I have four First Crush roses and they will soon be drop kicked over the fence. I got them because they were small, to go around the garden shed. Here are a couple of my First Crushes both are 8 feet tall. Photos difficult to see but First Crush is the white one on the left. No diseases, no bugs, tall, very thick canes and no fragrance. What happened to the 3 foot bushes!!!

Another 8 foot one touching the garden shed gutters. Very, very vigorous rose.

What a gorgeous lineup in the first picture, just stunning. What is the pink rose leaning down in the second picture?

OR where do you live?? Those are amazing! Feel free to drop kick them all to Smiley TX, they would find a happy home!

First Crush won my heart the minute I saw it. Even loved her European name of Constanze Mozart. I bought 3 and they were wonderful the first year, but they never grew another inch or gave me more than a couple of oddly misshapen blooms in the years to follow. I removed one last summer. I will try dousing the two remaining with extra manure, plant food, alfalfa tea and anything else I can think of. If they don't respond, they're outta here, too. Unlike Oldrosarian's, mine did have very strong fragrance. They are very beautiful where they are happy.

That pink rose is to die for!

Gosh, oldrosarian, I'd buy that pink rose of yours in a heartbeat if it were available at a nursery. If you got that gorgeous thing from one attempt, you need to be doing that full time. What a beautiful setting you have it in.

OMG Oldrosarian - that is the result of your hybridizing?! It's fantastic! Did you ever think about making it available for purchase?

First crush - I found it, twice on sale. But I passed on it as I had read numerous "not so good" reviews on this forum over the summer. Wonder if that was a mistake.

I got 3 on clearance on the kill racks of Lowes. They turned around real quick with a little water and care. I l♡ve them so muchthat I plan to buy some more when Lowes tries to kill their next batch :p

~Sjn

In Tennessee, very humid and thrippy conditions meant it never gave me good blooms. It was slow to open , so I would watch and wait giddy with excitement.. and then it would be a balled up mess . Mine did have a fragrance, and was hit or miss with disease. It could go 2 or 3 months looking good then defoliate from black spot in no time . Judy in GA would post hers , so beautiful and I went itnto a fit and dug mine out . She too has humidity like crazy but hers wasn’t nearly as fussy as mine .

Here is one of the nice blooms I had

Seeing that makes me want to try again but I won’t lol

Sultry, I have a friend in Tampa and her First Crush is gorgeous. She has hers in a pot so not huge but a blooming machine.

Lesli, you should go for it. It is all trial and error anyway.

Oldrosarian your roses are glorious! What a beauty.

My First Crush isn’t very large. It is around 4 feet and it is completely black spot free. It is the only rose in my garden that gets spider mites which are worse to me than any fungus. It has a wonderful scent, but the trips love it so much than by the time those bloom open they look awful. I will see if anything changes next spring, otherwise it isn’t worth keeping for me.

I transplanted two First Crushes a few years ago, and they did well, even in a spot with some morning shade. They have moderate fragrance. They can have some thrip or weather damage but typically the blooms open up well.

I am overall happy with my first crush. In my 5b garden, she is only 3’x3’. She gets some block spots, and seems to wait a bit longer in between flushes than my other roses, but the bloom is beautiful with strong fragrance, and vase life is pretty long. A keeper for me.

Claire

Oldrosarian, were/are your 'First Crush' plants grafted? It looks like the newer Kordes roses seem to go absolutely nuts when grafted, especially onto multiflora.

Either that, or some wonky budwood got sent out, and we need to start checking sources of the odd performers. Anybody want to go ahead and chime in with where they got theirs? Lowes/Home Depot allowed, lol!

First Crush was a misery in my garden. I had it for two years. Although it produced a lot of buds, I only had a couple of mildly fragrant flowers that looked decent. Most of the time the flowers looked like this:

I finally gave up and got rid of it.

OldRosarian, your pink climber looks fantastic! Blackspot doesn't exist in my climate so I bet it would do well here (hint, hint). It reminds me a bit of Aloha.

We have heat and black spot but it seems ok here so far. I get a lot of heart shaped roses. In extreme heat the color is more washed out white. In cooler weather its light baby pink with deeper pink buds. I thought I read somewhere that some of the Kordes are sold at the BBS on own root. They cut them back several times in the field until they are good and stocky..not sure who posted that.

