Don't worry, you aren't alone. Marchessa Boccella was a fine rose for me when I lived in the north, but here it performs miserably and gets that awful "damask crud" which renders it ugly as sin. I still keep it, but it is in a pot where I can move it out of sight and hide its ugliness when it is not in bloom and the leaves turn black. Usually it gets a few blooms in the fall (minus the leaves which have since fallen off due to the crud) when nothing else is doing much so I can't bear to toss it.

I dislike the well-loved Duchesse de Brabant--lop-sided growth(maybe my fault), mildews. I just don't care for the blooms, no fragrance I can detect. And I am a great fan of pink roses.

Ha, ha! Greybird, I was pondering campanula's question but couldn't think of one, and then you mentioned DdB. Mine did balance herself out late in her 3rd year, but she got thrips real bad (no decent blooms until end of June) and apparently had an insatiable thirst. Maybe she just hated ME, because she's doing great in Nova's garden now. I rooted two cuttings from her before she left, and I'm torn about what to do with them, what with having no room and fearing that I misjudged her, but I don't think I could do another three years of her lopsidedness. And she REALLY nods.

Sherry

My Duchesse de Brabant was a beautiful rounded shrub, very healthy and very fragrant, but the flowers only had 17 petals. They just didn't look full and lush, they way I had seen on the forum of other DdB. Fortunately the heat killed off most of the bush so I didn't have to feel guilty about shovel pruning it. I did order another DdB and am hoping for a fuller-petaled bloom this time.

I have to confess that the rose I really hate with a passion is Double Delight, a greatly loved modern rose on the regular rose forum. I'm also not a great fan of red single red chinas, although I'm very fond of my Single Cerise China.

Ingrid

Ingrid, 17 petals? Are you sure you had a 'Duchesse de Brabant'? Did it have a fragrance that consistently smelled just like fresh raspberries?

Randy

My Duchesse from ARE:
{{gwi:224462}}

Yes, Randy, it was DdB, although a pale imitation of your wonderful plant. It is very fragrant but I can't swear that it smells like rasberries. There was a thread about the petal issue not too long ago and it revolved around the fact that this rose has a varying petal count, and mine was not the only one with a low petal count. This rose in states east of California seems to have more petals. My new Duchesse is from Vintage and I sincerely hope I see fuller flowers when it blooms. Thanks for posting that beautiful photograph.

Ingrid

I don't like Hermosa. The color is too flat, the flowers too small and tidy. I dug mine up and donated it to the cemetery's raffle.

I loathe Viridiflora, the Green Rose. For some reason, we have three of them in the cemetery. One is more than enough for novelty's sake.

E. Veyrat Hermanos balls and then hangs onto the ugly brown mess of petals. Nasty rose. The occasional open bloom is gorgeous, but too many other bad attributes, on a very large rose that takes up a lot of space.

Oh, my, who'd have thought I'd have so much hostility?
Anita

I would state disappointment more than not liking roses....I have had great disapointments with some of the Austins: Evelyn in particular, and it's such a beautiful rose - I can't grow it.

Bourbons won't grow for me - gone are Souvenir de la Malmaison, Zephirine D., Mme. Isaac Pereire, and some others.

Eugene de Beauharnais doesn't do very well for me except for about 4 weeks in April/May.

'Catherine Mermet' is a scraggly black-spotty thing here, though at only two years that she's been in the garden I'm practicing patience with her. I LOATHE 'Perle des Jardins': always diseased, never in bloom, but it's vigorous. Perhaps it might improve a bit if I moved it???

Actually Italy offers rich sources of dissatisfaction if one looks at modern roses. I've never like 'Eden/Pierre de Ronsard', which is hugely popular here: the color, that peculiar shade of pink paired with creamy white, always seemed sickly sweet to me, and it has no fragrance. I share Ingrid's aversion to 'Double Delight', not being in general fond of garish bicolors. Among old roses I've fortunately bought very few that I disliked so much that I got rid of them.

But, one that I do hate is 'Duc de Cambridge', on account of its terrible proliferating flowers, which unfortunately appear on a plant of tremendous vigor. And I will never again try to grow 'Arthur de Sansal', one of the very few varieties that I tried in Washington that simply dwindled away until it died.

