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Tell me about Generosa and Renaissance roses

12 years ago

How do the Generosa and Renaissance series of roses compare to Austins in terms of:

- health (particularly resistance to BS)

- growth habit and shrub appeal

- hardiness

- cut flower quality

- fragrance

Please recommend some flagship roses in each series that have impressed you. Where can I find a comprehensive list of the roses in the Generosa and Renaissance series?

Also, what own-root sources have the most complete collections of Generosas and Renaissances for purchase?

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Comments (3)

karenforroses
12 years ago
I grew two Generosa roses that I bought from Arena a number of years ago - Sonia Rykiel and Martine Guillot. They were beautiful and hardy on my sheltered east wall. However, I lost them both to rose mosaic virus. I hope the ones that are out there now are not virused. They had the form and fragrance of many of my Austin roses and were fairly disease resistant. Rebloom was better with Martine than Sonia, but that may be because Sonia was impacted by the virus earlier than Martine. I've replaced them both with Austins, which are doing very well.
User
12 years ago
I have a couple of the Rennaissance roses - Phillipa and Claire/Liliana. Both these roses get big - easily over 2m tall and as wide with a terrific first flush. Unfortunately, BS is an issue although I don't do anything about it as they are on my allotment and I don't mind them looking a bit dire for the later half of the season. Phillippa has poor rebloom although Claire is much more consistent, repeating easily and well. Not as much BS as Phillippa and a lovely clear apricot colour. Both these roses, and I think the Rennaissance roses in general, smell strongly of old rose. Very hardy. I have heard that Sophia is a good yellow. Also, they are good in a vase - Phillippa in particular has long, long stems and roses which would have been ideal florists roses. Being pale, is tends to ball and spot a little in rain but these are statuesque roses which have a presence at the allotment.
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Kate, that's very common thing, it seems. I'm also very sad because there are dozens of excellent DAs I simply cannot buy anywhere in Australia, because they're not introduced here at all. And only few nurseries grow latest introductions (which are excellent and far superior, btw). American market is much better in that regard, whilst in Europe you can buy them all. So, whom to blame? Best place to buy roses is Europe, and everything else is pale in comparison. But even outside EU you'll find many problems obtaining roses from France, Germany or UK. Strict import laws and many other reasons prevent us from growing and enjoying some great roses.
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dublinbay z6 (KS)
12 years ago
I don't know that there is much accomplished by comparing different "brands" of roses. Each category will have beautiful roses that BS like crazy, others that suffer more limited amounts of BS, and a handful that truly are disease-resistant, or nearly so.

The one exception I can think of is the more recent Kordes roses--which are being bred with disease-resistance as one of their prime characteristics--but there are other Kordes roses that are not.

Even David Austin is paying more attention to disease-resistance in some of his more recent offerings. Most of his earlier ones are quite BS prone.

But that is probably true, as a very broad generalization, about most roses out there on the market. Only recently has disease-resistance become important to the buyer--so many nurseries are now breeding for disease-resistance. With earlier roses (in general), that was not important to the buyer, so nurseries didn't worry much about it one way or another.

Kate

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