I won't be surprised to learn the better ideas for you come from the Antique Rose forum since that combination of characteristics tends to be more common among the Antique roses (with the recommendations for "The South" being different than the recommendations for "The North").

Having said that, I look forwards to the suggestions of others who live in your climate! :)

Thanks for the feedback. I've been doing some research and wondered if Frederic Mistral might work for a pink, or if The Poet or Lemon Zest might work for a yellow. Anyone have any feedback (good or bad) on those roses?

I have been finding more roses that would qualify in the OGRs, but I don't want to overlook any good modern ones.

"Wafting" would depend somewhat on the humidity, temperature and air movement, wouldn't it?

Lemon Spice is a modern yellow with a delectable and strong fragrance that carries. It resists disease in my west coast garden, but I don't know how it does in your climate.

If you really want wafting fragrance, get some gardenias! Seriously the few I have that I can smell without bending down to sniff are all BS prone. They are Comte de Chambourd, Barrone Prevost, Double Delight and a few Austins. But they all need spraying, at least in my yard.

Hi, mylab! I live in California but am from Shreveport, so I know about humidity.
One thought is Darlow's Enigma, which is absolutely trouble-free here in Marin County, north of San Francisco (pretty hot in the summer but not that humid). It definitely wafts! Several problems for me--which might not be problems for you--are 1. wicked, recurved thorns, so has to go somewhere you don't need to get close to;2) grows almost too much: will quickly grow up any nearby tree and 3) looks more like a big blackberry bush in bloom than a rose. Just a thought. (And yes, I'm convinced humidity helps with the "wafting"; when I was growing up in Louisiana, one magnolia tree would scent the entire neighborhood. Here I have three in my own yard and can only smell them by sticking my nose into a low-hanging blossom (and risking a bee sting.)

I've grown Lemon Zest and it stayed very tiny, and the flowers were small, almost like a mini. Never had scent for me either. I agree about Lemon Spice. Very healthy in my spray free garden, great fragrance, but doesn't necessarily "waft". Good luck.

Scott

I'll suggest The McCartney Rose as my best modern HT wafter.

Pros: the fragrance wafts and is fantastic (strong sweet damask similar to my nose like Madame Isaac Perreire & Comte de Chambord.) She's a very vigorous/tall grower and she doesn't ball in the rain.

Cons- While I've read folks in other climates say she is extremely disease resistant, she does get a fair amount of BS here and she does not last well as a cut flower.

I've kept her precisely because her fragrance wafts- even non rose people in my family walk in the yard and ask "oh! what's that smell?"

I've tried about 200 or so roses over the last 10+ years and I'm no spray (but in the rainy pacific northwest.) I can name you some varieties I find quite fragrant, but they don't really waft their fragrances...I remember wafting fragrance on Victorian Spice, (Harkness floribunda-it was not disease resistant here so I got rid of it) and Maigold (a once blooming Kordes shrub that smells vaguely like orange juice/linseed. The bees also go bonkers for it-it blooms ahead of all my other roses.) Oh and I can smell the hedge of Mary Rose at the Heirloom display garden from across the parking lot-but that is because the strong myrrh smell makes me ill-LOL!

I'm not sure if these will work in your climate, but if you are looking for wafting plants in general-also consider sweetbox (sarcococca confusa) and daphne odora. Sweetbox is a winter blooming shrub (blooming now in my area) with the most inconspicuous nothing flowers that float their fragrance all over the yard. Sweetbox blooms a few weeks earlier than Daphne Odora here-but that Daphne is one of my all time favorite fragrances.

Here is a link that might be useful: The McCartney Rose

I agree about the McCartney--it does very well here in the Northeast also---lovely fragrant hardy rose

Florence

I lived in New Orleans for a decade and seldom smelled roses' scents. We did go up to the ARS gardens in Shreveport several times for First Bloom. There was only ONE time that the tens of thousands of roses there smelled great. That just happened to be the time that we got to the garden as they opened the gates. By the time we had walked the gardens and were coming back (and the heat and humidity were rising) the roses that had wafted, well, let's just say they were no longer wafting, even to my nose stuck down an inch from the anthers.

That was a horrible dose of reality.

Up here in Tennessee, the damage done to my sinuses by two decades on the Gulf Coast continues and to smell my tea roses, multiple Benadryls are necessary. (I found this out when I had been stung badly by nine hornets and had taken four benadryl to try to control the swelling. The side effect was I could smell the tea roses and the marigolds had the scents they did in my childhood. )

I seem to recall reading one of Kim's articles, I think, that hybridizers have identified 2 traits that are mutually exclusive; scent & disease resistance.

In other words, it's possible to breed for one or the other, but near impossible to get both traits. Hopefully if I'm wrong someone will chime in to correct me.

And yes, humidity makes all my roses more fragrant. It's just like morning dew & how the roses smell stronger at daybreak. In my garden, the strongest scented roses are also the ones most prone to blackspot. Garden Party is very strong, as is World War II Memorial. Tahitian Sunset has a sharp scent, but not very strong, and it fares much better than the others on blackspot resistance.

My strongest one by far is Madame Hardy, but she's a once-bloomer.

Hi Flaurabunda, I believe the disease and scent link you're referring to is how the garnet, velvet petal, Damask fragrance, weak peduncle and mildew are genetically linked. You can have a healthy, scentless darker red, and just about any permutation of the traits possible, but not the Crimson Glory flower and scent without mildew.

We understand a lot more how disease resistances work than we do scent. It can be rather frustrating!

Thanks Kim! I love expert advice!

Aw, neat, thanks! You're welcome! I just read and remember!