This rose has been around since 1976, and yes its colors and scent(it smells so good you want to eat it) are second to no other.The only problem with this rose,that will make you very unhappy, is its lack of vigor and longevity.A year or 2 after planting its vigor will slowly decrease until it produces few or no flowers and begs to be dug. I am describing a DD grafted on Rosa Dr Huey which is an old standard in rose propagation.Now for the good news. This rose has been grafted on a new root stock and so far the vigor is excellent, but its too soon to judge the longevity factor but I predict it will far out perform Dr Huey.So don't run out and buy a Double Delight, you will be disappointed. I can tell you where you can get the NEW Double Delight if you want one.
jwashington08 at centurytel.net

How would you characterize the disease resistance of Double Delight?
What is its zone hardiness on the new rootstock?

Disease resistance is average about the same as all the others I am growing.I don't know about zone hardiness.I can ask the person who is doing the grafting.
where are you @?
jwash

zone 6b but I need roses with excellent disease resistance.

Why do you have to have excellent disease resistance??I grow roses for show and have for 40 years.This year, so far, I have won 16 trophies and still got 1 more show to go.By restricting the roses you will grow you are missing the best of the best.Double Delight is one example.

jwash,

You must have some spectacular roses to win all those awards! Congratulations!

If you weren't so far away, I would beg to come and see them.

I am relatively new to rose gardening and have started out without using sprays. I don 't anticipate entering any rose shows. "Roses without chemicals" by Peter Kukielski is my tutor for now, although I just joined the American Rose Society, so I'm sure I will learn a lot through that resource too. I am also learning a lot from the NGA rosarians.

What is the new root stock? My Double Delight grafted onto Dr. Huey did start declining gradually in the last few years, but it's been in my garden for more than 30 years. I have another, grafted onto R. fortuniana, and it shows no sign of decline yet, but it has only been here for about 10-12 years. The one on R. fortuniana is easily twice the size of the other -- about 6-7 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide.

Zuzu ...

Double Delight, can be rejuvenated quite easily, so you don't need to let it decline. DD is a rose that benefits greatly from having at least one older cane cut back to the bud union every year. This practice triggers the rose to put out more basal growth than usual. New wood is always more efficient than old wood. If you do this kind of pruning you end up with a new rose every four to five years.

Jim ... my Double Delight is a rose that I rescued back in 2005 from a house that was being torn down. I have no idea how old the rose was when I rescued it, but my plant has been going strong since the first year I planted it in this garden.

I'll remember that for next time, Lyn. The currently declining one has only one cane left, so I can't really rejuvenate by removing a cane. Or maybe I can, but the risk seems too great.

Zuzu ...

I've done it with a couple of roses, but I didn't cut them down to the bud union. I left a couple of bud eyes. Since the rose was commercially available, I decided to take the risk.

This is a photo of 'Kardinal' taken this May. It was a one cane wonder ... :smily:



Something to think about.

Wow! Nice. I'll try it.

Pruning down to the bud union is an extreme measure to renew a dying rose but if it worked for you Lyn so be it.For ZUZU-where did you get a rose grafted on Fortuniana RS 10-12 years ago if I may ask??? I understand about the size of your Fort grafted rose I have about 75 hybrid teas on Fort RS and I just fall pruned them by cutting off an average of 4 feet on each one.I am getting ready for a Rose show in Tallahassee if the hurricanes will just leave me alone.!!
Jim aka jwash

MerryGro Farms in Florida used to have a thriving business, but the nursery shut down 10 years ago. They sold Jackson & Perkins roses grafted onto fortuniana. I bought several roses from them. All of them are still stars in my garden. The clematises I bought from them also have survived and are among the largest in my garden. I really miss that nursery.

jwash said:Pruning down to the bud union is an extreme measure to renew a dying rose but if it worked for you Lyn so be it.For ZUZU-where did you get a rose grafted on Fortuniana RS 10-12 years ago if I may ask??? I understand about the size of your Fort grafted rose I have about 75 hybrid teas on Fort RS and I just fall pruned them by cutting off an average of 4 feet on each one.I am getting ready for a Rose show in Tallahassee if the hurricanes will just leave me alone.!!
Jim aka jwash

Jim ... as a long-term rose exhibitor, I am certain you have read a lot of rose literature.

Rejuvenation pruning is a common practice, not an extreme measure, used in many gardens and does much to create healthy rose plants for the long term.

Edward LeGrice writes in Rose Growing Complete, published in 1965 on page 60 while he was writing about how to prune hybrid tea roses:

"Always remember to cut one shoot hard to the ground level, a year, leaving only one eye only, each year, thus ensuring abundant basal growth. Succeeding years should see a repetition of this pruning. However old the bushes, the wood will never be of great age because of continual renewal of wood as advocated."

Even tho' he was working with roses from an older period than many we grow today, I have followed this practice for years and find that my roses are more disease resistant and produce more blooms each season than when I pruned as I was initially taught by a consulting rosarian.

Edited for another typo

I stand corrected Lyn. I typed before I put my brain in gear.Even tho I have not read Mr LeGrice's work I have actually most of the time followed his advice.I have many times cut off old canes that have become non-productive to get them out of the way and out of sight because they have become ugly compared to new growth.I wasn't thinking of forcing basal growth or plant rejuvenation. But like I said if it works thats great. I will be paying more attention to old growth that needs to come off for sure!!

I can tell you it worked on 3 of my climbers. I purchased Blaze, Golden Showers and a white climber from Jackson & Perkins 25+ years ago. Over the last few years, I noticed fewer and fewer flowers and the canes had what looked like gray bark on the canes. In 2015, I cut one of the old canes off of Golden Showers and a old cane off Blaze and the white climber in hopes of producing new growth/ rejuvenating these climbers. I figured if I killed them, I would replace them with new ones - what did i have to lose?. Much to my surprise new canes - basal growth emerged. Blaze has 3 new canes, Golden Showers has 4 and the white climber has 4 new canes to date. I cut the old canes over a 2 year period of time - one cane each year.
The first photo is a of Golden Showers from 2015 - it shows the new growth that it produced. Like I said it now has 4 canes. The next photo is a picture of the one of the many blooms of G.S. bloom from this summer.
Next photo is a recent 2017 photo of Blaze which also produced many flowers and repeated often also. The last photo is of what I think may be Iceberg (the white climber) from this summer which has new 4 canes.
I would have taken new photos of my rejuvenated climbers today but aside from it raining, I have them tied up because I am having the wood vertical siding on my house stained this week.

@jwash ....

Good luck with your show ....

.I wasn't thinking of forcing basal growth or plant rejuvenation. But like I said if it works thats great. I will be paying more attention to old growth that needs to come off for sure!!

I forgot to add ... "It depends on the rose" ... Let us know how it works out for you.

As for Double Delight in the Northeast, Carol, I think it would be worth the risk. I grew it in NJ and my recollection is that I was pleased with it early on. But I also recall that it disappeared later. I'd say that Cherry Parfait might get you a plant of much easier care and potentially great visual impact with the same coloration, but there is something about the perfectly grown blossom of a Double Delight that nothing approaches.

Thanks for the info on pruning, Lyn. It's very timely for me. Just minutes before reading your entry I was inspecting a six year old Westerland and deciding on which two of the seven or eight canes to remove this spring. So it seems that I have been gradually edging toward that practice myself. I have no hybrid tea roses vigorous enough to raze to the ground so often as every fourth or fifth year. But I do notice that new growth canes tend to be more vigorous than old growth ones in most roses, regardless of class. So, independently, I have begun the practice preached by Le Grice of removing old canes. It's always reassuring, when one sets off on a road less travelled to find one or two others who do so, too.

As I mentioned before, Steve, you are a good observer.

I do notice that new growth canes tend to be more vigorous than old growth ones in most roses, regardless of class.

As I said above, new wood is always more efficient than old wood. That is because it can move moisture and nutrients through the canes much easier than old wood. In a way, you can think of old wood as having an form of arteriosclerosis ... a hardening of the arteries.

Even with your HTs that you think are not vigorous enough, now that you are watering them more, take one cane out to give it a kick start towards better performance. You don't need to do it to all of them, but you can experiment and see if it makes a difference. I'd pick one that has been around for a while ...