Of those I only have La Reine, and she's less than a year old, so I can't say much about her.

You say it's "pretty hot and dry" where you are. I've read that in general the old HPs and Portlands don't repeat well unless they are watered and fed regularly/heavily. Otherwise they more or less become once bloomers.

I have no idea what is causing the balling. Usually that's a problem in wet weather.

hhhm, well I might not be feeding them enough! I've been pretty lax about that. I'll look into that this year.

Hi Aimee! Nice to see you've been able to pry yourself away from the cribs! Do your sprinklers hit the flowers on those roses? If not yours, are there any on the HOA common areas around your back yard which might be blowing in over or through the back fence which might hit them? I have several friends with that issue. THEIR sprinklers are adjusted not to hit the tops of the roses, but the HOA rainbirds on the common areas over shoot and drench their roses, causing all sorts of issues.

High heat and scalding sun can fry those soft petals. Dews and cool, damper temps can also cause balling. I doubt fertilizing them, or not, is going to result in any improvement because the soft petal tissues will still react to both damp/wet and searing heat and sun the same way.

I replaced most of the HPs and Bourbons in the old Newhall garden, not that many miles from where you live, because in that climate they just didn't perform well. When there were flowers, they didn't stand up to the severe conditions, and when all the more modern roses were exploding, most of those just sat there.

I was in Old Orchard, Valencia today. Souv. de la Malmaison's blooms were all balled. The sprinklers do not hit them and I am the only one who uses a hose anywhere near it. Souv. de St. Anne's across the path from it were all fine. Yves Piaget's flowers, right beside Malmaison, were fine. Larry Daniels' flowers just on the other side of Yves, were all fine. There are just too many, too thin, wispy, tender petals to endure the sun and heat intensity this time of year. Kim

I have CdC and BP. CdC balls, but BP doesn't. I'm not sure if CdC is also affected by thrips as well. I also have severe balling problems on Duchess d'Brabant and some other roses. We did have an exceptionally cool/wet spring, so I think that was part of it.

Kim, that's what I was thinking, that they just don't like it here that much. They are definitely NOT being hit with sprinklers. There's no common area in my front yard. These two (BP and LR) are in the front. I feel like they are in a showy place and they aren't doing their job for me when so many of my other roses are doing great.

CdC IS in the back and does get hit with sprinklers. I'm lucky if I see one good flower from her a year. I know she DOES flower, I just have to be lucky to happen to be there to see it since it's seldom and she balls a lot.

The funny thing is, like you said Kim, Larry Daniels, Sombrieul and plenty of others in my back do get hit with sprinklers but they do fine.

Yeah, I'm sick with some kind of nasty cold that's been going around and my twins are fussy so I needed to go out and stare at the roses for a little while. :)

Oh, well, if you're talking about SdlM -- that I can comment on.

We tried FIVE times to grow that rose. FIVE. Has to be a record.

Four different bush plants, and one climber. Not one of the five wanted to live here. None wanted to grow here. They set a reasonable number of blooms for plants of their sizes, but over a period of several years, we never saw one bloom open. Not ONE. ALL balled and rotted, in any season or any weather.

To add insult to injury, they set new standards here for powdery mildew.

I QUIT. Where it is lovely, it's lovely. Where it's drek, it's drek. Here, it is drek.

La Reine does not ball here (but it can rust)
Baronne Prevost always opens beautifully, and has no disease problems, and I can say the same of all of the various clones and sports of "Grandmother's Hat" that we grow, or have grown.

Jeri

I haven't had any luck with sdlM either :P