Odd shaped bud...what's this called?

I had to give my rose a name because Palatine has cuttings of it. So I quickly named it Devine Fragrance. I also sent over a hundred cuttings of my unusual and rare roses plus many OGRs. No I am not allowed to say what they are in case some don't take. But you will enjoy them all as some are very rare. I only sent roses that people on the forum has given good references for most parts of the States.

I too get the split enters of First Crush. I honestly believe that the Korde's roses are best on their own roots. Budding just makes them too vigorous for the average garden. Mine was from Palatine so it would be on multiflora.

I agree with you oldrosarian. Kordes can get huge on multiflora

Too much of a good thing.

Your Devine Fragrance is glorious!

I too removed First Crush. For me it was a big green bush with dense foliage and few flowers. What blooms it did produce where usually damaged by weather or insects.

I think this one wants warm and dry.

I'll be keeping an eye on Palatine for your Devine Fragrance, oldrosarian. What an accomplishment. I'd be shouting from the roof tops if I had a success like that.

I agree with flowersaremusic. I'd be thrilled.

Oldrosarian, I'm curious why you spelled it Devine (rather than Divine)? Is in in reference to anything or is it a stylistic choice?

i got my own root first crush on clearance last year and it hasn’t taken off yet, but it does put out some good blooms. I hope by next season it will start putting out Basals. It hasn’t gotten over 3 1/2 ft so far.

I just planted mine from ARE this fall. Had some blooms and a light fragrance. I'll have to wait until next spring to see how well it does. So far so good.

I got my First Crush last spring and it only produced one exquisite bloom. Can’t wait to see how it grows up :)

Digging up some pics of my First Crush from this spring....

When she is good, she is really good, but when she is bad she is horrid

The little girl with the curl!!!!!!

I think like many Kordes roses she takes a while to get going. I'll post pics of mine and expand on my thoughts in a bit.

Mine is from Lowe’s, planted in 2016

If you have thrips and don’t spray I would not get it. I get a bunch of bad buds and blooms if I don’t spray. I love it and do spray when needed and mine only gets about 4 ft tall.

mine stays in the 3 to 4 ft range in zone 7 Maryland

I do. Lovely, frilly petals with a pretty, shy pink hue.

Wasn’t First Crush one that Cori Ann just raved about, during her over 100F temps? IIRC, both First Crush and Madame Anisette were amazing performers in her VERY hot, dry garden against a stone/block wall that radiated ferocious heat. Cori Ann’s were gorgeous! It’s sure a beautiful rose. Lisa

I miss Cori Ann and her gorgeous roses

I mostly just lurked then but didn’t Cori Ann also specialize in Rhodies and azaleas?

Yes, she was developing quite a collection. Hopefully, she'll return when her school schedule lets up unless it was the Houzz snaffu. However, she still posted after that. Yes Lisa, FC and MA were heat favorites in her garden. FC was a slow starter in mine and still isn't huge, but chugs along giving gorgeous blooms. It is a bit slower on repeat.

My first crush looks terrible with misshapen blooms. Does it improve with age? If not, its days are numbered.

Rekha, I find that First Crush has irregularly shaped blooms, which is part of the reason I've kept this rose. I find her to be blousy, slightly disheveled, and charming because of it. Mine is in a large container in full sun, and I managed to ruin the first round of blooms this year by being lax with my watering. Below are two shots of a bloom from its second round of spring buds (not as good as it could have been, I think, had I not gone and caused the poor thing to wilt!) It has been here for a few years. I wouldn't say this bloom is characteristic of them all -- they have quite a bit of variation. In general, they have tended to have more petals than what my plant is currently showing.

KS, your blooms look great. Mine were terrible. I should have taken some pics, but they were so bad, I could not bring myself to! I dont find any fragrance either.

How long have you had yours? Is it in the ground or in a container? I find that my roses in containers have very variable fragrance -- sometimes strong, sometimes not. This rose isn't strongly fragrant for me, but it is definitely pleasantly scented (more at some times than others -- this spring it isn't very strong). If you haven't had it for long I'd give it a few years, as long as it isn't too much of a hardship to take care of. See how it does for you. Yours might have been attacked by thrips. I've got thrips too, but this year my predatory insects seem to be doing a good job of eating them.