It is interesting that you made these observations. I bought 4 new to me Austins this year so far, Carding Mill, Port Sunlight, Litchfield Angel, and Claire Austin. As of right now, my Carding Mill is opening, and it is quite pretty. It is as fragrant as it is pretty. I think I will like it. Litchfield Angel should be open tomorrow; it looks promising. Claire Austin is budded out, but I may be gone when it opens. Port Sunlight is opening, but the flower buds, while appearing to have good color, are disconcertingly quite small. I wonder if it will be even smaller than Rosemoor. Rosemoor would go well in an arrangement with Bubble Bath and Pillow Fight and maybe even Lavender Lassie although LL is bigger than the other three. So, I will have to reserve judgement on Port Sunlight to see just what it does. If it is so small, I will not be very happy with it.

What a wonderful family heirloom, vincekoers45! A rose that moves and lives where ever your family relocates. Thank you so much for the story about your family's Harison's Gold. There seems to be contradictory info about the origin of Harrison's Gold. According to this site: "Fun Facts: The original plant was discovered in the garden of amateur hybridist George F. Harison in Manhattan in 1830. Suckers of it traveled west with the pioneers" Wikipedia says 1830 was when it was marketed and also indicates it was a hybridization between Rosa foetida (Persian Yellow) and Rosa pimpinellifolia (the burnet rose - haven't heard of that one before.) I didn't read the whole article but I didn't see anything about when the rose was actually "discovered;" if it wasn't marketed until 1830, could be that it was 1824. Here is a quote from the site: 'Harison's Yellow', also known as R. × harisonii, the Oregon Trail Rose or the Yellow Rose of Texas, is a rose cultivar which originated as a chance hybrid in the early 19th century. It probably is a seedling of Rosa foetida and Rosa pimpinellifolia.[2][3] The cultivar first bloomed at the suburban villa of George Folliott Harison, attorney, between 8th and 9th Avenues on 32nd Street, north of New York City. The site of Harison's villa is now just south of the present General Post Office. The nurseryman William Prince of Long Island took cuttings and marketed the rose in 1830. 'Harison's Yellow' is naturalized at abandoned house sites through the west and is found as a feral rose along the Oregon Trail. Whenever it came into being, I think it is a very desirable rose cultivar and would have it in a prominent place in my garden, if only I had the space to let it grow unchecked. :-( By the way, suckers from my Harrison's Gold continue to come up years after I removed the original plant. As I mentioned a few years back in this thread, I had to remove the rose because it was too big and rowdy for the area in which I planted it and, sadly too big and rowdy for my small yard in general. I usually let one or two of the suckers go into bloom because I love the look and smell of the flowers, but then I force myself to cut them down. Holly

Came back to this thread to check on Comte de Chambord, yes, Val grows it, and I agree that needs loamy soil, lots of rain, and healthier if alkaline. Comte is rooting easily in my wet baggie, and rooted easily in heavy out-door rain, while other cuttings rot. Comte has aggressive root and can root easily in alkaline sand, but I need to make my rooting-medium more acidic for the cuttings which are harder to root. Pink Pet definitely likes dry/loamy soil and warmer climate (Val's pic. is awesome). But died in my soaking wet clay last winter.

I cannot recommend highly enough both Scepter’d Isle and St. Cecilia. They are excellent & magnificent. I go more into depth in your new thread: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/5032402/scepterd-isle-st-cecilia-the-lady-gardener The Lady Gardener is still too new for me to comment, perhaps in 2-3 more years when people’s experiences with it start filtering through. In general it takes about 3-5 years for new DA introductions to really show their mettle in the USA. Especially the very double petaled varieties require a longer maturity period, growing their roots, and gaining strength to produce quality flowers.