Rosa 'Meitraligh' 

Summary

South Coast Research & Extension Center (South Coast REC/SCREC) is located in Irvine California, this site has a sandy loam soil and plants are irrigated with reclaimed water. UC Davis is located in Davis, California, this site has a silty clay loam soil and plants are irrigated with potable water. More information about the field sites is located in the Nuts & Bolts section.

Brick House™ is a shrub rose with rich red semi-double blooms which earned our UC Blue Ribbon award for high performance on low water. Roses were planted in both sites in February 2017. In February 2019, roses at both sites were pruned to 1/3 their size. One participant recorded that “the color is gorgeous, but the blossom is not that pretty.” We had several conversations about this amongst ourselves and others. Brick House™ flowers do not meet classical standards of cut rose beauty. However this rose is not for cutting, it is a shrub rose that churns out bold, rich, red flowers, and the overall impression is lovely. Brick House™ was well received by UC Davis open house participants generally scoring above 4 in the overall appearance ratings. At the UC Davis spring open house participants were queried if they would use any of the plants evaluated, the highest scoring UCLPIT plant was Brick House™, 46 people (55%) responded they would use it.

In Davis, peak bloom occurred in May and July 2019. All but one plant were rated as 4 or 5 for floral display (1-5 scale, 5 is highest). Aside from the two major flushes of bloom, plants maintained some level of bloom continuously over the treatment season. Whereas the mean overall appearance rating for each treatment at UC Davis was 4.1 out of 5, at South Coast REC the same ratings only reached 3 - 3.2 out of 5. This is likely due to the lower floral display scores at South Coast REC. In Davis, the mean Floral Display score ranged from 1.6 to 4.9 out of 5 (Table 18a). At South Coast REC, mean Floral Display scores ranged from 1.0 to 2.3 of 5 (Table 18c). Unlike Davis, researchers did not observe any large flushes of bloom at South Coast REC. Also, unlike Davis, powdery mildew was observed on some plants in Irvine. It should also be noted that in our California sites, this rose’s foliage began to decline in September, looking as though its growing period was drawing to a close, which is somewhat earlier than other roses we have evaluated.

No differences in relative plant growth or quality ratings between the treatments were observed at UC Davis or South Coast REC. Based on our findings, we recommend irrigating Brick House™ on low water in WUCOLS zones 2 and 3.

Growth and Quality Data

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