egads! I got that reversed. It's too early. Read thin for thick in other words thin are more fragrant and more susceptible to rain damage.

That's a new one to me Jim. The one that I've heard is, "roses that lack fragrance are more resistant to fungal diseases----that's why florist rose rarely have any scent because one of the traits they select for is disease resistance".

Maybe it's both.

I feel the opposite Jim--if a rose doesn't have fragrance I really don't want it. With all the effort I have to put into growing roses, such as dealing with winter kill, our short growing season, and JBs, they have to "do" something for me besides sit there and look pretty. I am much less "moved" by a rose if it doesn't have fragrance, even if it was bullet-proof disease-resistant.

I tend to agree that thin petaled roses that are sometimes extremely fragrant, roses like Sharifa Asma or Old Garden Roses like Comte de Chambord balls more often, than roses with thicker petals. I see some of these roses fail to open after a rain shower or just the morning dew in September sometimes makes the roses ball. In hotter dry conditions these roses are fantastic for both their beauty and fragrance. One of the only nonfragrant roses I grow are Meillands Eden Rose. Other than that I simply do not find it desirable to grow non fragrant roses at all.

But very few roses resist rain for days however thick their petals are.

I have read the same thing-plus the scent in the petal will make the flower blow sooner-that scented flowers do not last as long in the vase. It is certainly odd which flowers will ball. The thin petaled fragrant SDLM clan open with relative ease in the rain while some roses like Banshee will not open even when I have a 2 month drought. I might as well cut off the spring bloom of Clotilde Soupert no matter if it rains or not but as soon as it warms up the next flush opens easily. As for rain, It is discouraging to see my spring bloom fall prey to endless days of rain but I guess I am just a fool for that heady scent of rose.

patricia

Patricia, are you saying SDLM doesn't ball in the rain for you? I've always read that it balls badly so have never tried it. I love her sport, Souv. de St. Anne's, which does well for me here in OR.

what about more petals or less petals? single or full?

SDLM is packed with petals and smells wonderful. Some, many of the HTs are packed with petals with no fragrance, whereas some have excellent fragrance. There is no accounting for taste, but I have found most of the roses that are highly fragrant to be quick "rotters." Is that fragrant gene the "rots quickly gene?" Love those thicked skinned bananas but once the peels start thinning and they start smelling, yukko. The rot gene has set in.

Fragrance is genetically determined and as far as I know doesn't have anything to do with the thickness of the petals except coincidentally. Roses went thru a long period of being bred for florist look-alikes that would stay vase hardy for a long time--stiffer, thicker petals. Fragrance was ignored in the breeding and slipped away. Almost all of the old garden/antique roses are fragrant--it is part of the reproduction mechanism/bees. Most of them do have thinner petals--and most of the species roses have only five [thin] petals. The Damask roses are among the most fragrant and are the principle roses used in perfumes. They have lots of thin petals.

For Lindyb
SDLM is not bad to ball for me. I occasionally 'ease' open an early or very late bloom-chilly weather seems more of a balling indicator here-but in the main it opens with no problems-Surprised me as well especially as my plant is not in a very good spot. I also have Souv. de St Anne's a and you are right, it is a lovely thing.
Catsrose..my the point was that apparently many Cut rose breeders believed that scent shortened vase life(the rotting gene?) so bred it out of their roses. That they thought so does not make it true. I gather the primary purpose of their breeding was to produce a flower that would stay in 'the bud' as long as possible with as long a stem as possible. I do wish I could remember where I read this-I have a number of books on greenhouse propagation and so on. Oh well.

patricia

I don't recall ever reading that the breeders believed scent shortened vase life, but that they didn't care whether a rose was scented or not. Yes, their primary purpose was to breed rose that kept the 'bud look' as long as possible and also for disease resistance. The real market/big money for these features are the commercial rose growers (florists) and the general public was taught to prefer and ask for them as well. Eventually, people began remembering the smell of Granny's porch rose and started asking for fragrance. This also kicked off the revival of the heirloom roses and breeders like David Austin.