Is it just the heat that allows it to get huge here in CA and in Italy and France?

Jackie

And Florida? Aw, Suzy, you mean you would sp this lovely butterfly if it gets to 85cm? 110cm? I can't help but think it will be gorgeous with GT - all those yellows, pinks & reds in close, blended proximity. I have never heard of understory roses, but it SOUNDS like a great idea if you're planting them at the same time. Seems like a way to double the real estate of a garden. Have you tried this before? But wouldn't it be more reasonable to place a truly small rose under a larger rose rather than brutally force a larger rose to be small? Of course, I understand what you're doing - making what you have fit into your space by hook or by crook. I wish you success, and perhaps the threat of Mr. Shovel will show Mutabilis that you're serious and perhaps I'm feeling a tad bit super sensitive this morning, but I would hope gentle persuasion could be used to cause this rose to come around to your view of things. But then again perhaps Mutabilis will spit in the eyes of both you and GT, telling the two of you where to get off and that if anyone is to be an understory rose it will be GT. Sounds like a smackdown is in the offing.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Is it just the heat that allows it to get huge here in CA and in Italy and France?

Rosa chinensis is native to sub-tropical southern China, so I would guess that yes, what it wants to truly thrive is a long, hot summer and a mild winter.

nah, honestly, it is a tiny little dainty thing here. To further stir the pot though, I am only slightly in love with mutabilis. It is mainly for the delicacy of its leaves that this rose is even getting a looksy in my new garden - that, and the singleness of the flowers. A goodly number of roses have been exiled or confined to pots so mutabilis has a very specific task to perform - it will be planted under the GT, which has been trained high on a lovely brick wall. It is also going in with the coral bark acer, a very ordinary but stunning autumn shrub - euonymous alata compacta, a lovely bronze carex (not the horrible comans) a number of soft orange perennials (spanish poppy, mimulus aurianticus and a number of taller purples (veronica, lobelia) so yes, there is a colour theme and a design involved here instead of my usual plonking and adding at will. In the face of this stern resolve on my part, I am absolutely demanding certain criteria from my plants. Mutabilis is lucky to make the cut and yep, if it does incur my displeasure, it's history.

One of the things that takes a certain amount of getting used to with Mutabilis, is that it never gives the single big flush of bloom like the repeat blooming 'hardy' roses. It's always a one here, one there, one on the other side of the plant type thing. So unless the plant becomes fairly massive, it never has a lot of flowers on it. The foliage is quite nice though, and I do enjoy that aspect of it.

BTW, mine lives in a pot. A fairly large pot, but still a pot. It's about 5 ft tall, including the pot, so about a 3 ft plant. It is currently riding out the cold snap in the garage.

Do you think your scarcity of bloom may be either the zone you're in or the pot it's in? Mine, until I killed it, stayed covered in blooms. Unfortunately, it succumed to a fungal cane dieback disease that I didn't get diagnosed in time to save it.

No, it's the nature of the beast. Here, 'covered with bloom' means you can't see the leaves for the flowers. I've never seen a picture of Mutabilis that even comes close to that. It's just not set up for the sort of 'sleep', 'bloom', 'grow', 'bloom' that most of the roses we grow do.

You also have to remember that this thing is all of 3 ft tall, and for here is an enormous specimen. When I had it in the ground, it was lucky to break 2 ft and flower at all.

I've only once seen Mutabilis covered in blooms from top to bottom and that was over 20 years ago in the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. It was awesome, about 8 feet tall by 8 feet wide, and that sight marked the beginning of my love of old roses. I never again saw it or any other Mutabilis covered with so many blooms, but it was a spectacular sight. I've always heard that it stays small in England, no doubt due to the lack of heat.

Ingrid

Here, 'covered with bloom' means you can't see the leaves for the flowers.

Roses with R. multiflora heritage (such as hybrid musks like Ballerina, and many of the ramblers) are particularly good at approaching that when they're happy.

mad_gallica, I keep expecting mine to "become mature enough" that they get covered with blooms. Thanks for setting me straight. Now I don't have to bear that burden any longer.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

campanula, I love the description of the planting you are planning, it sounds gorgeous.

Here in North Texas, where we get 100+ degrees for days on end in the summer, my mutabilis have grown up to 8 feet tall and wide. I wouldn't say that it was so covered in blooms that you can't see the foliage, but I get constant generous blooming from mine.

Now I don't have to bear that burden any longer.

Sherry, here's a glorious post of a well developed Lady Hillingdon in suburban Maryland (near DC, in about zone 7, IIRC). As you can see, despite its vigor and maturity it doesn't "cover itself in flowers", either.

'Mutabilis' appears to be a particularly striking example of what heat can do for a rose's dimensions. I've seen it here in Italy--northern Italy, where we have long chilly winters!--occupying roughly the volume of our living room. I think I saw it once as a climber, too, years ago at Sal�. Mine is certainly a stout hearty shrub.

I am in zone 6b, we have hot summers, but also cold winters. Mutabilis here can get huge. It easily gets to 8x8 even with pruning. I saw Mutabilis covered with blooms. Every time you prune it more significantly in spring (taking approx 1/3-1/2 off from canes length and removind some most twiggy geowth)it will result in amazing spring show.
Olga

mmm, yep, Olga, that is precisely how I manage mine - almost like a topiary specimen. I also tend to think of it as less of a shrub and more of a perennial - the dainty flowers never arrive in huge flushes but act like a cut and come again perennial such as helenium or phlox. I think heat and season length is much more significant than soil conditions or even nutrients - rich living just makes it leafier, here. Another of my chinas, Sophie's Perpetual, is much larger, even though it has the same twiggy architecture.

My mutablis was about 5 by 5. When I said covered in bloom, I meant the bush had blooms from top to bottom and on all sides, not an occasional bloom here or there as described by mad gallica. I didn't mean to imply you couldn't see leaves, but there were many many blooms at one time.

I think that heat is the determining variable. While the phrase 'covered in bloom' is certainly subjective, my Mutabilis has pretty much constant and generous bloom until the winter.

With absolutely no disrespect to Suzy, there certainly are much larger specimens of Mutabilis in the UK than the dimensions she gives, including several in nearby gardens and a spectacular 25-ft climber at Kiftsgate Court (those with Philips and Rix's 'The Quest for the Rose' will know that one).

Of course, none is likely to approach the size of Australian, New Zealand and even S. Californian giants - but it is still very worthwhile if well situated and well grown. And when did size become a marker for quality :)

Best wishes
Jon

indeedaroo, Jon - seen em myself! But.....I have always considered the name mutabilis to be a reference not only to the changing colours but to the general chameleonlike quality of this fetching china. East Ruston (The Old Vicarage) has only a single rose in the entire garden (have you ever been - a theatrical experience) - a tall and gangly mutabilis. Blink, and you miss it behind swathes of dahlias. For english gardeners (and others in less glorious climates than Cali and Florida), Louis Lens has been breeding an array of hybrid musks with mutabilis in the lineage - Plaisanterie, Patricia Beuchar (or something similar) Apricot Bells (I think) and a few others which will grow larger while still keeping the demure prettiness of the blooms. And true, size is no indication of quality (unless when associated with my expanding girth and clearly oversized snarkiness genes).
Hey Jon, disrespect away, I kinda like it!