Frances, this is definitely useless info for you, but in a 1-gallon pot my FDY didn't bat an eye at 8+ hours of 20 degrees this winter. I'm curious to know how far north people are growing it. Are you 6a or 6b? It can definitely take abuse, too. It's been in that pot for a year - never did pot it up. :((

Sherry

I am in USDA Zone 8, but we do get freeze events as low as 12F once or sometimes twice a Winter. Otherwise, Winter nights rarely dip much below 32F. If we get a hard freeze event, 'Fortune's Yellow' is damaged very badly, often freezing down to a stump. I seriously doubt you'd do more than keep it alive in Zone 6.

Paul B.

Gee, Paul, mine looks pretty good for what should be a dead rose.
Mine is at the bottom of our hill, along the fenceline and has been for over a decade. It has voles and moles living among its roots (not a good thing.) It gets no auxillary water and seldom gets fertilized (aside from aforementioned voles and moles). Where it lives is on average five degrees colder than our hilltop to the north, it's a cold sink that I didn't anticipate when we started ptting roses along that fenceling.
Coldest temperature it's had here is about -5F. But my roses harden off well in my growing conditions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fortune's Double Yellow's on page 1

Ann,
I'm, really surprised to hear this. Perhaps, as you say, the plants in your zone get to harden off well before Winter freezes start. Here, we rarely get ANY hardening off; it just goes from 40F one day to 12F the next!

Paul

Oh Ann you just made my night! I'm so glad I peeked in at this thread.
I've been lusting after FDY for years now and always thought it would be too tender here (and I just don't have space left in the garage!).
After reading about yours I'm willing to take a shot at it.
(loved looking at your photos too!)
Now I just have to see who carries it. If Chamblees does, I always have great luck with their roses.

Thanks so much everybody!! Ann, I'm very excited to hear you have had luck with this rose in zone 6b. I don't know whether I'm 6a or 6b (can anybody tell me how to find out?) - I'm in central NJ, near Princeton. I'm very, very tempted to try this rose in a sheltered spot ...

Jackie,
Vintage Gardens carries it and it is currently in stock...be sure and order at least 4, it costs as much to ship 1 as it does 4...

I was hestitate to order this rose in z7, but from these reports, I have changed my mind and will take the chance!!!

I won't tell you what to do, but ..... I've learned a few things this past year.
I've kept some chinas alive in my kitchen. It just got too dry and stayed too dry to plant them in the middle of a multiyear drought.
To my great surprise, China roses can stand to have their soil dry out. (Learned accidentally). In fact, they have thrived with alternating wet and dry soil.
It got so hot in the kitchen with sun hitting the window, that it burned the leaves on my large Bay Leaf (for cooking) tree. I had to cut the bay leaf back. The chinas growing next to the bay laurel kept chugging along.

Where Fortune's Double Yellow grows is very well drained, the shallow top soil there is from an old river channel when it cut through there; it sits on a layer of weathered chert (SiO2 with no nutrients what so ever and that's on clay).

If I were redoing this, I'd plant FDY in a well draining soil, some clay but not much humus. I'd do everything I could, protection wise, to get that rose to accumulate woody material on it. Protect the new growth from rabbits. I'd try to keep mulch off of the root area the first several years; I think the roots like it hot.
No guarantees, but this year I've realized that chinas may have some different preferences than teas.

I too have been lusting after Fortune's Double Yellow for years, ever since I saw it at Folili, where it was in full bloom, about 15 feeet high, and 25 feet wide on a large wall. You could barely see any foliage, there were so many flowers. I knew nothing about roses at the time, but I was so struck that I called Folili the next day to ask what rose it was. Luckily the volunteer who answered the phone knew all about it. I know it would like my zone 9, but I have no idea how long it blooms in CA - does anyone in a Meditteranean climate zone 9 have one? Could you let me know how long it blooms in the Spring?

I chuckled at the remarks about keeping it in pots and moving it into the garage - there are advantages to living in zones 6 & 7 - you can keep some of these tender monsters to a smaller size without having to prune them back once a week!

I've seen pictures of huge plants of it in Australia also - I know that in my garden it would take off like mad. Does anyone know if it tolerates any shade? Maybe if I planted one in partial shade it would stay small enough to fit onto my 1/3 acre lot...

Jackie

So Ann, how large is your FDY in Zone 6?

Jackie, FDY starts blooming the first week in April and blooms through that month heavily. It produces scattered bloom into May. I'm going to guess mine will start blooming earlier this year. I have is planted far from the house in deep clay, where it gets no care other than summer drip to keep it alive.

Six feet high, four feet wide.
The one year we had consistant rainfall thoughtout the summer it had two blooms in the fall, but other once blooming roses on the fenceline were blooming themselves silly that fall.
(Fortune wouldn't have rhapsodized about mine the way he did in his book, but mine survives and blooms well. It's all I ask of it.)

"Six feet high, four feet wide. "

Golly. My mind immediately snaps back to the first time I saw 'Fortune's Yellow' in Fresno, CA, where it grew up a utility pole and spilled over onto a tall hedge bordering a driveway. It was about 30 feet tall and probably stretched 35 feet down the hedge line. It was astonishing.

Paul

Paul,
Now that sounds like the rose that Fortune saw in China.
I'm just thankful to have it growing and blooming.

Ann, of small roses (except for American Pillar) (and Gardenia)

I'm late chiming in here, but after a fairly cold winter in DC, the ones I planted in a public garden are doing great -- we had prolonged cold that damaged a number of borderline-hardy plants that haven't been injured in recent years with their zone 8 winters. Our low was somewhere in the middle single digits, perhaps 7 or 8 degrees Fahrenheit or maybe a bit lower, and we spent many long hours well below freezing unlike most winters. There was also very little snow to be seen.

The plants of 'Fortune's Double Yellow' were almost uninjured, and at least one of the specimens didn't even lose all of its leaves! They are all budding out vigorously now, and are probably about 4' high by 6' wide after a mere two years in the ground from bands. The summer heat may certainly be ripening the canes; these plants do not lack for water during the summer and some of them are in part shade.

Stefan

There was one we saw up in the Gold Rush country, going up an old tree to the gable of an old 2-story house, and spilling down the tree in a cascade of blooms.

I'm fascinated by the long journey that rose has made, from China, to Europe, to a ghost town in the Sierra Foothills.

Jeri

This rose covered three 8 foot fence sections its 2nd season in Texas. I would hate to grow this rose in a climate where it would die back a lot, as it sports thorns almost as vicious as Mermaid's. Am sure my old neighbors all hate me by now... I had Fortune's Double Yellow and Mermaid side by side. Ann's right about the neglect-- both grew in an area far from any regular irrigation. They grew even faster than white Lady Banks. Gee, I oughta fly to Texas this spring and see how they're all doing!

Those prickles sure are scary, but the blooms are easily (and fortunately, I might add ;) sensuous enough to reward us for putting up with them for the rest of the year.

Stefan

Our first FDY died the first winter when we were 7b a dozen years ago. I don't recall how cold it got. Now we have another in a protected, south facing courtyard, plus now we've been reclassified zone 8a. It's in its third year and has survived temperatures in the teens (lowest 13 F, perhaps warmer in the courtyard). Buds began appearing a few days ago.

Mike

Will FDY bloom in a pot or does it have to be in the ground? Mike's mentioning seeing buds makes me want to run out and look. I've had mine 2 years in a small pot.

Sherry