Oh, gardenatlanta, you've just given me the most wonderful olfactory flashback to the years I lived in Charleston SC - and the scent of the sweet olives. Sure wish I could grow it in my current garden. But thank you!

I find that scent varies greatly depending on how hot it is, how early in the day (fragrances tend to be strongest then), etc. I also get a stuffy nose from allergies and usually have to stick my nose deep into a bloom to smell it, though I notice a general "rosey" scent walking around my garden at peak bloom it is hard to say exactly which rose bushes are causing the wafting. I have about 1/3 once-blooming old European roses with strong fragrance from damasks, albas, and gallicas. For me, the climbers seem to produce the most wafting fragrance, especially Darlow's Enigma, just because of their massive size and location to catch the breeze.

I can't smell osmanthus at all. Just checked it out with friends in another garden - they could all smell it, and simply swooned. Me - NOTHING. Isn't that weird. I can smell tea and china and other rose smells - not sweet olive. I took out mine at home because it was just a big bush, if there was no fragrance to be smelled.

Proves that the only thing to do is to visit gardens and smell for yourself!
Anita

Thanks everyone.

It all makes sense now. I spoke to Janet Inada earlier and she explained a lot of things to me. The first and most important thing I realized was that I was under the wrong impression.

I thought many of the old once-bloomers were so intensely fragrant that they would scent their surrounding area. You all and Janet (the owner of RVR) helped me to put things into perspective. She said that there are some roses that waft much more than others, but these are few and the desired effect is unreliable. So like Lori said, the height of the flowers, the direction of the breeze, and various other factors will determine how and where the aroma will be smelled.

For this reason, I have gotten my head out of the clouds and decided to just go along with my original order (the first list) and get the roses I want most.

All of this time I have had this obsession with 'La Ville de Bruxelles' because of a former GW member who sent me a flower of her LVdB in the mail. When I smelled it, the fragrance was so powerfully exquisite it made my world spin, causing me to think that the once-blooming old European roses were the only worthwhile choice for real fragrance.

Now that I got that off my chest...

Gardennatlanta, Last fall I planted a hedge of 5 tea olives. I fell in love with them at my grandmother's house in The Vinings. BTW, how fast do they grow? I planted them between my neighbor's house and mine for some privacy since they are evergreen and supposed to get big.

cemetaryrose, I am hoping my CdN will be as fragrant for me as yours is for you.

:) ~*~*~smiles and thanks to all you!~*~*~ (:

I've found that r. alba semi-plena has that Granny Smith apple smell in the leaves (like eglanteria) but the flower doesn't have a strong fragrance.

?

Interesting!

I grew the White Rose of York (hence my Gardenweb name), but never noticed the leaves to be fragrant. The human sense of smell is such a tricky thing!

I don't know if that rose would grow all that well in zone 8 in GA (since it's often regarded as a northern rose), but then again, I think maybe I've read before that the Ancient Romans grew it in their gardens, so maybe it would be okay.

In any case, to my nose the fragrance of its flowers traveled, but nowhere near as powerfully as the scent of Rosa multiflora did (THAT'S a powerfully fragrant rose!!, but one you should NEVER grow!!!!) Semi-plena's fragrance did travel on the breeze just a little. When mine bloomed in late June (when the temps. were in the 70's - it's cold up here), I could sit three feet away from the flowers and catch the lovely, purely sweet scent once in a while very gently wafting from the flowers in the shore breeze.

Rosa eglanteria is a wonderful rose for fragrance because the leaves do indeed smell like green apples, so you get fragrance any time the leaves are green (whether there are flowers or not), but it's a BIG gangly rose, and it's a BIG, THORNY shrub. It's the sort of wild rose that immediately reminds you that roses are briars! In my mind it's not the sort of rose that fits well into a "typical" rose garden, unless that rose garden is on a big scale, and backs up to a semi-wild area (which could certainly be a meadow, or some such). If I was going to use the eglantine rose in a big rose garden, I would probably use it as a bordering hedge, or as a shrubby backdrop for the rest of the garden (& most preferably on the upwind side of the garden! :) )

York Rose,

I know that zone 8 GA is much warmer than your climate, but our summers are not that bad compared to the much of the south. I live in the Appalachian foothills, and we are a heat zone 7. Our hardiness zone was once 7, but I assume b/c of global warming we are now an 8.

But you know, we are at the coldest part of zone 8, and this allows us a wider spectrum of things we can grow. Once blooming roses as well as most other shrubs reliably set buds and bloom well here. The only (and sadly) shrub and perennial I wish I could have thrive here are those fancy old French lilacs and hybrid elatum delphiniums cultivars.

As far as lilacs go, I grow the ones bred for mild winters with excellent success. In fact, now in my Lavender Lady's 2nd year, she will be about 6' tall.

BTW, you have a very elegant style of writing.

:)

I live in Louisiana in zone 8B and I've also perused around the gardens of the American Rose Society in Shreveport, so the climates are pretty similar to yours. Here are some of my favorite wafters:
1) Marie Pavie wafts wonderfully on the breeze and blooms for at least 6 months out of the year. A bonus is few to no thorns.
2) Prosperity is a hybrid musk that has a fragrance to take your breath away.
3) You can hardly go wrong with almost any of the noisette roses. Try Crepuscule, Reve d'Or, or Madame Alfred Carriere. They are all wonderful in my climate and are sweetly fragrant.
4) If you want a huge bush, then Mrs. B. R. Cant is my suggestion. Not a strong fragrance, but a nice one that will carry because of all the blooms.

The only (and sadly) shrub and perennial I wish I could have thrive here are those fancy old French lilacs and hybrid elatum delphiniums cultivars.

Yeah, the lilacs really are cold weather shrubs (one of the few serious plant benefits for gardening in a cold area). Regarding delphiniums, my understanding is that they do best in a climate closely resembling England's (and on this continent I suspect that means the Pacific Northwest).

In my garden it's not any particular rose, it's proved to be how long the rose has had to establish. A big, strong, vigorous rose with a massive spring flush will broadcast fragrance surprisingly well, even if the individual blooms are not as fragrant as some other varieties. 'Sombreuil', which didn't have much if any fragrance for its first 6 or 7 years, now bowls people over with fragrance, even me, who has an allergy-damaged sense of smell.

The most freely wafting rose I grow is Rosa moschata. The scent floats on the air delightfully, and it blooms from mid-summer until frost. Northern gardeners are denied this wonderful rose, but in zone 8 it should not be a problem.

Rosefolly

Hi Flowery,

I haven't yet smelled them, but I recently ordered some Duchesse de Brabant roses, partly based on a hope of a noticeable fragrance.

Liz Druitt and Michael Shroup in their book "Landscaping With Antique Roses" describe Duchesse de Brabant as "...one of the most fragrant roses available, brimming with the rich, cool scent so typical of the teas." They are so fond of Duchesse de Brabant that they say "If you can only have one rose, it had better be this one."

As a bonus, it's a beautiful and a fairly healthy plant (Earthkind) with a gorgeous pink flower. And it has fewer thorns than many roses have.

Best wishes,
Mary

Here is a link that might be useful: Duchesse de Brabant information at Help Me Find

I would agree with those who have suggested Blush Noisette.
I have four of them. Last year was their first here, and they were in pots until a couple of weeks ago.
Every morning during summer,autumn and early winter, as I opened the door in the morning, I was greeted with a huge waft of perfume from them.
Wherever I was in the garden I could smell them. Glorious!
Daisy

Hi Flowery,
I live in zone 8b so about the same. I grow mostly teas, noisettes, and chinas. One of the main reasons I pick a rose is due to fragrance from what I hear others say or what I have read. I have several roses that I have heard have strong fragrance. Sadly however my nose just can't smell anything or if I do it isn't very strong to my nose. I do however have a few that do waft and I actually can smell quite strongly. Lamarque is one of my favorite roses, to my nose it smells strongly of lemon, it is also a vigerous grower in my garden and highly disease resistant. Blush Noisette also has a very strong sweet smell that wafts and is usually the one most people point out that they can smell when standing in my yard and ask me what smells so good. To me she is not the prettiest and her spent blooms hang on for too long to where I will dead head to keep it looking neat. However is grows fast and is pretty good health wise. The other is a shrub rose Belinda. She's new but to me she has a strong scent that I love. I have DdB but the only way I can smell her is by holding it up to my nose. Other than that though I just adore her for her blooms, incredible health, and rapid growth. I wish I could smell the smell I see so many talk about.:O( I also have Mrs.BR Cant and I can't smell a thing from her though she was listed as one of the top 10 for strong fragrance in a book on old roses. MAC I can only smell holding up to my nose and the same with Sombreuil. My nose must be broke.
I have Buff Beauty as one of my new roses coming the end of this month so I hope I can smell her.
Rosefolly- I looked up Rosa moschata and oh boy I love her! Looks like you have enabled me as I want her.
Hoov- I have hope now that the roses I can't smell now I will be able to some day.
~Meghan

I forgot to mention that a real advantage of the true Musk Rose (R. moschata) is its bloom period. Many of the roses you have listed are once blooming old garden roses (OB-OGRs). They will flush gloriously in late spring or early summer, then are done for the year. And that is fine; I love their overflowing abundance; no stinginess about them. However, the Musk Rose blooms later. It begins in midsummer and fills the air with its scent continuously until frost shuts it down. Most years I don't get any frost and I shut it down myself with pruning in December. If you do plant this rose, allow it lots of room. It makes a huge shrub. I suppose you could train it as a climber, but I don't plan to try.

As for lilacs, those of us in warm climates can indeed grow them. There is a series of lilacs bred at Descanso Gardens in southern California, known as a group as the Descanso hybrids. They were developed to bloom without much winter chill. Two well known cultivars are 'Lavender Lady' in the traditional lilac pale purple, and 'Angel White', a white lilac as the name suggests. Others include 'Chiffon' - lavender; 'Sylvan Beauty' - rose pink; 'California Rose' - another pink; Rose breeder Ralph Moore developed his own low-chill lilac called 'Blue Skies'. You may need to do some searching to find them. You may even need to order them online if no one in your area is selling them, but they are out there if you want them.

Finally here's a trick that sometimes works to get regular lilacs to bloom without adequate chill. Some lilacs respond to a period of drought. I have a scraggly old lilac on the corner of my property that has been neglected for many years and still blooms. It gets no summer water. It was planted by a pervious owner, and I don't know the variety, but I suspect it is just the common lilac.

Rosefolly

Flowery Earth, I did not see that you are already growing Lavender Lady lilac. Forgive me for repeating the obvious.

Rosefolly

As for the tea or sweet olives- in about 5 years you should have a decent size hedge with delicious wafting fragrance in spring and in fall. I have 3 that are 20 years old and they are about 15-20 feet tall. 3 that are 10 yrs. old are about 10 ft. tall. My favorite fragrance is natural tea olive. I don't think it has been duplicated commercially.

mmmm, eleagnus (I think that is what you mean by sweet olive) - a gorgeous smell which wafts out of nowhere around October. I remember trying to track down the glorious smell and finally finding these very insignificant tiny blossoms - but isn't that the way with many of our most fragrant plants. Floweryearth, a great way to make use of fragrance is to try to trap it in an enclosed area - walls are best- but any arbour would help as the fragrance is not carried away by the breeze and has time to accumulate. Roses are lovely, but for total amazing fragrance, the daphnes cannot be beaten, and then there are the honeysuckles! Try to get scented flowers growing at different levels in your most sheltered spot where you can sit and be taken away!

Here in Louisiana, what we call eleagnus has silvery leaves that are wonderful for flower arranging and decoratiing. They make great wreaths. I have not observed any flowers but I do not have personal experience in growing what we call eleagnus-AKA "ugly Agnes". The shrub is not a particularly pretty one. Tea olive or sweet olive is a large upright-growing evergreen shrub with slender, ovoid shiny leaves and tiny yellow flowers in clusters, which bloom every spring and fall. Here, we plant them strategically by windows and doors to catch the wafting fragrance! I haven't had any success in cutting the stems to bring inside. The flower clusters shatter quickly. From what I understand, it may not be cold hardy too much farther north.

Flowery, I saw that buffington already answered your question but I'll add that the rate of growth depends on how much shade your plants are getting. I have one that gets some pretty good deciduious shade and it is much slower growing than the ones that get more sun. Other than that, in a pretty sunny area, I'd agree with Buffington on growth rate. I keep mine trimmed down so they don't get huge--just large.

campanula: Elaeagnus is what we call in the states "Russian Olive". They have a really different look from the Tea Olives. Russian Olives have a really pretty silvery back to the leaves and are a much more sprawly plant. Some bloom better than others. Around the Atlanta area, they grow wild in wooded areas and at times fill the air with an incredible sweet fragrance. They bloom in the fall here and can also get HUGE. I have one in my yard but it has never bloomed--not sure if it takes time to mature or if it needs more sun. They can be hacked back to keep them smaller, too. (If I had to choose only one of these, I'd go with the Osmanthus--bloom period is longer and the bush is less "Austin-like").

I first recognized Rosa moschata ( Musk Rose) by its fragrance. I was wandering around an old neglected rose garden that covered an acre or so and a warm breeze was blowing and with it came a sweet rose scent, that was musky. I followed my nose and came to two bushes of Rosa moschata. Rosa moschata has a very long bloom season for a wild rose, here in Northern California it begins blooming c. August 1 and blossoms continuously through Halloween.
The lovely fragrance has been inherited by several Noisette roses.

Most of the "scent wafting roses" as I call them, include Rosa moschata and most of its hybrids found in the Noisette rose class and less commonly among the Hybrid Musk roses which are distant relatives of Rosa moschata and closer in breeding to Rosa multiflora. A freind of mine swears she can smell two large "Bubble Bath" rosebushes ( Hybrid Musk) from more than 100 feet away. Although I can only smell them from c. 20 feet away I do love their scent. It is believed to have been a naturally occuring hybrid between a Hybrid Musk named 'Kathleen' and the marvelous Tea-Polyantha 'Mme. Cecille Brunner' which has a Old Damask rose scent mingled with black pepper scent notes inherited from the China side of her family.
I was visiting a large rose garden with a freind and came across the most fragrant rose I've ever touched, named 'Secret Garden Noisette' , and I ruffled its petals with my fingertips. For the next two hours after smelling any new rose, I yelled to my freind "You've got to smell this rose!!! It is so fragrant!!!!. I finally noticed that it was the rich spicy fragrace from the small clump of petals on 'Secret Garden Noisette' that I had touched 2 hours previously, briefly. 'S.G.N.' like most Noisette roses, produces small rounded rose blossoms in clusters. The blooms have a white center and c. a 1/3rd edging of bright cerise-pink. All Noisette roses have attractive foliage which make them a favorite of mine. I used to grow 'Secret Garden Climbing Musk' but it languised from p.m. in my organic rose garden.
Other than Noisette roses and a few Hybrid Musk, The spray form of Cecille Brunner' wafts a bit, and it blooms, by far the most often in zone 8 of all its forms bush or climbing. It makes a large "8 feet in all directions rosebush. My neighbor grows it as a 6' tall by 6' long by 3' wide hedge on the side of his property.

Tea class roses do not typically waft, although this January I noticed a lovey sweet black tea scent around 'Reve d'Or' a very pretty golden yellow Tea-Noisette. Only 3 roses in a collection of several hundred bloom in Jan-Feb here and "Reve d'Or" is one.

I love all the roses in your collection, especially the Damask Bruxelles.
Luxrosa

Wow I have my work cut out for me! I made a list of all the roses recommended on this thread and will do all the reading up on them I can. Regarding Quatre Saisons Blanc Mousseaux -- I saw last fall when Vintage was selling it and almost bought it, so next time they offer it I most likely will.

When Janet was talking to me about roses, she was gently trying to coax me into opening my mind to southern roses, and I'm still fighting the ridiculous resistance I am feeling towards it. The more I have come to this forum, the more I have seen people who favor the repeating roses over the OB-OGRs (thanks for the abbreviation, rosefolly). You all are starting to win me over... or enable me as you say. :) Even though the OB-OGRs tend to have a more formal flower, I just need to get over my idiotic snobbery to southern-tough roses.

I have smelled DdB. She has that tea fragrance (duh) that I have never been to fond of. However, seeing all the good reviews that rose gets I think I'm going to giver her a try and learn to like it. Also, a while back Hamp had posted a pic of her blush noisette and that alone made me want to grow her.

jovy, I grew a beautiful prosperity in S. FL and it flowered heavily regularly, but I never really smelled anything in it, although I have often heard it is a fragrant rose.

hoovb, I'll take what you said into account.

Rosefolly, you are so right about those warm season lilacs. They are so tough! My blue skies has huge red buds that look anxious to bloom. I am planning on buying:
Excel
F.K. Smith
Clarke's Giant
California Rose
and Angel White
from lilacs.com. I just can't get enough of them, so they have priority in my yard. I am also going to look for a Big Blue as well as the ones you recommended.

Campanula, I have been wanting to grow a Daphne odora because of the fragrance I've heard it has, but have been discouraged from doing so because I have heard a lot about it suddenly dying. If there's something I don't know, please let me know.

Thanks buffington and gardennatlanta for answering my question.

:)

I've heard that about daphne as well, don't know if careful siting will help. It seems to be a plant with specific requirements that need to be respected. Mine has been in my garden four years or so and has always looked happy and grown and flowered well. In our Mediterranean climate it seems to like being under deciduous trees so that it has summer shade and leaf drop, and it's on a slope so that it has good drainage, particularly since there's a good deal of rubble underground in that area. It might like soil that's alkaline or that has a limestone base, or that at least isn't acid. And it likes to be fairly dry in the summer: don't water except when it's definitely droughty.
You may well not be able to fulfill all the these requirements exactly, but at least you can avoid putting your daphne in exactly the wrong spot. I'd like to hear what southerners have to say on the subject, though, as your growing conditions are so different from mine.
Another very fragrant plant for southern gardens is sarcococca. This is a winter-blooming, evergreen member of the box family that makes a moderate-sized pretty shrub. It blooms around February-March here with insignificant white flowers and has a wafting scent, sweet with a sickly undertone, though I like it just the same. Most sarcococcas are fragrant, but I believe at least one variety is scentless, so check about that. My tea olive (the name of the genus is Osmanthus) defoliated and likely for that reason isn't in flower, but I totally agree about the fragrance.
Eleagnus/Russian olive is popular here on the continent, but I don't know the names of the species and hybrids most often grown. I've seen fearsome specimens of Eleagnus in Florida, ones that no sane person would introduce into a garden, but there are handsome garden varieties, robust but mannerly; also variegated forms. I have Eleagnus, as it's one of the few evergreen shrubs suitable for tall hedges that will grow easily in my garden. And it does smell really good.
As you can see, I love scent too. I hope you get a really fragrant garden!
Melissa

Thanks, luxrosa. BTW, where is Emeryville? For some reason I don't know what state or country that's in.

Melissa, you must have a lot of fun gardening it Italy. How I'd love to move to France or the UK and have a villa, cottage, whatever in a small picturesque town and have the garden of my dreams... That'll happen in heaven. :)

Any way, I appreciate the Daphne info. I am happy there are so many others who are fragrance fans.

As I have been planning my garden on paper, I am planning zones that are devoted to a concentration of a specific scent. For instance- I have my lilac hedge, then my old rose border, my mock orange cluster, than my gardenia wall, tuberose stretch, etc so that as you wander the garden, there will almost always be some aroma at any given time of the year.

hi flowery, on the scent trail again, have you come across zaluzianskya - like scented catchfly or stocks, it is a gorgeous, easy to grow annual (although it is strictly a perennial) with beautiful white flowers with a crimson reverse. It has a remarkable evening scent which tops nicotianas any day. I love fragrance although I am not keen on jasmine or paperwhite narcissi which are a bit sickly.
Also, there are fabulous philadelphus microphylla that smell exactly like Bazooka Joe bubble gum! Then there are the salvias, primulas, lavenders ooooh, I could go on,,,,and on. Your garden idea sounds terrific.

Campanula, I will look into the plants you mentioned. About the zaluzianskya- I didn't know the botanical name, but when I looked it up, I recognized those flowers from the Thompson and Morgan catalog.

As far as jasmine goes, I planted a J. grandiflorum last summer and didn't care for the fragrance too much. I agree that its sickly sweet... hehehe "sickly"... On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE Jasminum sambac. The problem with it is that its not hardy here. J. sambac has a different aroma than grandiflorum. It's the perfect tea jasmine.

I'm going to be looking for that Mock Orange you recommended, because I have had the best luck with P. 'Innocence', so I ordered a P. coronarius. The microphylla will make a welcome addition.

I have never smelled a salvia w/ fragrant flowers (only leaves), although I LOVE the second two you mentioned. You must have a glorious garden, being in the UK. Today I just got a British book from the 1980's called "Making a Cottage Garden" by Faith and Geoff Whiten. It's wonderful.

I don't know if I told you in another thread or not, but your screen name is and always has been one of my favorite genuses. It started when I saw my first seed pack of cup-and-saucer canterbury bells in 2002. What's your favorite Campanula? I love C. lactiflora 'Loddon Anna', C. persicifolia + p. alba, p. 'Chettle Charm', carpatica 'Blue and White Clips", 'Pantaloons', and on and on. I honestly think no cottage garden is complete without one! :)

Brightest blessings,

Arthur

Lavendar Lassie! I grew it at my previous garden -- it made a fan-shaped wall of thorny canes and thousands of blooms. The canes draped over our fence and arched across a walkway to my neighbor's yard. Every spring the beautiful lavendar-raspberry flowers would fill the air with a spicey fragrance and then the petals would shower down, with fragrance still lingering and you would walk thru the fading petals -- lovely! Sadly, I haven't been able to grow it at our current home even tho it's basically in the same micro-climate, but I'm trying a third time. The first climber was grafted, the subsequent ones have been own root and haven't thrived altho this third one looks like it's a winner. Very healthy foliage on this rose, but it's mostly a spring & fall bloomer.

You know, I had roses all over (including a lot of those noted above) last year, and the only scent that carried around the garden was from the honeysuckle.

15 more roses (supposedly all fragrant) this year (that's it!!), but what I'll really be trying for on fragrance:

Osmanthus
2 gardenias (Chuck Hayes)
Summersweet
Korean Spice Viburnum
Carolina Allspice

The jasmine was planted last year. Didn't do much then, but looks like it survived the winter fairly well, so we'll see.

I suspect that Daphne odora likes an alkaline soil. My pH is about 8, and my daphne is glorious. I have to prune it back to keep it from taking over the universe.

Rosefolly

hi arthur - yep, campanulas, aren't they just the doers of the garden? Oh, and I also love Chettle Charm. I grew Kent Belle for the first time last year and am looking forward to this years growth. Tend not to bother with the carpaticas but I love the ever-so-common C.portenschlagiana. Also, C.Lactiflora always looks terrific. Have you ever grown any of the asiatic types (punctata, allarifolia or takesima? all a bit too rampant for me but hey, talking of rampant, I have actually planted a C.rapunculoides which a very respected nursey-owner swears will not run!!! It is a lovely plant so I am keeping my fingers crossed. I am getting interested in adenophoras too - I think they are more common in the Oh, look Arthur, you have got me all in a froth talking about my fave genus (whisper it, on this forum). There is a terrific book by Lewis and Lynch - a monograph on campanulas just called 'Campanulas)- well worth buying, especially good on the alpine types. Ha Ha - beautiful garden! Ahem - my garden is a minuscule yard BUT I do have a couple of allotments, supposedly for growing vegetables but, hey, what else would a flower lover do, having access to loads more space? Inevitably though, I like to try a lot of different things so there have been a number of varying 'gardens' on my allotment, (alpine/scree, gravel, californian, South African, crazy daisy border and so on... some more successful than other. Also, it is basically just a large space and not really what I could claim as a complete garden (paths are just stomped earth etc.)....and it is very colourful, interesting but totally chaotic. Am hoping to finally sort out taking photos and putting them on the PC this year so may actually have to reveal all....but, I sort of feel amongst friends.
Have fun with fragrance - my latest discovery last year were lavenders when our local botanic garden started a whole area of them - around 80 species and cultivars- I went a little crazy and begged many cuttings! Scented leaf geraniums this year, i think?
Salvias, yep, mainly the leaves but truly, the tangerine sage is just astounding.
Cheers, flowery, look forward to hearing more garden adventures.

mudbird, I have looked at Lavender Lassie in catalogs and think she's a beaut.

Geo, thanks for the input. Yeah, I thought that some roses would be like mock oranges that you could smell around the garden. I thought wrong about the ones I was looking into.
BTW, I have been looking for a Clethra alnifolia rosea, but have not been able to find it anymore. Only the white ones and 'Ruby Spice'.

Rosefolly, thanks for the tip.

Campanula, you made my day! :)

Your first list struck me as really scented, especially Apothecary Rose. I can smell it all over the yard here.
I have a copy of Quatre Saison Damask I rooted. Not the white one. Maybe we can trade for something. here, QSD stays short. It gets a lot of cane loss.
You can also get it at Greenmantle Nursery.

Seems you're right about the clethra alnifolia rosea; saw some places that had it, but were wholesale only, or you had to have a $250 minimum order. Some say sold out.

Saw one place that had seeds of it (packet of 95 for $8.95, plus s & h - sheffields.com).

What's wrong with 'Ruby Spice'?

I didn't notice Apothecary Rose being all that fragrant, but maybe I should try drying the petals, as I understand that way is more fragrant?

Was thinking of trying Daphne, but heard they can be difficult, in addition to being poisonous?

Debating whether to try fothergilla - how is that for fragrance in the Spring?

Lavendar Lassie (and Buff Beauty, for that matter) are also (so far, anyway) not that fragrant for me. Still, hope springs.......

Kaylah, I find it interesting how fragrant you say the Apothecary's Rose is. I know its fragrant, but I didn't know its that fragrant! Cool.

Geo, there's absolutely nothing wrong with ruby spice. In looking back at that post, I see that I made it look insignificant. Didn't mean to. Its just that rosea is the only one I want.

I dont really know anything about fothergilla.

Thanks!

Fothergilla has a very distinct fragrance when it's in bloom and to my noes it does travel a little. The fragrance is simultaneously sweet and a little musty. It doesn't smell like honey, but there are some honeys one would also describe in the same manner.

The scent of Clethra alnifolia travels well and I like it! It's a sweet fragrance.

I agree with everyone about the hybrid musks. They float their fragrance around like oriental lilies. Darlow's Enigma did it the most in my garden.

However, the rugosa hybrid Sarah Van Fleet, whom I don't think is all that well known for fragrance, was the winner in our garden last year. It was all serendipity; I planted her next to a ground floor window as an experiment in home security (if you've ever seen the thorns on that girl, you'd understand). The window closest to where I planted her happens to be attached to the room where DH and I spend a lot of time on the computer. It is also on the south side of the house. So, on one of the three or so warm sunny days we had last summer, the sun beat down on the open roses, and the breeze wafted the perfume into the room. Life was good.

So, (to address your original question and refrain from urging everyone to plant large fragrant roses next to windows), if the bench is close enough to the rose and the breeze goes in the right direction, you might find that many roses will work for you.

Lois in PA

By the way, I just checked the USDA plant database and learned that summersweet (aka is fully native along the East & Gulf Coasts of North America, from Nova Scotia to Texas (including Georgia).

It blooms in high summer (late July here in the Boston area), and comes in more than one size (there are miniature versions of it that have been bred and introduced into US commerce by Dr. Michael Dirr, a woody plant/ornamental shrub breeder/researcher/professor at the University of Georgia).

One species that has a pronounced (sweet & also musky) fragrance that travels very well (hundreds of feet downwind!) is Rosa multiflora, but that is also a very weedy rose that is highly susceptible to rose rosette disease, so you shouldn't ever grow it.

However, if I understand correctly the Hybrid Musk roses - in part - incorporate this species in their ancestry. (The Polyantha roses do as well, but I can only conclude that whoever incorporated multiflora into that class must have used a scentless one.)

Thanks, York; I may try fothergilla next year - looks like it might be nice in the fall, as a red counterpoint to the yellow of the clethra.

My hybrid musks (including darlow's enigma) didn't have much fragrance for me, at least not last year. Rugosas, however, do. Plus I like the hips; some (e.g.-snow pavement) do better in that regard than others (e.g.-dart's dash), though.

And as far as polyanthas not having fragrance, there I may have to (somewhat) disagree. My Clotilde Soupert did have some (not wafting, but some), and so I have hope in that regard to my upcoming receipt of Marie Pavie (plus a climbing Clotilde).

I understand that not everybody can smell musk scent.

And I happily defer because the only Polyantha I have personally grown is The Fairy. I find that completely scentless (although I think it's otherwise a good rose, or at least that was my experience with it). My impression was that the class generally is regarded as scentless, but I confess I don't know all that much about this rose class, either.

York, I have heard nothing but good about the fairy. But the time I smelled it, I didn't smell anything, either. The only polyantha I've ever smelled that had a real fragrance was my huge climbing Cecile Brunner when I lived in Miami. I had it growing on a gothic-style arch over the gate to my garden. Even though it didn't waft, it had a very nice, pronounced scent. Come to think of it, I miss that rose. When my family went and visited our former next door neighbors, they told me that they could see the rose well above the 8' fence that divided our yards.

Ah! Yes, I knew that Cecile Brunner was fragrant, but I haven't grown it and didn't realize it was a Polyantha. (Like I said, this isn't a rose class I've paid very much attention to, so even though I knew of CB, and knew it was a famous rose (& that the climbing form of it could be a monster when it was happy) I had not realized it was a Polyantha.)

OMGsh-- The order I postponed from RVR until fall just arrived this afternoon... but I'm thrilled! The plants are excellent quality.

As much as I was wanting to try the hybrid musks and teas, I think this mistake is like life saying for me to just try the ones I've been wanting for years, b/c if u don't, u will be unhappy with what u get.

But... Thank you all for the fun discussion! For a guy who doesn't know anyone who likes old roses like himself, this forum is quite theraputic. :)

Arthur

Hi every one,

I live in NJ. Are you aware of any public rose gardens in and around NJ/NY/CT/DE/MD/PA, that I can visit and feel the fragrance of some of the best rose varieties posted on this forum? I am considering to plant up to ten fragrant rose plants. Thanks for your help.

Is Brooklyn a convenient location for you? (Sorry, my American geography is not so great..). If it is, the Cranford Rose Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens might be what you're looking for. They have a wonderful collection which seems to include a high proportion of Antiques and Species/near Species. Sadly, I only know this Garden through photos and descriptions. A lady from there posts here sometimes - is it monarda??

There were some terrific pics on a thread titled 'Spring walk around (very long)' posted by labrea last june, that should whet your appetite! (Type in the title in the 'Search in GardenWeb' box.)

Comtesse :¬)

Several others have mentioned it, but I will agree that Marie Pavié is one of the best roses I have ever known for releasing its scent into the air. After R. moschata, of course, but only mild climate growers can grow that one.

I only planted my roses a year ago, but I can confirm that Blush Noisette is a wafter. It doesn't have that typical 'old rose' fragrance, but it is incredible - sort of sweet and spicy. Took me ages to figure out where the smell was coming from. I noticed it most at night in summer, when I would open the bedroom window and let the fragrance wash over me.

I like Marie Pavie too, and Secret Garden Musk rose has an amazing scent. The Brooklyn/Cranford Garden is wonderful.

I think my only real wafter is Madame Plantier, probably because it's so big and near the house. My whole garden smells now at the peak of bloom but there are few roses whose scent I can discern from afar except the Madame.

Thank you all. I will try to visit Brooklyn rose garden to smell some of these fragrant roses.

Have an additional question on Rose vines and their height. For example Zephirine Drouhin can grow upto 15-20'. If I have an arbor that is only 8' height, should I not go for this vine? Will it not flourish/flower?