Audrey - be sure to let MIP build up well before you prune the laterals back to about 3 - leaves/eyes. That will produce new blooming laterals. It can become a huge rose - but I like to train it more - twisting the long canes around the about 24 inch in diameter metal support. It makes it produce many more blooming laterals - traning it this way. Growing naturally it will produce a big mound and it can send out 10 feet canes - first year these will only bloom at the tips - but next they will produce many blooming laterals/sideshoots. This is why I think that growing this rose with some kind of support - like training the long shoots horizontally on a trellis/fence/arbor produces the best results. Most freestanding MIPs I have seen look messy - huge thorny canes whipping all over - or the flowers are so high up that we can't smell them. The picture is 2 year old (plant 5 year old) and it only had a little mildew/very little rust at the time(I just sprayed and removed the infected leaves - and the summer pruning together with spraying kept it pretty clean. This year it has more rust and after picking the infected leaves/spraying it has lost about 20-25 percent of the leaves but looks pretty good now. Later in the season it also gets a little blackspot - but mildew and rust are worst here. So it is not an easy rose - but for those who are willing to put up with this work/care/spraying - they can choose if they think it is worth it. I love ultra fragrant roses - and will not live without it. I hope Nadia is up for a challenge. If all roses were this much work - I would not have time to grow many.

I can't say much about it, since it came as a band only this Spring, but another possible alternative in a similar mold could be 'Mme de Sevigne'. I got mine from Long Ago Roses after my 'Mme Isaac Pereire' bit the dust from freeze damage. I emailed Linda asking if she had an extra MIP available, and she recommended I try MdS. It might not be the original rose, but whatever it is, I like the looks of the (few) pics of it on HelpMeFind. Another long-caned fragrant Bourbon in a similar "look" would be 'Deuil de Dr. Reynaud' (which also might not be the original, and might be the same rose being sold as 'Philemon Cochet'). I've never seen it (nor PC), but I was looking into them when I was trying to pick out a long-caned fragrant Bourbon. I did buy 'Souvenir du President Lincoln' (or, at least, the rose being sold as such), but I gifted it to someone back in Buffalo. This was its second year in the ground. I'll have to find out how it did there. There's also 'Souvenir de Victor Landeau' but I don't think it'll grow to be as big and "climber-ish" as the others mentioned. Vintage Gardens gives it a different growth habit, and the one I have here is doing more of a "sprawling, self-pegging" type of growth habit -- canes grow up, grow long, then bow down from their own weight, and bloom all along their length the following year. It's been very vigorous for me, coming as a band in April 2012. It finally went in the ground this Summer, and also bloomed for the first time this year. I have some pics of it below (taken with an iPhone, so pardon the less-than-stellar quality). August 2012 (four months after receiving it as a band from Vintage Gardens). Those upright canes in the pics below later bowed down on their own: April, 2013...just leafing out, one year after receiving it as a band. That one cane shooting straight up arched down like the others during Summer: Late May, 2013...first wave of blooms weren't fully double, but were fully fragrant: Mid-June, 2013...with more buds about to bloom (this wave was fully-double). Notice the cane that was straight-up is already leaning to the left: Just to the left of center, in front of the stones and behind the log edging, taken August 31, 2013, it's finally planted. It's hard to see against the leaf litter mulch, but SdVL has canes arching out to the sides and forward. In fact, the cane draping over the log-edging is actually the cane that was originally growing straight-up in the earlier pics: Another shot of SdVL, here just to the right of center (look for the white name tag with two blue patches from the cardboard under the mulch sticking up), and you can see the long canes arching out from it. The "white" flowers in the pic belong to 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' behind and to the left of it. There's one cane shooting up on SdVL now, but by next year, it will also (likely) arch down on its own: :-) ~Christopher

Hi Adam, Could I ask how old your Mutabilis is? Does it need shade at all or would it be happy in full sun? A friend has just given me a cutting of her Mutabilis - at this stage it's tiny (in a 14cm pot) but I was wondering where I should plant her. I have one part of the garden that receives quite a lot of shade from a very old oak tree planted to the South of it (but along the roadside so it's beyond anyone's control). Also, if 8 x 8 feet is the dimension it reaches in the UK I wonder how big it will grow here in sunny Italy? Cheers Tricia

Hi Eric, My MEC is not overly vigorous or overly cane hardy for me. From what I've read here over the years is that MIP is still quite vigorous in zone 6. Of course I still love my MEC, but she has never attained the growth that I anticipated. I love the foliage which retains a red coloration for a long time. I remember reading someone describing it as if some of the flower pigmentation of MIP had gone to leaves of MEC. I also love the kind of pink the flowers have, a raspberry pink. She of course smells great. She can get some black spot, but does not become defoliated sticks like a hybrid tea would at least for me. Here is a link that might be useful: