ROSE OF THE MOMENT

“Sunstruck”

(Parentage: “Sunset Celebration” x (“Voodoo” x seedling)

It has been a while since I have been this impressed & infatuated with a new hybrid tea rose. This was the first season for “Sunstruck” in my garden & it was so fantastic. It gained maturity (with a few smaller, nice blossoms) during the very hot summer before coming into it’s own in the fall with the largest, most gorgeous, nicely fragranced bloom!! The color itself is enough to recommend it with a 5-6” verrrrry apricot gold, high centered, long-lasting bloom which has an orange reverse. Not only does it have an orange reverse but also one that has an even more orange lacy veined ‘peacock’ pattern on each petal.

The Weeks catalog description states it well, saying, “Enormous round petals always translate to big blossoms with lovely flower form. In the case of “Sunstruck”, each large petal is an artistic masterpiece of deep yellow gold blushed & bordered with apricot orange.

Once it sent out this fabulous long stemmed blossom it continued to send more & more, one bloom per stem, from August to November. An added bonus was that it’s well starched petals held in a vase (with preservative of course) for over a week…….looking great!

The bush itself is quite tall and rounded with glossy dark green foliage that didn’t have a spot of disease of any kind. I felt honored to have initiated it into my garden where even in the hot sun all day it survived in such an awesome manner.

I would recommend it heartily to most any gardener, but especially to my fellow enthusiastic rosarians in the Shasta Rose Society.

By Karen Shadish 2006