I have Puerto Rico, Rock Hill Peach Tea, Trinity, Miss Atwood, Mother Dudley, Smith's Parish and Red Smith's Parish.

Miss Atwood: This is the one I have had the longest. Oh, I love her. Beautiful peach colored blooms on a very fast growing plant. No disease problems that I recall, and in mild winters, it blooms all year. The large plant in my former garden died when I dug it out to move, and I replaced it this year for the new garden. I wouldn't be without it.

Trinity: My plant is currently about five feet wide by three feet tall, and blooms continuously. In the heat though, those blooms are pretty small and unimpressive. No disease at all, and has a nice full, shrubby habit with nice foliage.

Puerto Rico: This one is new to me. I received it as a band last August, and is currently five feet tall and about three feet wide. It's pretty sparsely foliated, but is blooming right now, though again, the flowers are unimpressive. I don't recall it getting blackspot in June when the disease was making its way around the garden. My general impression is, I like this rose. I suspect though, that it wasnts to be very large in my climate, because it has the gawky, open canes of young teas. In that case, it may be planted in the wrong place.

Mother Dudley/ Rock Hill Peach Tea- These two are so similar for me, that I really can't tell them apart yet. Peachy-pink flowers that turn pale and small in the heat. Still small, shrubby 2 ft tall babies. No disease.

Smith's Parish/ Red Smith's Parish- Also still small. No disease, small heat afflicted flowers the size of a nickle.

Smith's Parish (thought by many to be Robert Fortune's 'Five-Colored Rose' --

In character, this has always seemed to me to be more China-like than Tea-like ... but for the size of the plant. If allowed to, "Smiths Parish" can be about the size of a VW Bus.

It blooms profusely through most of the year, and in the decades it has grown here, it has never had any disease. I saw it in TX, growing at the end of a long row of 'Mutabilis.' All of the Mutabilis were defoliated by blackspot, while "Smith's Parish" remained impeccably clean. The different blooms do not mingle on a branch. Rather, each occupies a different part of the plant.

Mother Dudley mildews here for me. Sort of reminds me of Cels Multiflora . . .

The Found Teas I most admire are 'Le Pactole' and "Jesse Hildreth" (which is not in commerce).

Rock Hill Peach Tea and Thomasville Old Gold mildewed badly and are no longer here.

Hoag House Cream is actually a hybrid tea and has that habit, being a bit stiff, upright and bare-legged, not to mention thorny, but its leaves are very healthy (though susceptible to sunburn in heat waves) and the flowers are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I love Westside Road Cream Tea. It is the best of bloomers, repeating very quickly with large flushes. Twiggy growth and fully clothed to the ground, with healthy leaves except for a touch of PM early on that is not noticeable unless you really look. Not a rampageous grower; now maybe 4' tall and 5' wide after 6 or 7 years with little pruning.

Arcadia Louisiana Tea I also love (nearly as big as Mrs. B.R. Cant, good bloomer that I am glad I planted up a hill because the heavy blooms nod so much that they are best viewed from below) as well as Le Pactole (nice and healthy all around and another good bloomer).

I'd forgotten that Miss Atwood is a found tea. A fast grower, as brittie has pointed out, which has looked ratty for some time, probably from lack of rain, worse than some of the other teas. I'm trying to bring it back with extra care but it hasn't been impressed by my efforts so far.

Next to it is Hoag House Cream, a one stick, 12 inch-affair on which I've seen one bloom, but it is a young rose, and I've found the older hybrid teas are not the easiest to care for in my spartan conditions. I remain hopeful.

Bermuda Spice I would not grow again; for much of the year the flowers are small, pale and insignificant. Bermuda Kathleen might be lovely in a good location, but mine is planted in a hellish place against a hot hillside and I'm amazed it's still alive. It was gorgeous for about five minutes in spring.

Ingrid

Thanks for the feedback!

I forgot to ask, does anyone have experience with any of the found teas and chinas that Rogue Valley carries but aren't listed on the Class pages? Those include 'Jacksonville Pink Cupped Tea' (DdB perhaps?), 'Reuters China,' and 'Sherry Berglund's Pink China.'

Jay

I am so glad you started this thread! I have been making a spread sheet on Teas, who has what, and the next project was to search them and copy old notes.

What about:

Second Street Tea
Angel's Camp Tea
Aunt Belle's Tea
Flamingo Garden's Tea
Ley's Perpetual
Maitland White
Manchester Guardian Angel
McClinton Tea

Is Smith's Parish okay with some pruning? I got it but did not realize it could be a VW Bus lol

Manchester guardian Angel is a climber of somewhat epic proportions. Foliage was perfect. Blooms small, but lovely, and in big numbers, but with an amplitude of huge, vicious prickles.

