"Wafting" is as much a function of temperature and humidity as it is oil and alcohol in the flowers and the quantity of flowers at once. I believe you'll find better "wafting" from larger quantities of flowers at once than from fewer, yet stronger scented ones. In my experience, the better "wafters" in my lower humidity, higher heat area have been Secret Garden Musk Climber - continous flowerint with a sweet, soapy scent. Very healthy, vigorous and shade tolerant; Annie Laurie McDowell - ever flowering, very disease resistant, very fragrant, totally thornless even without those awful little teeth on the midribs; Nessie - once flowering but very healthy and INTENSELY fragrant, a great back ground plant where the great foliage will help provide a good back drop and when in flower, helps push the garden area over the top. I would imagine many of the Noisette roses would flourish for you and have suitable health. They were created in very similar environments and selected for their performance in damp, warm weather. They, like my suggestions above, have not only fragrant blossoms but masses of them to improve the "waftability" of their scent. I believe you'll also find the ones more closely related to the Musk roses not only better wafters, but healthier in your warm humidity. Kim

"Wafting"...?

In my garden, I can smell from distance 'Mme Alfred Carri�re', "Odorata"/"SPice", 'Sophie's Perpetual', and a few more like 'Desprez � Fleur Jaune' and 'Lamarque'.

Kim, I'm pretty curious to smell 'Nessie' next Spring! ;o)

My old garden, "A Hidden Sanctuary" on Help Me Find, was on the edge of a private golf course in a planned community. Nessie grew about ten feet into the garden from the hose bib on the edge of one of the greens. When in flower, she "wafted" across the garden, well across the golf course and at least once, someone walked over from the club house and pool to ask what smelled so "heavenly"! It won't waft, nor will anything else, unless there is sufficient humidity in the air and the temperatures are just right to volitize the oils and alcohols without evaporating them fully and blowing them away unexpressed. Kim

The Musk Rose, Rosa moschata? I believe I've seen it recommended for Gulf Coast gardens. It's a lovely rose (which I have difficulty growing in my dry climate).

Astphard, Clotilde Soupert has quite a strong fragrance and does fine no-spray in my humid garden. I just brought home the climber today. They say it is also very fragrant and not very prickly. I don't know about wafting though. I have caught Louis Philippe's luscious fragrance just by walking by once, but you don't need to bend over for him anyway.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Sherry, how cool; I was just about to suggest Clothilde! I definitely think she wafts. I don't know how far -- feet/meters really for the bush version (just one), not the whole yard. Multiples might do it.

My climber isn't tall enough yet to say how nice that will be :) (I've transplanted her too much because I want her everywhere, lol.)

Thanks so much for all of the recommendations! I definitely need to research these but it'll have to wait until after church. But I was going back through some old threads and some of these came up. What do you think of them?

MARIE PAVIE
BLUSH NOISETTE
MRS B.R. CANT
AMAZONE
ISABELLA SPRUNT
DUCHESSE DE BRABANT (in quantity)

On a related note, as a sport of DdB, does MADAME JOSEPH SCHWARTZ smell the same way?

If humidity is prequalification for wafting, then New Orleans is ready to go. I love walking down the streets in the spring smelling the Confederate/star jasmine and the Sweet Olive, and though I don't expect to get that strong of a wafting fragrance from the roses (though I would love to) I'd like to create a similar feeling in my backyard. And if there are some hedges to help enclose the fragrance, hopefully it will make it more powerful.

I like it when this question comes up. It's nice addition to have roses wafting sweet perfume through the garden and planting more would be even better!
I have 3 Marie Pavie next to our driveway and experienced sweet perfume wafting a pretty good distance from where I was walking. It was far enough away it took a little time to figure out which rose was sending that sweet smell.
It's a trait I love about her, plus she is disease free.

I'm so glad Marie Pavie works for you, deebs, but she didn't like my yard. One bad thing is my neutral soil. I think that bothered her because she always had ugly leaves - not yellow but a tannish color. I had two, and they were not happy. I gave them both to a friend with acidic soil. One didn't survive the move, but the other one loves it and is beautiful. I assume she is healthy there, too. Marie Daley was the same way.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Wouldn't attempt to suggest these for health for your location is on the opposite coast from my garden in California. But these are my best 3 wafting roses:
-"Nastarana" wafts several feet away from a mature 5'-6' tall bush. It is closely related to R. moschata and has a scent like musk with a hint of cloves to my nose. In a vintagegardens.com catalog they mentioned that some think this is the worlds most fragrant rose (bush). I planted my Nastarana in a border so that visitors would smell this rosebush before they saw the greater part of the garden. -
- R. moschata, one single and one double form and from August through early November the bushes waft their delicious fragrance on a soft breeze to several yards away. The foliage is quite beautiful and evergreen, still green through Jan-Feb when most roses have long lost their foliage due to dormancy. It is a very pretty plant altogether, and makes a beautiful climber.
- I can smell the Hybrid Musk
"Bubble Bath" from 20 feet away, when there is a soft breeze coming through it. Hybrid Musk is, despite its' name, quite a distant class in generations of breeding from R. moschata, however a few traits seem to trickle down in some.

Luxrosa

Isabela Sprunt is a sport of Safrano. In my garden both of these two varieties have very mild fragrance, which depends on the time, temp, humidity, etc.
Olga

Albertine and Paul's Himalayan Musk perfume my yard but they are both once-bloomers---

MacCartney rose(hybrid tea) has a strong fragrance----

Lyda Rose and Clair Matin both have a wonderful fragrance and bloom all summer----

I love it when all the roses are in bloom --the combination of all the roses is delicious-----

Florence

Hybrid musks Darlow's Enigma and Cornelia waft very well here which I notice as I pass by. I grow them as climbers but they could be grown self-supporting depending on pruning. During peak bloom there is a general fragrance of rose perfume in my garden, but usually I have to get close and stick my nose in to tell where it comes from and which are the most fragrant. Just the sheer quantity of very fragrant roses in bloom at once will waft when the conditions are right.

I also love growing mock oranges and viburnums which only bloom once but they are very fragrant and fill the air. Clematis 'Sweet Autumn clematis' is a monster, but it blooms for weeks in September and fills the air in fall when there is less going on.

>And if there are some hedges to help enclose the fragrance, hopefully it will make it more powerful.

Hello astphard,

The roses you are considering all sound lovely! Two others that are fragrant and *might* work in a no-spray yard--if you're not too picky about perfect foliage--are Maggie and Reine Des Violettes. We have a no-spray yard and have our fingers crossed on these two on order now. They are beautiful perfumed roses that I've already arranged in the vases in my imagination! Also, Vintage Gardebs describes their found rose Westside Road Cream Tea as having a strong lemony tea fragrance; that one is also on order here to keep Maggie and Reine Des Violettes company in the vases. I figure if a rose can get by without any care for awhile, then it stands a reasonable chance of getting by here no-spray.

Regarding your hedging idea, my loveliest memories of wafting are of a single gardenia plant that was maybe five feet tall fairly close to an entry. I haven't seen an entire hedge of gardenias, but that plant might make a nice one.

Another idea for a fragrant hedge, or a component of a fragrant hedge, would be the sasanqua camellia Hugh Evans, and that one has lovely more recent memories attached to it. The prolific rosey flowers are nice and hold on the camellia without shattering much better than other sasanqua camellias. But probably the main reasons to buy that particular plant are its lovely small-leaved weeping form and its strongly wafting musk perfume. We have some other sasanquas and they are all supposed to have a noticeable fragrance, but none have so noticeable a wafting fragrance as Hugh Evans when it's blooming. Its weeping form makes the plant, whether in bloom or not, into an eye-catching feature in our yard. I suppose the prevailing winds might have favored where we repeatedly were sitting in appreciating this camellia, maybe 25 feet away from the plant (which is tree-sized now) flowering for about two months in the fall. Anyway, in the past few years when we've gotten sufficient rain or watered well in the fall, the fragrance has been fabulous. (Note: an oversupply of rain when making and producing blooms, as long as there's good drainage, helps hugely with fragrance.)

Hugh Evans grows fairly quickly for a camellia and will end up being taller than a gardenia, but the small foliage ought to look nice with a gardenia and whatever else you might want to put along the periphery. If you go in this direction, the large spreading bushy rose Ghislaine de Feligonde also has some fragrance and would be evergreen in New Orleans. It could also tolerate some shade when/if any other nearby plants got tall on one side or the other.

Best wishes,
Mary