Kirra wrote:
Hi Everyone,

My mother was on holidays recently and really liked the rose Tradescant she
saw at one of the rose places in Melbourne. Does anyone grow it or have
experience with it? She liked the really dark red colour.

Kirra,

I grow Tradescant and really like it a lot. Great colour, fragrance,
vigour and disease resistance (in my dry climate, your mileage may vary)
and all that. One recommendation is to plant it in a spot that gets
shade from hot afternoon sun and to water well when temepratures rise;
roses of that colour tend to burn in the hot sun and watering well tends
to protect them.

Mine is only two and a half years in the ground, so I am not sure what
the size of the mature bush would be; heard that it can produce some
nine feet long arching canes in Southern California. That is the other
consideration when one picks a spot.

If your mother likes that colour, she would certainly like Francis
Dubreuil, who is a great fore-runner to Tradescant in form, fragrance
and colour - here is a photograph of FD by Dee Choi who posts onthis
forum when she is not too busy - and incidentally, the flowers of
Tradescant are also smallish, some 1.5 to two inches across:

http://www.roseshawaii.org/jpeg/francis.html

--
Radika
Northern California
USDA 9 / Sunset 15