I am quite a few zones different from the OP, but I have a virgorous, very vigorous MPO. I picked it up at a local nursery about 5 years ago. It's huge now. The fragrance is fantastic, like baby powder almost. It gives a good first flush with not great rebloom. One year I had a decent second flush and we'll see about this year. I had it all pegged, until my husband the whack job whacked part of it back. Now it has a mohawk in the center and long canes all around. Lovely.

My Louise Odier is doing the same thing. She was also planted this spring and has suddenly been growing like you describe. I haven't staked mine up, and the canes are bending over and self pegging, I'm getting laterals all along the cane. I'm thinking of getting a pillar to wrap the canes around. I wouldn't prune anything yet and let it put on some size. From what I hear about the long caned bourbons, you'll be sacrificing bloom. BTW, the Nicole Ritchie comparison is hilarious, I guess that makes my Louise Odier Paris Hilton...nahhh, I wouldn't do that to poor Louise :) Eric

hehe, Carol it's such a tough call and Krista's photos are making the decisions AGONIZING, lol! I keep revisiting and drooooling over Reine Viktoria and Louise Odier. I am soooo stuck. Common sense everyone should go for the Yves Piaget, but I just loooooooove the shape of Reine Viktoria and Louise Odier. I think I just need to buckle down and ask the vendor their opinions about the problems of Kansas heat versus Louise Odier. HMF says LO cannot do well with the heat. And to be honest very few roses can deal with our 110 degree heat. Ferdinand Pichard is getting roasted, so is little DD which still blooms its tiny heart out, the tree roses are a total mess with this heat. This is indeed our hottest summer. Carol I got bizarre extremes of taste. I prefer the tightly coiled HTs or the button eye or quartered ruffled look. It can't be too perfect and too uniform in shape if I choose a non-HT rose though. I love drooling over other gorgeous varieties of roses in other people's gardens but because James is howling to put salt all over my roses if I keep buying I have to be pretty careful to choose only the roses that I keep obsessing over, haha! yet will have enough rebloom. YG I think of as oh, so pretty so gorgeous but I don't get that obsessive feeling. Speaking of rebloom, Cornelia really taxes my patience. I cannot wait eight-ten weeks for a flush. I truly hope that Cornelia will be the last stingy flushed rose I get with, lol! Great fragrance at least and I love how huge this rose gets, but gyaah, it takes forever! to rebloom. Carol, hmmm Aromatherapy always had good rebloom- 4 weeks. And once it got into a flush, lots and lots of blooms but our sun rays are different than yours. It may be that Aromatherapy needs more direct rays to produce its blooms. Or it could be that Gardenville Sea Tea made it a prolific bloomer. Once I dig it up and abandon it to just regular waterings and coffee grinds, it may throw a fit, lol! and be a non-producer. We will wait and see, hehe! P.S. Boxo's AD I get a spin of obsessive and absolutely terrified! If I murder it that would be very unforgivable, and since AD is that one Austin I do obsess over, Austins do terrible in our disease BS ridden zone as well, and our rainy winters cause tons of canker rot. I figure a Stalker's job is to do none other than Stalk for what one can't have, haha! That's the whole purpose of Stalking, right? haha!

A bit of encouragement was all I needed! Actually I had been thinking that Mme Pierre oger would look well alongside her parent.Some even say she is more beautiful than Reine Victoria.I am already in the winter doldrums and the best remedy is to order more roses and think of september. regards pam