Thanks, Marlorena. I despise fa(r)cebook, but in this case it gave me enough info to track down the English version of Marizio's current website. Click through to "projects", and prepare to drool. La Pietra Rossa Studio EDIT: while I was on his website, I went ahead and emailed Maurizio. Speaking for all of us, I told him we'd love to hear from him again.

I grew Mayor of Casterbrige back in my old house and I really LOVE that rose. It was healthy for me. No diseases. By 3rd year, it was already matured in the ground. It became very huge and Tall (because I don't like to prune mine i want it to develop it's framework first) and the spring flush was magnificent. I had neighbors commenting how pretty that rose was. Mayor of Casterbrige looks very cottagey.. the leaves look old-fashioned and the blooms are small and perfectly cupped with interwined petals - they remind me of The Fairy rose. I might grow this rose again if I could find it here. Sadly for me, I only get one magnificent spring flush that could last for about a month and that was it. Are you sure it's a sucker? It could be canes of MoC popping out from the root stock. It can get quite wide too.

I see the same problem with 2 of my roses. One is FP and the other is William Shakespeare 2000. Both are massive bloomers, but I notice the same thing: About 20 percent of the buds simply dry out and newer become blooms, sometimes the buds simply fall of. Nor thrips or drought is causing the problem here. I will take pictures of the phenomenon later this year. It is a curiosity, but it really do not worry me that much since both roses produce so many flowers anyway. A 5 y.o. bush of FP produces maybe 2-300 hundred blooms over 5 weeks. In the end of the flush I do notice the "Dry Buds" , what causes them I do not know. But it is not keeping me awake at night :-)

I grew Mayor of C in my zone 9 garden, in dry heat, not moist such as I beleive you have in Thailand, and it grew tall and bloomed hardly at all. I think this variety is either a dud, or can be best grown in cooler climates.