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My Lucille Ball rose.....

15 years ago

I am so happy to report that my one cane wonder Lucille Ball HT bush has rebounded and added on three basal breaks within the last couple of weeks.

This is her third year in the garden and she has been somewhat of a primadonna to grow. But, the old adage says that in the third year they leap!, so maybe this is her big leap into being a productive and vigorous growing rose in my garden. She has the loveiest blooms when she flowers and I just cannot wait to see her in a really big flush with all four of her canes bearing flowers to enjoy. It will certainly have me doing the HHRD in front yard and make my neighbors wonder about the rosenut next door--ME--even more than they already do.

JOhn

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Comments (7)

hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
15 years ago
Don't tease us! Pictures required! :)
artemis_pa
15 years ago
Oh please...pictures! I have lusted for a Lucille Ball. Please post a picture, even if it's without blooms. Source?
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Comments (24)
My LB plant was new last year and stayed extremely tiny. It is planted in a 10-gal. container and I overwintered her in the garage. The cane (Twig) is still green as of today as I nipped the top of it off and called that pruning. So, I hope that she is still alive. I hear it takes several years to really establish, so I will continue to really baby her along. The couple of blooms I got last year were small and not much form, but the color was outstanding and they lasted a long time. I am keeping all my appendages crossed for good luck with this one. I actually had two of them, but one didn't survive breaking dormancy. John
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Lucille Ball
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IMO, the allure of this rose is based on the facts that (1) we all loved Lucy and (2) the rose has the distinct advantage of having been hard to find for quite a long period of time. It's really too bad that a better rose wasn't chosen to honor Lucille Ball, and I feel there are real good reasons why the rose has rarely appeared on the market. Perhaps in some locales 'Lucille Ball' performs well, but she's an unmitigated disaster in others. I've grown her in 2 zones (7&8), and in both she was a prickly, unshapely, temperamental mess. If 'Lucille Ball' were a good garden rose that performed well in a variety of locations it would have been readily available/heavily marketed for years.
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Colby School, RoseBall, Kitty's Rose, & Happy Memories
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Comments (6)
Thanks you all for your comments. I have had a few roses for about 5 years but just started seriously buying and growing more roses last year and these Peter Beales roses make it easy to do. Thanks again Liz
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wanted: cuttings of Lucille ball
Q
Comments (0)
If anyone has cuttings of this I would love to trade for cuttings of roses I have. I have climbers, ht's, austins, bucks. I do have a couple that are rooted, but most are not rooted.
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mgleason56
15 years ago
I gave John long enough. Here are some pics of my Lucille Ball, which I rooted last year (YAY Digger!). Here is the bloom;
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Notice the spent blooms? Those will be cut and rooted tomorrow.

Here is the entire bush. This is about a year old now...
{{gwi:301072}}
sunnishine
15 years ago
ooh gorgeous! I have been lusting after this one too.
artemis_pa
15 years ago
Oh...thanks for the pictures. Digger....could you post your latest pictures of Lucy?
mgleason56
15 years ago
Digger - pix please!
diggerdave
15 years ago
That is great to hear John. I reckon everyone knows she is one of my favorite roses :)

Those look great Mike! Strangely enough.... I was as pleased with the foliage as I was with the blooms. That foliage looks wonderful. Foliage is one of the best features of Lucy in my opinion.
Now for the really strange news, I haven't uploaded any new pics of Lucy so far this year. I'll get to it asap. There are just so many good pics of her in her album: Lucille Ball Photos
Most of the ones I have had time to upload were to a new album: Yard Photos
Come to think of it.... there are some of her being overgrown by our monster Heirloom in that album :)

Those links open a new browser. By the way, my photos won't link here anyway.... since the upgrade a few months ago. Wonder if they are trying to tell me something???

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