A little late in the bloom season, but better late than never. Nickel thought it was too hot for a fluffy little black dog to walk around in the sun, and I'm certainly thirsty myself! OK -- my rose is NOT Mr. Lincoln, Chrysler Imperial, Veteran's Honor, or Olympiad. It is not Crimson Bouquet or Crimson Glory or Veteran's Honor. The two that struck me as closest were Oklahoma and Ingrid Bergman, though I thought the flowers on Ingrid (which were otherwise VERY similar) were smaller and less scented than on my plant. I am not confident about the Oklahoma ID and it was the first similar red I saw so my brain cells are pretty much burnt out and I can't remember enough now. I also scrawled "Firefighter???" in my notebook and I seem to recall people complaining about it, which I'm not sure would happen with a rose that grows as nicely as mine does. Maybe it IS one of those, and I'm sure I'm nowhere near good enough at this to be sure. I know there are variations based on soil and such... it just seems odd that the one I have been growing no-spray and with, um, somewhat spotty and less than professional care would have more and bigger flowers than the ones at the Portland Rose Garden... ya know? I did not see an Opening Night which probably means it wasn't blooming there... or maybe I wandered blithely past in in a heat haze! And I did not see a John S Armstrong, which is too bad considering I thought it looked so promising for my ID. My plant is the most floriferous rose I have, the flowers are large, well formed, and durable, it has scent, it has good stems, disease resistance is pretty decent... I just can't believe it isn't something well known and well thought of!

You'll have troubles finding it, but the best I've seen is Merci.

A little more about re-blooming. Earlier I said a bulb can bloom as many as three times a year. That is a general statement and how many times a bulb will bloom will depend on the genetic heritage it has. plant guy reports that none of his large-flowered Dutch hybrids has ever bloomed more than once a year. That is usually the case with most modern hybrids. One reason is that they will send up 1, 2 or 3 scapes at a time depending on the size of the bulb. In sending up 3 scapes, for instance, the bulb needs a year to prepare the next scape for blooming. If a medium sized bulb sends up only one scape, in 3-4 months (but sometimes less--it's not a hard and fast rule) a second scape may be ready to go. You may have seen this happen--just as the first scape has finally dried up, a second emerges. Sometimes it's 2 at once then a 3rd later, kind of in an extended blooming period, not so much like well-separated ones. Some years they may do one thing and the next they do another. If it doesn't happen, it's not necessarily anything you did or didn't do--you really can blame it on the bulb! They may lack that particular disposition due to genetic heritage. I wasn't specific enough when I said a Hippeastrum *can* re-bloom, it seems and it sounds like I meant *any* of them can. That's not what I meant you to get from that. Not all of them can re-bloom and should not be expected to. It *can* happen, a second or third blooming--but it depends on the specific bulb. Grow them all as best you can anyway! Cultural handling can vary from year to year and any combination of factors can play into this, as far as known re-bloomers goes. If I had a striatum that *didn't* give me at least one re-blooming after 3-5 months--something is wrong. Striatum is one species that regularly blooms 3 times a year under good conditions. Only one blooming a year--you could do better.....If you get a second blooming, you're doing better, but cultural conditions could still be improved.....3 cycles of bloom--that's the way to do it! Commercial breeders are interested in bulbs that *don't* offset prolifically and will send up multiple scapes all at once, *one time* a year. That is to benefit the cut flower trade as well as the home grower--one big show or one good "crop" of flowers is what it is all about. So many people are happy with a holiday Hippi blooming once--its scary how many people just toss them after that. That's all they want. As far as breeding good multipliers goes--this is counterproductive and the last thing commercial growers are interested in. The offsets pull on the mother bulb and slow it's increase. They are not needed in large commercial ventures: they section or chip the bulbs for rapid increase and do not rely on offset production. So anyway, some modern cultivars *will* re bloom. In my small collection, this year I had a second flush from Rilona, Dancing Queen, Piquant and as I said, H. striatum. Right now I have a third flush on one of my striatums. This is my first season with the three named hybrids, so I don't know how reliably they will re-bloom for me, but I'll be expecting that it is quite possible based on what happened this year. Is it possible that the re-blooming was due to their being newly planted bulbs? Could be...I just couldn't say. Next year will be interesting....... Robert.

Being in Texas, I would imagine MOST roses in your desired color would thrive in less than 8 hours of sun. That level of direct sun would be very appropriate in New York, Oregon, Washington, etc. Where UV and heat are intense, significantly less than 8 hours of direct sun are preferable for the vast majority of roses. When "full sun" was written and became part of the repeated "rose knowledge", the major authors were British, writing about conditions in British gardens. Vastly different from what a huge section of this country endures.