Hi
It is a very good rose and smaller than other HPs. I have mine growing in soil that is mostly sand with added compost. If I don't regularly apply some kind of fertilizer when it is about to start first flush it will look like the flowering took all energy out of it when it is over. I know add composted cowmanure and a bit of organic rose fertilizer twice a season; and when EdF is in its first flush I use one of those liquid fertilizers that have seaweed and all kinds of organic stuff in them and water with that every a week or so around first flush. It looks much better then and new growth is better too. Can get some blackspot, but mostly a healty plant.

A stunningly beautiful bloom, especially in the fall. This spring the leaves are covered with crud and many of the buds curled up and died. I sprayed in March with dormant spray and am wondering if that's the problem. No other roses have any indication of such suffering. Great soil, lots of air circulation, and of the blooms that are extant, just lovely! Wouldn't trade it for the world, it's one of my favorite roses.

Sue

I don't know for sure which one mine is. If it's the one I think it is, it has performed admirably for its first year, maybe the most vigorous one of the 12 from Pickering, beautiful blooms in singles and not in clusters.

I can identify most of the 12, saved all the tags, etc., and their location, but there is some confusion in the code she used, so it could be Wisley or Hyde Hall for all I know, at some point was going to take photos of the ones I'm not sure about and ask for help. It could not possibly be Geoff Hamilton or Rosemoor; those are the only other ones with pink shades, plus they sent me an odd or mistagged one; Pat Austin is missing from my order, of that I am sure now. I will have to take it up with them.

A word of warning though.
In Southern California, Enfant de France/Spencer will mildew constantly without a rigorous spray program.
AAMOF, it mildewed for us even when we HAD a regular spray program -- but we are coastal.
It carries a spectacularly beautiful bloom, but it is not for every garden.

Jeri

Well, we can't go on about this beauty without a photograph, so here we are:

{{gwi:222101}}

Sue

I went to HMF to look at their photos of Enfant. There are several different ones listed, and I didn't know which one Pickering sells.

They are only selling potted roses for pickup, and Enfant is among them, says origin Lartay, FRA, 1860.

The photos at HMF that look most like the one posted show it blooming in clusters, so maybe mine isn't the one I think it is.

Very nice photo!

Mine doesn't bloom in clusters but individually on incredibly short stems, very close to the foliage. And for a new rose it has a lot of buds and flowers. Meanwhile my other new roses are still little and haven't begun to bud let alone flower.

Sorry , in looking more closely I see it does bloom (or bud) in clusters.

It is at least 30 flowers and/or buds on it now. Quite something for a rose planted only for a few weeks.

Jim - I have 3 "Enfant de France" from Pickering and I am convinced it's not correctly named. I believe it to be Comte de Chambord - blooms, sepals, foliage, prickles all identical. Several who visited my garden recently concurred. Not the first time Pickering has sold a misnamed rose (I'm not saying on purpose, mind you).

Next year I will order Enfant de France from ARE and compare the two.

Suze - where is yours from?

George

In checking HMF I find pics of the Enfant close to mine except for one that seems much lighter pink. Now in checking Comte's pics I see the strong resemblance to E's but a difference.

Now Pickering. Mine obviously came this spring, when did you order yours? Is it possible they shifted from Conte to E? at some later point?

Now another point. There is a difference in size of the two. E being rather short that certainly agrees with mine. It has a short look. Well is less than a foot and said to grow to about 3. Now Comte is bigger close to 5'. We'll see in the coming months how mine grows.

Pics in QR of the Enfant show a silvery pink look and more narrow petals and a big rose. 5.7" My flowers no where near that yet but considering it's age not surprising. Another proof of the pudding for the future.

George, my EdF is from ARE, purchased and planted March 2005. It's draped around a tripod and the canes completely fill the 5' height. Blooms are at least a third again the size of Comte de Chambord and don't resemble each other at all, Enfant being a more delicate, narrow, and lighter pink petal with a brighter dark pinks as shown in the photo. Comte is a more stable color throughout, also not as blowsy.

