and waiting for a response. In the mean time please feel free to give your opinions.

karima

Does anyone in the southeast find this rose to be vigorous in a no spray situation? I'm wondering if my clones are just bad. I've got three of them. Each of them is behaving nothing like the descriptions above.

Robert

I have two own-root, one from The Uncommon Rose and one from Chamblees. Both were planted in 2007. My gardens are no-spray. My RdV are not shooting out long canes, but many thin pliable canes, the longest of which is maybe only 5 or 6 feet. Karima, is yours a grafted rose? If so that may explain the huge growth spurt in one season. It really doesn't explain the stout canes though, that doesn't seem to be a characteristic of this rose but I've never seen a grafted version. I have trained some of the longer canes along a 4 foot high fence and temporarily tied the shorter ones to a pyramid that I move around the garden as needed. The young canes are so lax that they'd be in the mud if I let them be and I want to see those beautiful blooms.

All this while i didn't entertain the thought that it could be RMV. Cause I heard it doesn't exist in Austraia.

*** The nursery which offered RdV years ago, and which was budding on Huey rootstock, shipped roses all over the world. I bet if you traced your RdV back through the whole chain of provenance, you would find that it came from California.

That said, there are undeniably various roses in commerce as Reine des Violettes.
Is your rose thornless?

Jeri

Eric, could you tell us more about the iron drench? Thanks! From alkaline-land.

Hi Redsox,

It's made by Green Light. I think I bought it a local big box home store. Here's a website with the product info.

Eric

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil Acidifier

Hi everybody,

As I told you earlier this rose was sold to as Reine Victoria but the first flwer didn't look anything close to it. Not globular at all.
{{gwi:221212}}
So i sent the picture of the flower to the nursery for identification but they wanted me to bring the bush.
By then the bush was in the ground shooting up new canes, so i didn't bother taking it.

Instead i went to help me find roses website and most of the photos and the discriptions of RdV matched, so I assumed it was RdV but I could be wrong all along.

But i must admit my leaves are not as blue as Randy's.

Karima

Hi, Karima. The leaves look more serated on the edges than mine. And it looks like there is a thorn immediately under the bloom in your photo? My RdV has never had a thorn on it.

Randy

It's very pretty, but it's not RdV.
And FWIW, it's also not Reine Victoria, nor is it La Reine.

Jeri

thanks Randy and Jeri. At first the older canes didn't have any thorns, but the new ones started to have a few.

Do you think it could be Rose de Rescht? I ruled this one out, because the nursery didn't have this rose in their 2008 catalogue.

Karima

Nope. Not Rose de Rescht.

I haven't looked at Mme. Isaac Pereire for a while, but the color would be a match. That one's VERY thorny.
I'd have to see a lot more, though.

Jeri