I am just newly trying them thanks to Ingrid. Very encouraging to hear!

Yes, teas are great. I love them. Mine did suffer in the polar vortex and died back to the ground. But they came back strong. They are surprisingly disease resistance in my blackspot prone area.

You do not have to be in a hot desert climate - they love most climates with warm/hot summers and mild winters. In my Mediterranean climate, they are the best, most blooming, roses in my garden and live to be 100 years old.

Jackie

Debbym - I forgot to say, there is a great & wonderful book exclusively about tea roses. If you do not have it, I think you would love it. It is called "Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens". It was written by 5 ladies in Australia who spent years researching the tea roses, named and mystery, in Australia. It is evidently the first book published on tea roses in over 100 years.

Jackie

Yes, they are wonderful roses here in Sydney, flowering in flushes almost all year.

Trish

Jackie, yes, I have that book. I've read it cover to cover, about 100 times! Love the book. A must-have for anyone interested in tea roses.

HOORAY FOR YOU! Keep spreading the word. In climates without terribly hard freezes, Teas RULE!

Yes, which brings us to one of my pet peeves which I have often expressed here, about why people do not breed new Teas apart from a few exceptions (isolated cases in India and Aus, I believe, maybe very few from the States also). I understand why breeders targeting the main European markets won't breed these but in the States? Even in Europe, Teas should be bred in places like Italy which do have a tradition of rose breeding.

One reason I love teas is because they are landscape roses that make a dramatic impact by virtue of their size, bushiness and number of flowers. There are not too many almost everblooming roses (in warm climates) that can make that claim, Mutabilis and some of the noisettes being the exception.

Paul Barden has done some new teas. I have Won Fang Yon and I love it.

I also have Won Fang Yon (young plant) and love it. It blooms constantly (except summer here). Great rose.

I also have wondered why there isn't much breeding of teas for warm climates. I figured it had to do with the perceived economics of rose growing. Teas just don't get much press, I guess.

I have a large ARS test garden less than a mile from my house (local community college) and, to my knowledge, there is not one tea in that garden. Crazy.

debbym.... I'm delighted your Tea roses are doing so well for you, and I think if I lived in a hot climate, they would be my choice, in the main... although perhaps more out of necessity, as to be honest, although there are some gems, I'm not terribly struck on them overall, even though I try a few here more as curiosities, which is about the most I can manage...

..however, I was wondering, do you irrigate your roses? perhaps that's why you see less of them in public gardens...? I can only judge from what I read here, but it appears that, at least in the modern age, warm climate gardeners seem to find it necessary to employ quite complex irrigation systems, even using grey water...

...those in cooler climates probably don't need to, and have other fish to fry...

...just an observation...

..here's 'Catherine Mermet' in a garden in England.... it's a struggle, and we would rarely see the best of them...

I agree England would be a struggle for teas. Here in the warm and dry, teas would need less pampering than almost anything. I think many public gardens don't have an old rose expert and commercial interests don't lend themselves to plants that live 100 years. Some people are uneducated and want instant results. The teas are a warm region treasure!

For one thing, for me, just the much reduced need for pruning Teas and Chinas would be sufficient reason to grow them. Labour saving!

My first Tea was DdB and my first China was OB (of course) and they both had me smitten.

I have procured my Teas up to now from the UK, although I will need to diversify in the future since the selection available from UK sources is limited. Whenever I plant a Tea (and China) sourced from the UK, I get the feeling I have saved its life! lol! I feel quite the opposite when planting an Austin...

Nik, everyone who has bought roses sourced from John and Becky Hook in France speaks very highly of their plants and they have a very impressive collection of Teas. I know that they will ship to Italy - I imagine that they would ship to Greece but I don't know that for sure.

Here in the Bay Area where powdery mildew is a problem we have to be selective about which teas we choose to plant. My first experiments mildewed rather badly and I did not try again for over a decade. But now I have a number of teas all of which are doing very well, some with no PM at all and some with very little once in a while. When I look out my bedroom window and see a glorious Rozette Delizy, a White Maman Cochet, and Le Vesuve, I am very happy I tried them again.

I'm in NJ, technically zone 7a but the last two Winters were harsh. Here, the few Teas and Chinas I planted in the ground are great. They do get cut back hard by Winter, but Summers here give them what they need to rebound and grow like gangbusters. When my "hardier" roses take a nap during the hottest part of Summer, my Chinas and Teas are in their glory. "Bermuda Spice" was NEVER without at least a few blooms since it started in late May -- there are even about 30 or so on it now, after the first freeze last night. Mine also don't seem to be bothered at all by the prevalent blackspot, but a few did get touches of mildew when the weather started turning cold in Autumn. Frankly, if I had to choose between mildew and blackspot, I'd rather have mildew. If it bothers me enough to do something about it, a quick spray with the Cornell mixture clears it up right away. Blackspot is not so easy to handle without fungicides.

As to why breeders don't introduce more of them, I think there are a few reasons. One is that there are already so many to choose from, and those who choose them tend to be "off the beaten track" as far as rose growers go. That and their limited cold hardiness -- as well as their potential sizes -- put a cap on their potential market in the US. But I do think that as gardeners in appropriate areas continue to seek healthy, easy-care "landscaping" roses as opposed to finicky roses whose presence is endured for the sake of their florist-quality blooms, the usefulness of the Teas will be rediscovered. If you want that to happen faster, talk about them with your gardening neighbors to spread the word.

:-)

~Christopher

Lux, I should have amended my previous post to reflect commercial rose breeders, who seek wider markets. There are a few amateur rose breeders using Teas, as well as some other warm-climate types and species. Personally, I prefer the idea of more local breeders aiming for roses in their climates than a few centralized ones aiming for mass appeal. Kim Rupert is a perfect example of the former. I've seen some interesting work done by him and others who post on the Rose Hybridizers Association Forum. A few "hit the jackpot" and achieve commercial releases.

Yes, there are oodles of Hybrid Teas being churned out, but I think that for many, their greatest appeal is in their newness. How many "big sellers" are still popular ten years later? The Teas have already undergone a drastic pruning in numbers, and despite changes in tastes, the ones we have today were maintained and endured. Many whose greatest appeal was in their "newness" at the time, but were later found to be poor garden plants, are no longer with us.

And I agree with your longing for a mauve -- or even purple -- Tea. As for yellow, the only one which comes to mind is Paul Barden's 'Licorice Tea', but I've never seen it in person.

:-)

~Christopher

As I read recently there seem to bit about 150-200 recorded Tea roses alive today. Accounting for scarceness, regional unavailability, underperformance and climate dependent disease susceptibility of a number of them this does not make a long list from which to choose from by any means. More Tea like roses are needed and we are not going to have them unless some sort of revival focused breeding AND promotion takes place in the manner of what DA did for European style OGRs. The only place where this could reasonably happen is Cal in my view, not Aus nor India and not the depressed South of Europe. Or maybe the Chinese will surprise us again at some point..

Well, I do happen to know SOMEONE in California who's been collecting Teas and Chinas recently -- perhaps he has some plans ahead?

:-)

~Christopher