When DA roses hit this area in the late '80's they DID advise planting them in 3's and very close together. I'm glad Neal and Mika remember that...for a long time I thought I'd imagined it.
Back then, you couldn't get them growing in containers here, they were only bare root. Now you can.
They were all the rage here at the beginning...until people (myself included) started realizing that many of them didn't like the heat and humidity here as well as the maladies that resulted. The hype about them back then was that they'd thrive anywhere, and unfortunately that proved to be a fallacy.
I was skeptical about them at the beginning and thought to myself, "How can roses bred in England, where they don't have the intense heat and humidity of coastal So. Calif. summers possibly grow here ?" but I tried them anyway ! I could almost smell them frying like bacon in the heat of summer and they LOOKED like fried bacon, too. lol
However, the selection back then wasn't as vast as it is now, either, but they have managed to develop cultivars that tolerate a wider range of climates and conditions.