Angels Camp Tea is probably the same cultivar that is grown under the name Octavus Weld in Australia, so if you have the Tea Rose book, look at the entry for Octavus Weld. It is a very changeable tea rose with varying colors from season to season, can be nearly taupe at times, or salmony pink to yellowish. Don't recall whether it has fragrance, haven't grown it at home, just propagated it for sale at the Sacramento Cemetery Rose sales. The original plants are quite large, but don't get pruned. We have a rose in the Sac Cemetery that is probably the same cultivar (planted on a gravesite). It is about 5 feet tall and somewhat sparse, but has been pruned incorrectly many times (like a hybrid tea) by some of the maintenance crew.

Angel's Camp Tea was a martyr to mildew here with no excuse, since it occupied a prime location in the garden. Gone.

I really liked McClinton Tea but sadly lost it after just a few years when the bed it was in became infected with oak root fungus originating from an old stump. Its leaves were healthy and I thought Vintage's description of the flowers opening like water lilies was apt -- very charming. It is one that I will grow again.

I came home from Florida with Flamingo Garden Tea last fall, but right after that I went into my downsizing mode so I gave it to the SJHRG. I haven't seen it there yet. I suspect Jill Perry is letting it get some size before she plants it. It's a bad idea to plant tiny plants in a public space - they can easily be stolen. So I cannot tell you how it will do.

I can tentatively agree with Catspa about Westside Road Cream Tea. Mine are young and as yet small, but they are very healthy and cycle into bloom frequently.

Rosefolly

I'd forgotten that I had Second Street Tea because it was such an unsatisfactory rose, never really growing and hardly ever blooming. I gave it away and it fared no better in its new home. Ley's Perpetual died not long after I bought it as a band, which is probably my fault.

I had McClinton Tea twice, as a free rose the second time, and I'm sorry to say that I considered it one of the worst-looking roses I'd ever had. Someone else on the forum likened its flowers to scrambled eggs and I have to agree. I'm glad it looks better elsewhere, and it must have something I didn't see since several nurseries offer it.

Angel's Camp Tea was a very pretty rose but fried very quickly in the heat, and I substituted Le Vesuve, but I wish now I had kept it for longer in hopes that it might have improved.

Ingrid

My "Bermuda Spice" is in its second year, and I enjoy it. I understand Ingrid's opinion of it, and if you think of it as a Tea then you will likely be unimpressed. I think of it as a fragrant China, and in my climate, that's how it's performing. Yes, the blooms are small (especially during the hot part of Summer), but they keep coming without pause. Here it's about the same size as 'Marie Pavie' both in plant- and flower-size. If I lived where it grew large and yet still had small blooms, then I'd probably be a bit more disparaging of it.

:-)

~Christopher

Anyone grow "Windsor Tea"?

I grew Windsor Tea for several years, Kippy, and was not taken with it. The plant was small and slow-growing (an appreciated trait for teas around here!), but the blossoms were so weak-necked and droopy that you were always looking down at the backs of the flowers (which were nice enough) and not their faces and it was not likely to grow tall enough to remedy that. It also got a fair amount of PM.

"Jesse Hildreth" is sumptuous. He looks like he ought to be fragrant, so I hope he is.

Virginia

Yes. Jesse is subtly fragrant. My nose is undependable, but I smell tea and some sweet fruit.

Here's a link to the list of roses to be offered at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden's Fall Sale:

Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: SJHRG Sale

Jay, for me the individual flowers of Spice crumpled up by the second day so that the bush always seemed to be half-covered with unattractive, dried-up flowers. With your humidity (which I assume is higher than my usual 12-18%) I assume that's less of a problem.

Ingrid

Besides "Jesse Hildreth", my favorite found teas at the moment are "Curtiss Ave Yellow Tea" and "Giannini Tea". Neither of those are available for sale this year, but I'll try to start some cuttings for next year.

Jill

I'm going to have to look for those two, on the 27th. THIS year, I won't be sick, and I'll be taking pictures.

Jeri

I like 'J.E. Murphy's Pink Tea' (which may be 'Mme. Emilie Charrin'). It has a perfectly healthy and vigorous plant, good leaves, and a flower of a decided pink color with a form which is both pretty and distinctive. Recommended.

My 'Second Street Tea' is taking its sweet time to make anything of itself; but early this year, it started to show some interest in growing, so we'll see. The plant is not yet large enough for me to trust how representative the flowers it has are; but, as of yet, they're a warm light pink, and full of petals.

'Arcadia Louisiana Tea' is wonderfully happy in my garden--healthy, vigorous, bloomy, and beautiful. The flower color is essentially a chalky pink, which doesn't sound as attractive as it is. The bush is about six and a half feet tall, and thickly foliaged. It would dominate that area of the garden if it weren't for an extremely vigorous 'Faberge', which is just as tall, and, by its orange color, distracts from 'Arcadia Louisiana Tea'. I think 'Faberge' is an outstanding rose, indeed one of the very best; but I wish I had planted it elsewhere (it wasn't supposed to be so tall!). But no way am I moving a big, healthy, happy rose...

Like 'Second Street Tea', my 'Florence Bowers' is a little slow getting started; but, that said, it did put out this year a good, if slender, six-foot cane, more like one would expect of a climber than of a regular Tea. The plant is young, so I can't really say much about the flowers; but it seems to bloom in flushes rather than anything like continuously.