Patricia my roses are just now in the plump bud stage....lol Well....I do have two little teeny blooms on Leonie Lemesche! I am eagerly awaiting my "show" for the neighborhood!!! I am so excited about this years bloom for some reason. My Mrs. BR Cant is coming out of her slump from the pine tree episode and is putting on tons of new growth. I do so love this Tea rose. Deb

I expect we could....if we could find any. The real shocker is that there is 1 (yes just 1) grower selling tea roses in the UK - Peter Beales. The wildly encouraging thing is that his nursery is less than 6 miles from my wood! A mere bicycle ride. The less encouraging part is the wood itself - although the southern edge is clear across water meadows, woodland is not a natural home for tea roses. With Peter Beale's death earlier this year, the propagation of teas is on an extremely fragile footing. I suspect they do have a few devotees, especially in the southern counties....but I also believe that it was stubborness and a deeply personal decision of Mr.Beales to grow these roses - hope his daughter will be continuing. The slender handful of growers who do deal in old roses grow almost exclusively once flowering Europeans and a handful of bourbons..... although many people in the UK conflate old roses with ramblers and climbers - we are quite comfortable with Albertine, Madame Alfred, and the trove of enormous white ramblers such as Wedding Day and Bobbie James. There has been an increasing interest in heirloom seeds (on both sides of the atlantic) but has tended to translate into a search for fruits and vegetables while flowers and shrubs are relegated to the second division. I tend to sit on the fence a bit since I grow a mix of open pollinated veggies (mainly so I can save the seeds) but also swear by some of the F1 varieties (for the health and vigour which is inbuilt) - yes, the taste of an heirloom tomato is nice...but no use at all if the row has gone down to blight. Moreover, while the fuss about organics rattles on: I have come to believe that there is NO difference in the organic-ness of a vegetable (taste-wise) - it is in the cultivation and the freshness where we get the real joy of growing your own....although there are big caveats when comparing home grown anything against intensive agriculture of monocrops. Back to teas (it is hard to stick to the point, discussing horticulture since there are so many overlaps), I feel compelled to attempt at least one variety - a visit to Attleborough in June may well decide which one to choose as I would really be cross with myself if I lost the chance because of dithering (and yep, have been here before, pondering a tea to try, but bottled it at the last minute and bought another Hebe's Lip instead (for some reason, I was really hopeless striking cuttings on that one).

This rose is named after the wife of Mr. Benjamin Revett Cant 1828-1904. The Cant name in rose growing goes back probably four generations back from Benjamin Cant and they started out life as ordinary seedsmen in say 1728 (ish) but became interested in rose as more were brought back from China and other countries. Benjamin's wife was named Elizabeth. There are descendants of the Cant family still operating Cant's Roses in Colchester, England, but no more named Cant descendants. My children descend from Olive Cant who always had lots of roses in her garden. There are descendants of Benjamin's son Harry still living in Australia. This rose is still available in England directly from Cants Roses, Colchester, England and it is also in USA and Australia, where it flourishes as a native. Another interesting fact about Benjamin R. Cant is that he was an entrepreneur, and opened the first dual Ice skating and roller skating rinks in England, putting on skating shows, even bringing an elephant into one of the rinks as part of an act. He started to lose money when he appointed a manager to run the empire, and when others in Britain began to copy him. He just avoided bankruptcy by selling nearly everything he had but the road he made to get to the complex is still there. He spent many years developing Mrs. B.R.Cant, getting the rose just right, and I hope that my care of my children's ancestor gives justice to his efforts, flair and sense of fun. The rose is in centres in most countries - just don't give up looking. An interesting note is that in both World wars, a fair amount of thei Cant land growing roses, was dug up to grow vegetables for the war effort.

I can only comment on how I've seen them perform in my climate type. I resisted Adam because of the mildewy mess it always was in Bob Edberg's Van Nuys garden. Of course, since it isn't "modern", he forgave it its transgressions. Mrs. B.R. Cant I've never been able to warm up to, but that simply means she has never "spoken" to me. As for Red Radiance, it's a sport of Radiance, the rose J. Horace McFarland proclaimed "A World Rose", anywhere a man can live Radiance can be expected to grow and flourish. I am partial to older modern roses, tomorrow's antiques. All the time I've been involved in roses, the OGRs have had their champions. The older moderns haven't, so I took up their banner as many of them are as wonderful as the saved OGRs. Red Radiance is one. Here is a link to an article I put on Help Me Find about it. Enjoy. http://www.helpmefind.com/plant/pl.php?n=5145&tab=32