'Spanish Rhapsody' |
'Spanish Rhapsody' is a shrub rose, officially labeled as a pink blend, although the blend is actually pink, yellow, and something stippled that approaches deep rose. The medium size bloom starts out with hybrid-tea-form and then opens over a day or two into a semi-cupped double blossom with yellow stamens. The blooms primarily are one-to-a-stem, but there are some clusters as well. I'm convinced that the petals darken the first day or two, and then start to lighten as they age. There is a medium fragrance, raspberry-like as advertised by others. Take a look at the photo on the left, which shows several phases that the blooms pass through. Try to ignore the two copulating Melyridae on the bloom at the top right of the photo. Seems like I'm not the only one stimulated by those blooms.
My 'Spanish Rhapsody' bush is nothing to be excited about yet, only about a foot tall and several months old, but at least she's growing. Leaves are light green with a matte finish. She's got a little blackspot, maybe about 15-20% of her leaves at present, but I'm not going to hold that against her because we're having an unusually bad blackspot year. Even 'Carefree Beauty' was having some lower leaf blackspot by early June. I'm not going to spray 'Spanish Rhapsody' so I can judge how she'll carry through a long summer.
'Spanish Rhapsody' is listed as a cross of 'Gingersnap' and 'Sevilliana'. According to helpmefind/rose, she is a full sister to 'Gee Whiz', and 'Incredible'. I've grown both those roses and they do resemble 'Spanish Rhapsody' with their stippling. Neither of the former survived their third winter here, so I'm hoping 'Spanish Rhapsody' does better in the long run. She's certainly the prettiest of the sisters in my opinion, the Spanish Cinderella, if you will, of the group.
Thanks, Kit, I have not given up, I am merely....distracted, disgusted, and deluged at present. I'll post today.
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