I grow Fisherman's Friend and it is my best red Austin for mid and late summer repeat. Yes, it demands attention for its thorns, but it seems to be a keeper up here.
I won't be able to compare Tess of the D'urbervilles with it this year as a Mockingbird has moved into Tess, so I won't be doing any training of Tess against its arbor. I've decided the birds get first choice and they are fun enough to watch to let them own parts of the gardens.

Fisherman's Friend produces a beautiful bloom, but in our part of the country, it often develops the most enormous, grotesque green "steeples" at the center of each bloom. A green "pip" is one thing, but these growths were sufficiently disfiguring to make the entire plant unpleasant to look at.
It also mildewed with fair consistency, and rusted late.
Despite the glorious color and fragrance, this is one of the Austins that seems un-suited to this part of the country.

Jeri

I grow Fisherman's Friend, also in a large pot on an obelisk, so I can control it's reach a bit since it's close to the entrance to the garage. I love it. Huge smelly blooms that stay on the plant for a long time. It's situated sorta under the eaves at the front of my porch overhang and that apparently protected it enough that it was the only rose that didn't get damaged by the Big Easter Chill of 2007. It bloomed when nothing else did, a nice flush. No sooner did I deadhead that flush then it started setting buds for the next flush--which is almost at it's peak right now--and sent up 2 large basals. I bought it as a memorial to my father, but it has earned it's place in it's own right. To be fair, a few of the first flush's blooms had vegetative centers, but the rest were gorgeous. It's a keeper here. Yes, mean thorns, and hard to train if the canes are not really new.

Barbara

I have Fisherman's Friend. It is horribly thorny and wants to throw very long octopus canes. The flowers are fairly large, dark red, full-petalled, very fragrant, and makes one beg for more. But, there aren't that many of them. Repeat bloom for me is lousy. It survived the great Easter freeze, but if it dies at some point, I won't replace it. I would say it is better suited to some other climate than out here on the plains.

I bought mine some years ago from Chamlee's with the name Lover's Delight. Been growing in a too shady area for most of those years..but we dug it up last fall and put in a pot. Growing now outside the kitchen window, this is the second flush and it's already proven to be a keeper with half a chance. It endured years of less than optimum growing conditions and still managed to bloom in heavy shade. I'm still not seeing rampant growth..but that may still be coming. Fragrance is knockdown. Picture is from yesterday..

{{gwi:266021}}

I have this rose, it is so vigorous and hardy. I have no disease problems here. Very trouble free. Very fragrant. I lost some canes this year because our winter here was horrible! First time ever though after 5 previous winters.

But it is springing back very vigorously as Austins tend to do. I only get a green center in the very earliest spring, very rarely though.

Thorny though, I would not plant it where anyone has to walk right by it. One of the easiest roses I have here for zone 5.

I have it in a location where I often only see the tallest part of it. Mine is beautiful, but I need to look at it more carefully to see if the center is odd like Jeri says. Mine is quite tall, and not very wide. It is sort of going through Basye's Blueberry or it would need support.

I think it is odd that for years Chamblees would write that "some think it is the same rose as Fisherman's Friend". Don't they do DNA tests on roses? I feel the same way about Cramoisi Superieur and Louis Phillipe. Can't someone figure it out? It seems to me that either they are the same or they aren't?

Sammy

>> Don't they do DNA tests on roses?

*** NOPE.
Wouldn't it be nice?

Anyhow, this particular rose is so distinctive (and of fairly recent vintage) that I think "some think it is . . . " was a way of getting around paying royalties.
I've told that D.A. charges more than the average for licensing someone to grow/sell his cultivars -- and I can imagine that would be an incentive to "fudge".

Jeri

Same story different year... Chamblee's IS a licensed grower of DA roses. Mark doesn't need to fudge anybody. When they got the LD plant many years ago, they didn't have any FF stock plants to compare it to. Once they got licensed to grow Austins, DA either no longer had the rose available. The patent is expired.

Besides sounding more "rosy" than Fisherman's anything, I think the nursery kept the name "Lovers Delite" for sentimental reasons. Frank (RIP) who was the propagator there for about 20 years named the rose.

I never intended to imply that Chamblee's would fudge anything! Most of my roses have come from there either directly by shopping there on the way home from Dallas, shipped directly to my home, or from my local rose merchant who buys from Chamblee's wholesale. I have been most pleased with all purchases. I only asked b/c I looked up LD on Help Me Find site and there was the FF reference. I think all the Chamblee people are the greatest! Buff

Hi Nay,

I didn't know that Frank named the rose. I do know that you had tremendous respect for him, and I remember so well when he received the bad diagnosis, and when he passed. I like knowing that Lovers' Delight was named by him.

Were there any others that he propagated or named that I might have?

Sammy

Nay, what a great story and Kaye, thank you for sharing. I am going to buy it based on that experience. I liked Frank from a distance, never really knew him but I bet I would have liked him because Nay and Kaye liked him. I bet he was a super guy. We lose too many of those "super guys."