Lyn,

I thought I might throw my 2 cents worth in as a newb to Teas in a cooler Australian climate.

I'm in Northern Tasmania about 50km north of Cradle Mountain (and only about 2000km north of Antarctica ;-) ). The Teas I have (O=own root, G= grafted) are 'Monsieur Tillier' (O), 'Marie Van Houtte' (G), 'Safrano' (G), 'Lorraine Lee' - Bush form (G), 'St Francis Xavier' (G), 'Francis Dubreuil' - not (G), an unknown climbing one I bought as an own-root tube plant (what I think you guys call bands), 'Comtesse de Labarthe' (O) which I think may be 'MME Joseph Schwartz' because I've never seen a fully pink flower on it... always white or with a slight pink flush around the edges of the petals, the real 'Comtesse de Labarthe' (O), from a friend in NSW, 'Etoile de Lyon' (I think... still trying to ID this one correctly)(G), "Adam" (G), 'Souvenir de MME Leonie Viennot' (O), 'MME Antoine Mari' own-root from cuttings sent by Margaret, and I've just bought 'Climbing Devoniensis' (G), and 'MME Lambard' (G). Patricia has also sent over cuttings of 'Mrs Val Nash' that I am hoping to get going too. 'Lady Huntingfield' behaves much like a Tea here so I include it here as one.

Here we experience winter lows around -4°C to -7°C and things freeze pretty much solid. The maximum daylight hours we get during winter is only about 6-8 hours and during the winter most the Teas will be leafless and dormant, however, some continue to grow and flower. 'Comtesse de Labarthe'/'MME Joseph Schwartz' still has leaves and is flowering sporadically for me now, about a third of the way through winter. It's an own root plant of about 3 yrs old and my oldest Tea. 'Monsieur Tillier' is fully leafed out but not flowering. New leaves are forming on it now that are a rich blood-red. This is an own-root plant about 2 years old. 'Marie Van Houtte' is still mostly leafed out but these are old leaves that it refuses to shed. I'm guessing they too will fall before the end of winter. The rest are pretty much asleep. We experience one or two episodes of snow each year but we freeze solid almost every night during winter.

In my climate they take a really long time to get established and going but the cold doesn't seem to worry them too much. They go to sleep just like the other roses and they wake up again to grow in spring... I don't think it's the cold that gets them here. I think it's the length of our summer. Summer temperatures can reach mainland highs up around the high 30's and low 40's (°C) but this very rarely lasts for more than a few days and the warm weather seems to take forever to arrive and leave all too soon. By April we are all wearing jumpers again and trees are turning their leaves autmun colours. I think this sets my Teas back considerably because their active growing season is so short. The days during summer are very long. Sun-up is around 5am and there is still enough light at 9:30pm to cast a shadow outdoors. Needless to say we get a lot of work done in Summer and the kids at the school I teach at are always tired (and cranky) because they don't get to bed early enough and are woken by blazing sun in the wee hours of the morning. The Teas don't go to sleep during summer here because it never gets that hot. Tea-like roses, like 'Fortune's Double Yellow', the Noisettes and Chinas behave in a similar fashion here and grow at a snail's pace.

So far, at 3yrs old, none of them seem overly densely foliaged. 'Safrano' is the worst offender in this regard followed closely by 'Lorraine Lee'. Reading Billy's and Patricia's accounts of their 'Devoniensis' plants (bush form) I'm hoping that this is a settling in period and over the next few years they will begin to fill out more and end up looking like the one in Billy's photo, shown above, of 'Lorraine Lee'. I am inspred by the photo of 'Monsieur Tiilier' on page 4 of the Tea book growing in Port Arthur, Tasmania, where it gets much colder for much longer than it is here. If it can grow there it can grow anywhere!!! Robert Rippetoe has often mentioned to me that he has trouble growing Teas in the desert where he is because, he believes, the air is too dry. So it looks like a little humidity is essential for their success too. In your climate, I'd be giving them a go for sure.

Cheers,

Simon