Melissa

Jerome - when you say you "can't grow [Evelyn and Souvenir de la Malmaison]" what do you mean?

I love Evelyn - it's such a detailed rose - but it's a very poor repeater. Right now I can only detect 2 buds at the top of a very long cane. Not sure whether I should add an extra Evelyn because I can't wait for mine to reach the same height as Hoovb's.

The rose I don't like is the the hybrid perpetual, "Sidonie". I'm thinking of giving it away. HMF states that it has a strong scent but I couldn't detect any scent. Spring flush was great - but the blooms were very tiny. They look cute - but without a good scent, this rose just looks like an azalea to me.
The other thing I don't like is the foliage - it looks too old-fashioned. I prefer the modern Austin's foliage compare this this one.

Adèle Prévost is another that proliferates and looks awful when it does. I got my Astrid Lindgren, a modern floribunda, after raves and rants by Lloyd Brace about it in a book and found it wasn't the true pink I expected. I have kept Adele but not Astrid.

I don't like Marie Daly, the pink sport of Marie Pavie. I love Marie Pavie but Marie Daly gets mildew here when few other plants do, and it isn't half the plant that Marie Pavie is in terms of vigor and blooming.

Jumbojimmy, what I meant is that there are some roses (Evelyn, Souv. de la Malmaison and others) that I think are spectacular, and I wanted to grow them very much. Despite very thorough planting care, good organic fertilizing, good spots with plenty of sun and otherwise a ton of TLC, these roses never got higher than 18", were weaker each season (I gave SdlM 3 years, Evelyn 4) and I eventually just got rid of them. It is definitely my lack of skills with these varieties, because Hoovb (who has a gorgeous Evelyn) lives just 13 miles down the street from me...

There are others that I have not done well with -
Princesse de Nassau (noisette)
Many tea-noisettes. Too much to go into. I have great luck with most teas I have tried, so I stick to them, and many hybrid teas and floribundas do pretty well here too.

Erasmus, It's funny you not liking Marie Daly. I took out Marie Pavie (very BS prone here) but I kept Marie Daly--WAY more healthy here.

I also finally took out Ducher. I really, really tried to like her but just didn't.

I'm not disappointed in losing those two. By moving them out and others around, I made room for Mrs. BR Cant--a rose I've wanted for a long time and thought I didn't have room for.

I bought Mdm. Plantier after seeing pictures and reading praise here. MP grew vigorously to about 8' high and wide. By year 2 she was covered in fragrant, white flowers.

But, any rain during the bloom period quickly turned all the blooms brown. Worse yet, the brown blooms persisted for months. I had to pick each one off which took many hours.

MP was shovel pruned and replaced by a Doublefile Viburnum.

Oh dear! Not liking "Eden"?! :0) I guess one man's trash is another man's treasure; I adore "Eden" and have to restrain myself from buying another plant each time I visit the garden centres.

I have to admit though, that I cannot wrap my mind around "Therese Bugnet". I've tried to like her, since I know she'll perform well in my climate, etc...but I just can't do it. I'd rather coddle another rose than give the space to her. Sorry!

Double Delight - too garish
Peace - bs, not winter hardy
golden celebration - bs magnet, poor repeat
gemini - fries in the heat
jude the obscure - poor bloomer

Kinglemuelswife,
There it is: that's part of what makes our gardens different: we just like different roses. I think 'Thérèse Bugnet' is beautiful and, more than that, interesting. Peace and happy gardening to those who don't like her, and to those who love 'Eden'.
Melissa

melissa. you are so right. dismayed by dennisb having just got GC and JtO this year! I love this forum!

Don't go by me, JtO has it's good points, it just doesn't bloom enough for me, but others have different experiences. I DO like the color, if it just bloomed more I'd put up with it's bad points.

gardenatlanta & erasmus, that's interesting that your two experiences are so different from one another. Let me add an even different twist. When mine both reached the same age, both Marie Daly & Marie Pavie have performed very well for me ... healthy & vigorous. Mine are identical except for bloom color. I wonder if it's a climate thing, a specimen thing, or just a garden location thing?

Randy

Oh, I thought of another, the beloved climber New Dawn. The first three year or so were good, but it has taken a real turn for the worse the last couple. Only one decent bloom cycle, if that. And the canes have a real ugly, sunburned look to them. I have found no climber that does well for long in this climate.

I have the strong feeling that New Dawn is not a rose that relishes a hot, dry climate. My New Dawn was all thorns and no rose. Cl. Lady Hillingdon, on the other hand, although slow to take off like most climbers, was beautiful, floriferous and covered with leaves in a hot, sunny location, even though it probably did not have as much water as it would have liked. Other tea roses may work equally well.

Ingrid

In the right setting I like Marchessa Bocella the example at the NY Botanical Gardens is a great beauty. The one that was in our garden looked like pink soggy kleenex most Summers it's gone now. There are a good number of darker gallicas that are magnificent in the right weather but a dry hot Spring in NYC they are fried crispy purple/red messes almost as soon as they are open to wait 12 monts for that would drive me bats.
I love the idea of Philemon Cochet but I've only managed to see a complete bloom open and stay white for more than an hour on a few ocassions, otherwise the petals are already turning brown and crisping on the edges before it's fully open here so again it's the right climate for the right rose.
I have a great SDLM just over 5ft tall but I've seen puny examples struggle year after year and wondered wow if I had seen this first I would never want this mess.
My least favorite of all roses is a modern Paradise it's in our community garden and it can be pretty till the sun turns it into somthing like garrish red lipstick on a drag queens purple dress not thrilled with french Perfume for the same reason.
All the tan & orange roses (and I love orange roses) that turn pepto pink as they fade

Ingrid, you are probably right about the New Dawn. I will look in the Cl. Lady Hillingdon. I have heard she is an excellent plant and I love the color. Is the rebloom pretty good on her?

New Dawn is a weird one for me as it is wildly inconsistent. Some years, it blooms and blooms, other years it is a puny once only, very late and very brief. Madame Gregoire used to do the same thing almost going into biennial bearing - a great year, then a non year. Roses, a mystery and an enigma!

greybird, rebloom is very good on Cl. Lady Hillingdon. Throw some alfalfa meal on her once in a while and she'll do even better.

Ingrid

I love roses so much that I usually can always find something endearing about just about any rose, especially antique roses. (I'm tougher on the moderns). I have those at the top of the list that I absolutely LOVE and couldn't live without, those in the middle that I enjoy, and those at the bottom whom are still here because they have some merits that redeem themselves, but aren't favorites. So I haven't met a rose that I hated. But I have met a few that I couldn't really warm up to, even though I tried and they were at long last shovel-pruned. Those were Lady Moss who blackspotted until she went naked, Reine Victoria who couldn't take my winters and who was another blackspot queen, Madame de la Roche-Lambert who I really liked but couldn't keep her 'clothes' on either, Banshee who always balled and I saw maybe 3 opened blooms in all the years I had her, and Blanc Double de Coubert which was the epitome of health, vigor and hardiness but whose blooms looked like soggy, wet toilet paper after it rained and then turned a mushy brown, hanging on the plant. I liked the rose very much when it actually looked pretty but rebloom wasn't great either. I felt enormous guilt digging up such a massive, healthy plant and discarding it but it was in a very prominent spot and always bothered me. I still feel some fondness for each of those for one reason or another, but I would never grow them again.

Celeste

celeste, a friend has nagged me to plant Blanc Double de Coubert for ages but now I can firmly decline - wet toilet paper! Also, I don't have either of these and I know I never will - SDLM and Gloire de Dijon. too muddled, too many mingy petals, too flat and weird vague colours. I know they smell lush but I just can't get excited by that kind of powdery, flat, heavily quartered and fussily unstructured bloom - compared to the transcendant and luminous beauty of 5 - 8 single petals and stamens.

I have 2 Duchesse de Brabant. They are nice at their best, but not the raving beauty I had heard about. Mine are also (both) lopsided, foliage often looks pale and the flowers are OK but the fragrance is mild at best. ??? I have moved one rose to what I thought was a better location, but it's still about the same. ??? Maybe extra fertilizer this spring. ??? On the upside, it is a "good" rose if well-cared for and it is not diseased, but never looks very robust in my garden. Maybe another year or two. ???

I wonder what it is about Duchesse de Brabant that makes it tend to be lopsided. Even more, how it came to be so popular?

I'm not a fan of Double Delight either... I basically don't really favor roses with really extreme gradient coloring or ones that have the variegated swirl effect... but that's all a matter of taste. :).

I don't like Gertrude Jekyll.

Oh, I feel so much better having said it. :)

robert

Robert, thank you for paving the way for me to say that Gertrude Jekyll has completely underwhelmed me since day one. I feel better now too...

Ingrid

About Zephirine Drouhin-----I have several really beautful bushes but alas---I have one bush that just doesn't seem to want to grow like the others---If I had to make a decision about ZD based on this one bush I would have very negative feelings----she is from a cutting I started as are a few of the others--plus she is in a very good spot but she just doesn't perform like the others---
I just can't understand her--se should be huge by now but after a few years still very scrawny---

Oh well----maybe this year----LOL I will stay positive----LOL

Florence

My 'Duchesse de Brabant' had very few petals as well. Outta here.

I admit I got rid of 'Rose de Rescht' this year. Excellent plant, excellent disease resistance, good rebloom...and I just had no emotional connection to it. I think the key thing was, my nose could detect no fragrance at all. The failure of my nose, not the plant...but it's still gone, or rather sitting on my sidewalk all cut up. :( Sorry.

Mine would certainly have to be Marie Pavie. I thought last year would be her year to shine. She gets bs so bad that she nearly defoliates completely. I also think her blooms are messy and hang on the stems too long. Blush Noisette does but she is healthy and smells fantastic so I forgive her and overlook her for it. Maybe I'll have to try Marie Daly.

Funny all this talk about DdB. She is one of my favorites. For me she has grown very fast and has always stayed a beautiful rounded shrub all the while being just covered in blooms all year long. I mean covered in them pretty much non stop. I don't detect scent from most of my roses and can only smell it when holding it up to my nose but I do love her fully cupped petals and nodding habit.
~Meghan

Meghan, your description of DdB is why I'm trying her a second time. When it has a full set of petals this rose looks wonderful, but with 17 petals it's just a different rose. I'm so hoping my replacement one will have the full flowers I lust after; the bush has always had a great shape but it's the flowers that make for a thrilling sight. Wish me luck!

Ingrid

Ingrid,
This may not apply to your garden, but I've noticed in mine, where I don't intervene a lot, that fullness of blooms depends on weather conditions, season, and possibly the age of the bush itself. I always thought my beloved 'Mme. Antoine Mari' had semidouble, moderate-sized blooms, slender and elegant; then one spring it produced much larger, fully double flowers, considerably to my surprise, and has done it again since. 'Old Blush' is another rose that generally has semidouble and rather shapeless blooms, attractive for their profusion and long season, but every once in a while 'Old Blush' has a wonderful flowering of large, shapely, very graceful roses. I don't know if this is what's going on with your DdB, but I wanted to mention it.
Melissa

Melissa, your words may have saved the day for Mme Antoine Mari. In the ground (back garden) since 5/08 she has always underwhelmed me. She nods severely and blooms don't last long - seems like just a day. Plus she isn't well leafed, far from it. I wanted to put a Le Vesuve in her spot to mirror the one on the other side of the patio, but where to move MAM I didn't know. One possibility was to the front garden, but she hasn't exactly been showpiece material. Before I read your post I was thinking the thought that perhaps I'd just replace her. Now your suggestion that much larger, fully double flowers may be in the offing has probably handed her a reprieve. But I think this is why we should always have a couple of 'extras' just in case such a reprieve turns out to have been unwarranted. Am I cruel and heartless? I think not. I just want leaves!!! Maybe I could get another Perle d'Or.

Sherry

Melissa, that is certainly food for thought. The original Duchesse is gone because over half of her died in the terribly hot summer last year. I've gotten a replacement band now which is growing nicely and hopefully will bloom this summer, but I'll certainly reserve judgment about it until it has at least another year under its belt. I wouldn't have discarded the original Duchesse if she had been able to tough it out. My new band is from Vintage and Gregg Lowery assured me after I posted above that his plants are from a very old specimen of DdB which is full-petaled and my band should have at least 25-30 petals, so I'm hopeful. It does make sense that an older plant would perform better. Certainly Westside Road Cream Tea's initial flowers looked nothing like the flowers it's putting out now, even in February. They're now about twice as large and 100% more shapely than the flowers I saw the first 6-8 months.

Ingrid