Pretty healthy. Dank cool weather might bring some black spot.

This

is the one we collected.

Here is a pic of the entire main part of DdB taken yesterday - it is having a good Spring. Also from yesterday, below is a nearby clematis (one of our bushes of Schmidt's Smooth Yellow in the background on the left).

Jackie

My DdB is also having a good year, Jackie, much like yours. Mine has benefited greatly from a southern exposure with good air circulation -- my first attempt at growing her, in a less-favorable situation, was a PM disaster.

One side:

Backside:

Yes, zone 9b in Southern CA. It’s a great rose!

In Lakeland Florida, on 'Fortuniana' roots, it grows probably 5-6 feet tall by at least as wide. We prune it rather hard every spring. It then starts flowering about 2 weeks after most of the other roses.

We had no winter this year, and our flowering schedule was likewise pretty different from what I've been accustomed to over the years. With climate change I guess we can expect more of the unexpected.

Your garden looks wonderful (meaning, full of wonders). I kind of like your 'Dr. Rouges'.

P.S. Talk about unexpected: it snowed last night!

Here we got just enough to show white on the ground. But while I was at Coop this morning, I heard that in one town in the mountains in our province they got 40cm (16 inches).

I wish I could share the scent, too! It's delicious!

A treat for the eyes too, Kim. How prettily the colours all blend together in your photograph! I can only try to imagine those delicious scents you describe.

There's something so special about the many gifts these simple, older style roses provide for the senses, if one only seeks them out, beyond just a pretty face.. <3

That makes it unanimous so far, thanks both of you, because both my friend (hesitantly) and myself thought of the common Damask as well (but since I don't have much "hands-on" experience with the old European once-bloomers, I didn't want to be too confident). It has always seemed to me that Spain has the potential to be the location for many not only antique but also archaic, so to speak, old roses (I've come to call roses from before about 1790 as being of the Archaic Era in rose history); but I've never heard of there being an organized interest in Spain of old rose enthusiasts (I hope I'm wrong). With the convent gardens, the Moorish presence, the estates of the old aristocracy, the country being the hub of worldwide exploration for centuries--surely there are riches to be found there in roses and horticulture in general.

Several years ago when the internet was younger, I had mentioned a booklet I found through Google books. I got a email from the gardener for a particular castle. He was charged with restoring the gardens. But he couldn't access the booklet because Google wouldn't let him as that countries library had forbidden Google to copy their old and rare books. He was thankful when I sent it to him.. But the experience taught me that the free interchange of information has some strange walls within the system. Perhaps some gardeners may have a working group.

Belle Portugaise and Fortune's Double Yellow are a lovely couple. I adore this combination!

lol@buried rams horns and witchcraft !☆●○

I dont have any rams horns but I may be able to get some smelly goat horns..I wonder if that would work for me. Iol

Hee, hee - no magic, I am afraid, except the long passage of time. I thought about it, and the one thing I came up with is that the plants in our garden are allowed to get mature, and mostly encouraged to grow how they want. Many times they only get to their most beautiful when they are at least 5 or 6 years in the ground, and sometimes much older. Also, if they start doing strange things (there are several rose bushes which have morphed into climbers over time, for example, even though they were not "supposed" to be climbers), we just let them be. I am always curious to see what they will do.

Our flowering crab apple tree is the largest I have seen around here, and I am told by my DH's family that it was planted in the 1940s or so. It just keeps getting bigger and better. We never do anything to it, except that we did remove a few of the lower branches at the order of our Fire Dept.

The climate, of course, allows that long term growth to happen, along with the good soil, and the fact that the property has been in the same family so long. This causes a sort of feeling that if one of my DH's ancestors planted something which is still healthy, I should leave it to thrive as long as it can. (When we first moved in here, there was a giant eugenia tree - 40-50 ft tall - dropping fruit maybe 10 months of the year, right on the front brick path which leads to our front door. Being a new homeowner, I convinced my DH that we should remove it. My FIL was alive at that time, and his reaction to my DH was " Your Grandmother LOVED that tree..." - end of plan to remove the tree.) Also, anything fussy or unhappy which needs constant care or spraying dies, which leaves only the happy plants.

I am not a garden planner, or designer of perfect spaces who removes and replaces every plant which does not comply with the original design. One funny example of that is the oval bed which my DH carefully cut out of our lawn, and put a brick edging around. It was the only space I actually ever tried to "plan" seriously. The plan was to have one tree rose, surrounded by tiny miniature rose bushes. Ha! One of the "miniatures" turned out to be no such thing, and immediately climbed over the top of the tree rose. It gets bigger and bigger every year, and I love it (the tree rose is still getting bigger and blooming happily alongside and sort of under it). Last year I noticed that one of the actual original miniature roses I planted around the bottom of the tree rose (which did stay maybe 18 inches tall for many years) has suddenly become a climber and leaped up to the top of the tree rose! Luckily it still has thin canes and tiny blooms, so it is just pretty, not overwhelming. The other thing which has happened in that oval is that of course the roses are fooling around, and producing hybrid volunteers, some of which are gorgeous! I suspect the partial shade has something to do with the urge to get tall, but who knows? I just enjoy the result.

Jackie

I love hearing about your garden, and seeing the pictures each year. It all goes to show what a fortunate climate and dedicated gardeners can accomplish, especially when given the passage of generations.

Thank you rosecanadian- I love them against the sky too. I have a few warm climate once bloomers, but these two are definitely my favorites of all of them. This is the first year they have bloomed together (both times I have rooted a BP, it has taken at least 4 years before it bloomed - seems to need to grow tall first). They both bloom very early, only preceded by Safrano, which only stops blooming in my garden for about 1 month. I am delighted that their bloom overlaps - something wonderful to look forward to each Spring.

Jackie

I love that they have bloomed together...that really makes for an outstanding display. :) :)

Me too - I did not expect it, so it is extra wonderful.

Jackie

Glad people are enjoying my pics; thanks for the kind comments.

Comtesse, the photography is getting easier as it becomes more of a habit, I'm happy to say. Now if I just had some skills as well. That photo of 'Rubens' is certainly suggestive! I'll take a look at it, appreciate the hint.

I struggled out of bed late this morning, dragging from the chronic fatigue, but went down in the woods to have a look around and collect dandelion greens and what we call "wild asparagus" (it isn't) tips for a frittata. I wasn't feeling too well, so mainly pulled maple seedlings and fussed around with various blockages of the drainage ditch. The idea is to slow down the water, give it a chance to sink in or get used by surrounding plants, and possibly create some semi-permanent miniature ponds where water animals could grow. The tiny intermittent spring was running nicely after the rain, and it was pleasant to see, and hear, the transparent water in the drainage. The blockages-dams are coming along.

Lovely images Melissa. Your gardens are lovely and the spring is such a wondrous time of rebirth and regrowth. Thanks for posting the images. Barely any buds breaking on the roses here. Things like cherry trees and later Magnolias still just coming into bloom. Thanks for sharing your spring garden with the rest of us.

Cheers, Rick

Agree with these comments-very beautiful, Melissa. I, too, am much struck by the Mystery rose.

I ordered GdD three years ago this month from Heirloom Roses. All Heirloom roses are on their own roots. Well, It sat stolidly and stupidly for two full years, under 12 inches tall, doing virtually nothing. I shoved it to the rear of other potts with cuttings in them. I was ready to toss it when this autumn it suddenly threw out two long whips--canes over three feet long that bloomed and bloomed and stopped blooming only a week or two ago. I'm hopeful with spring more canes will appear and that the canes will grow longer .

Noisettes and Teas and their ilk sometimes get into a mood of doing absolutely nothing for several years . . . and then spring into vigorous growth. For just two examples: My 'Desprez à Fleur Jaune' simply sat for about five years . . . and now blooms all the time with branches which reach about twenty-five feet, all told. My 'Général Galliéni' plant as received could have been covered by a slightly large teacup, and remained that size for about three years; now it is a massive bush seven to eight feet tall and twelve feet wide.

'Gloire de Dijon' may be said to be the rose which first piqued my interest in Old Roses (from a picture in a Sunset Magazine rose book), and so I have special affection for it. My first plant of it came from Roses of Yesterday and Today, on whatever stock they used. For about two years it thrived and bloomed ceaselessly. In the third year, it began to decline as a plant, but still blooming and blooming, and it was rather melancholy to see it wanting to bloom so much as the plant died. In retrospect, I have realized that it was one of the first victims of the Verticillium Wilt which over the course of about ten years spread and destroyed about a third of my roses. A few years later, I tried a second specimen, own-root, from another source; it was a feeble plant, and died within a few months. A few years later, I was kindly gifted a hearty specimen from another source . . . and after a year of growth, it died, again of Verticillium Wilt, which makes me think that a certain proportion of plants in commerce of 'Gloire de Dijon' are infected, and passed around because it doesn't show up for two to three years. Very newly, I now have a nice and promising plant from Rogue Valley, and am giving it every attention and care.

My point is first to be very patient with Noisettes, Teas, and Tea-Noisettes--very patient as in years-long patience--and my second point is that 'Gloire de Dijon' is an enthusiastic bloomer who desperately wants to perform for us, and so merits being given every chance--and being watched very carefully . . .

I know I have told my story before on here, probably too many times. So, I will keep it brief. The first rose I had was not one, but over 100 roses. When my DH and I got married 35 years ago, we moved into a house which had originally belonged to his great grandparents, who were immigrants in the late 1870s from Germany. In 1905 they bought what is now our house, and started to garden here. Grapes (with a grape arbor), fruit trees, flowers, and LOTS of roses, formal paths, etc. became part of what had been a "greenfield" lot. My DH's grandfather bought the property from them after he grew up and got married, then my DH's parents bought the property from my DH's grandparents after they retired, and eventually my DH and I bought it from his parents. This all took about 84 years, and 35 more years have gone by since then, making a total of almost 120 years, during all of which the garden has been beloved and enhanced by each of the 4 generations.

My personal journey growing roses started out with disbelief (I knew NOTHING about plants, let alone roses) as the first Spring came around when we lived here, and suddenly roses were appearing on the top of several tall trees, on top of the garage, all over fences, and one massive 40 ft long thing I thought was just a huge hedge covered itself in 3 different kinds of rose blooms (it was really 4 enormous antique rose bushes growing in a row). I was describing this startling explosion of bloom to a friend of mine, and she said "You have old roses. I will send you a book." So, she sent me "in Search of Old Roses", and I read it and was entranced. I then (getting his name from that book) bought every rose book I could find by Graham Thomas, who was a poet, as well as a rose grower and expert. So, I was hooked, and spent several decades trying to identify my treasures, (and add more, of course), and all of them have now been identified except one or two.

Le Vesuve was the one I was trying the hardest to identify at the beginning, and Cass Bernstien came by one day and took photos, and told me who several of them were. Here is her photo of our old Le vesuve, taken in the mid 1990s:

Jackie

I am not a lifelong gardener - I am almost a cliche in that I came to gardening fairly late, when my offspring were adolescent and I could have a garden which was more than stomped earth and a random collection of old bikes, footballs, dog balls. When one of the offspring decided to 'tidy up' the (ahem) 'garden', we rushed off to buy a coupla plants, one of which was 'Honorine de Jobart' japanese anemone (which I still have in the garden after. 25 or so years..and the other was Madame Gregoire Staechelin. While I adored Madame G, it was the later acquisition of r.hugonis which started me on a path I have rarely stepped off - one bounded by briars, eglantines, woodbine and musk rose- a romantic intersection of gardening, literature and the deep green lushness of the English countryside (but without pig-farms, rural deprivation, industrial agriculture etc). A ridiculous, highly improbable fantasy of lush wilderness, cow parsley, bluebells, campions and especially, the simple 5 petalled beauty of apple blossom, dogroses and primroses.

Thank you. The goldenrod gives good fall color here where we don't have a lot of trees with pretty fall leaves. The chickens love to go through that gate and go scratch around the pond pretending they are wild jungle birds.

I like the farm gate too but it does have some rust holes with sharp edges on the underside of the bars where the rain & dew collects. We will have to fix the holes and repaint or just replace it. We've fixed so many old gates around here I've lost count lol.

Some quotes about weeds:

* "A weed is a flower growing in the wrong place." ~George Washington Carver

**"The difference between a weed and a flower is judgement." ~Wayne Dyer

***"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

@comtessedelacouche (10b S.Australia: hotdryMedclimate) that's funny, thanks! But, yes, coconuts do "migrate" on the currents.

@comtesse - I was thinking the same thing!!!! 😆😜😁🤪

My favorite fragrant very large climber is Mel’s Heritage. It also repeats very well.

probably 14 feet tall here spring flush in my old garden.

Spring color

Picture from later in the summer when it was high 90s

Another plant on a fence with heavy yearly prunning in my new garden

Well....if you have truly large and STURDY trees, a couple of once-blooming possibilities are the 'Kiftsgate' hybrids 'Treasure Trove' and 'Brenda Colvin'. Both are fine roses, fragrant and enormous. I don't know how they would do for you: I grow them and like them, but my conditions are different from yours. Actually, also there's 'Kiftsgate' itself, famous for its size.

Another possibility is the Noisette roses. For example, 'Jaune Desprez', fragrant, and, according to HMF, hardy in your zone, though that doesn't mean it would grow well. It has a floating fragrance, very nice. It's a pretty rose but wickedly thorny. Also 'Mme. Alfred Carrière', which gets huge, is a tough variety, and is wonderfully fragrant as well as having lovely flowers to cut. Both of these are reblooming. They get some disease but aren't bothered by it. I don't know how they'd do in your conditions.

Another group to consider might be musk roses: for example R. brunonii and its hybrid 'La Mortola'. Both are once flowering, thorny, and huge. Fragrant, naturally. In my opinion a large sturdy tree is exactly where roses like these belong, as 'La Mortola' at least is quite painful to train and prune. Send it up an oak and let it romp, is my suggestion. Whether it will thrive in your climate I don't know.

There are smaller roses that can climb if given support: I don't know whether they'd interest you. The hybrid musk 'Vanity', a long and lanky plant, can get quite a good size with support; I've also see 'Cornelia' as a respectable restrained climber. Both of these are fragrant, and the fragrance wafts. In my opinion 'Cornelia' has a particularly lovely scent. These are somewhat reblooming, tending in my climate to focus on spring and fall.

There are, of course, those classics 'New Dawn' and its more double sport 'Awakening', and these are cold hardy, as well as everything else hardy, too. Moderate apple fragrance. I'm particularly fond of 'Awakening'. These are repeat blooming, thorny, get some disease but it doesn't matter. You might look into other ramblers bred by Dr. Van Fleet, as he was from close to your part of the country and bred for cold hardiness as well as beauty, and many of his roses are fragrant.

And finally--I think--there's the lovely 'Mme. Plantier', once flowering, divinely fragrant. I've mostly seen it as a large shrub, but I think that with support it would climb. Few thorns, cold hardy, tolerant. It does have the fault of the old blooms hanging on to the bush, but still, what a marvel.

Some kind of Damask or Hybrid Damask, but I have no idea which one. It looks like a great rose.

Mine, early on in this garden, was a martyr to powdery mildew, but I would likely be better at siting it now, if I tried again, knowing better what my microclimates and other conditions are. Lovely!

I had Safrano years ago in another place. It was very vigorous and quickly grew from a band into a large shrub. The flowers were very beautiful, hard to capture their beauty in photos, though yours do a great job of it. I especially like the first one with new red growth, buds, bloom, and hips all at once.