Friday, March 30, 2012

Rosa 'Bengal Fire'...it's not the only rose in the collection blooming in March!?!....


but it's the only one that didn't defoliate at all last winter. I'm not saying that it held a good number of leaves; it didn't lose any leaves at all. Of course it was a warm winter, but still... The more time I spend around this rose the more I appreciate it. The flowers are simple and single, I like the color, though maybe it isn't for everyone, and there's no fragrance. But, it flowers all summer, this year it'll be all spring, summer, and fall. There are essentially no thorns. The foliage stays completely clean even in the face of our intensely humid and hot summers. Most of the season the new growth is red; you can see small shoots in the bottom picture. It's a nice shrub with red flowers all season.

3 comments:

Nic said...

I love the color... But I assume with that tendency to keep its leaves and to be ever-blooming this is not a particularly hardy breed...

ChrisU said...

It only kept it's leaves this winter because, well, we had no winter. The three winters preceding this one, it defoliated like any other rose.

Connie in Hartwood said...

Gotta love those China roses! This is one of my favorites ... it's good to see that you like it, too.