Sue

An old thread, but I thought I'd add my experiences with it in the southeast. Duke Gardens grows it in a no spray garden (NC, 7b). It's quite tall, 6' or more, with arching canes and little central bush. It's a fairly ugly plant in this climate. It's also one of the most defoliated roses in the garden. It's rebloom is stingy at best. The flowers themselves are gorgeous, and one of my favorite fragrances, but I cannot recommend this in the Southeast.

@oldrosarian That's a gorgeous rose, but I have to say it does look more like Comte de Chambord than Enfant de France. Here are some shots of my Enfant, sold mislabeled as Spencer from Heirloom Roses. On Enfant, the coloring of the inner petals is not very subtle, at all.

My Compte de Chambard from Pickering has more petals than Enfant de France and less shading.

John's pictures remind me of the one I had from ARE years ago. The oldest references to this rose describe the sharp contrast between the pale/almost white outer petals, and darker center. ARE describes theirs as short, rarely getting to three feet. Odd that some people are describing a five and even six foot shrub. Maybe in really warm climates it can slowly build into something bigger?

Peter Beales's nursery appears to be selling the softer pink rose, even admitting that it might be mislabeled. https://www.classicroses.co.uk/roses/enfant-de-france-shrub-rose.html

Bellegallica, you're correct about the older references noting the distinct difference in colors between the outer petals (described as white or "flesh" colored) and inner petals (described as pink or violet-red).

John, is yours fragrant? I just ordered one from ARE, and I don't remember if the one I had from them before had a scent or not.

Does yours remain fairly short and full?

I wasn't aware of the Spencer mix-up before reading this thread.

Bellegallica, yes it's a very fragrant rose. I bought it years ago at Heirloom's end of summer sale with no idea what I was getting, since I was new to roses at the time. This band had buds that opened over the next few weeks, and I remember thinking the blooms smelled like my grandmother's perfume had smelled to me as a boy - a lovely, warm scent.

It does stay short and full - a nice bushy shape. In the fall, I cut it back to about 2/3 of the height I want it to bloom at the following year...much like I do with Rose de Rescht, Indigo, Souvenir de la Malmaison and Boule de Neige. It gets another less dramatic shearing after the spring flush, which is always the heaviest flowering of the year. In fact, in my previous garden, the spring flush was often the only flush it gave me, but it was competing with a hornbeam there...and trees always win. I get another flush or so in this garden where it has much better sun, soil and moisture...but it's still not a great repeat blooming rose for me.

I became aware of the mix-up with Spencer when I posted some photos of my rose as Spencer on HMF. It looked like over half of the other roses posted as Spencer, so I figured it was the correct name. Luckily someone took the time to tell me the photos I had posted were actually of Enfant de France...and upon reviewing the references, I realized they were right.

Thanks for the info. That's a bummer about the repeat. I was hoping it would be a more reliable bloomer. Maybe that's why I gave the first one away. I can't remember. I need to start keeping records about my roses, so I can stop making the same mistakes again and again. :-)

Well, despite the poor repeat, it's one of the roses I decided to bring with me to my new garden. It has a lot of good qualities and is really shining in good conditions. The spring flush this year was as heavy as any once blooming rose might produce. This is only its second year in this garden (from a cutting rooted the previous year), so maybe the repeat will improve as it gets better established.

Ah, that makes sense. It could be too young to repeat well. I didn't keep mine very long either. Maybe I just needed to have more patience--something that's always in short supply with me.

The mature one I know at Duke Gardens has a spring flush, and then almost no repeat. You might get a single blossom once a month or so. Smells amazing, though.

I bought one last year. It seems to have good vigor. The early blooms are big and there are a good many of them relative to the size of the plant. They are nice enough looking..expecting them to improve over time. At the moment the plant doesn't look especially bs prone but it is way too early to say much about it.

bellegallica9a, you were right - Enfant de France is repeating just fine for me. It just needed some maturity ...and better conditions than I provided at my last garden. It's definitely more of a "blooms in flushes" rose than a "continuous bloom" rose, but the buds for the second flush began to appear just a couple of weeks after the last bloom of the long first flush ended. I'm looking forward to seeing how big this flush will be. I don't expect it to be as large as the first...but I'm also hoping it will be!

Well miracle of miracles, the one at Duke gardens actually had a real second flush: