Thanks for the feedback. Am I to understand -after looking at old posts- that the rose in commerce as Monsieur Tillier in the US is actually Archduke Joseph? In any event, it seems like GS is a bit less finicky. I was just going to ask about La Vesuve, Jackie. There is space for it or most of the larger teas/chinas. How would you describe the color for you? I suppose the spot probably would look better with salmon pink or lighter pink as opposed to light brick red. The more I look, the more I like GS though. We've never really had issue of flowers frying. We may get a good amount sun, but our temperatures are never above the low 80s even in the Summer typically, and the rest of the year (like today-72) it's going to be in the mid 60s or low 70s. Not a lot of fog, but enough influence from the marine layer to have decent humidity. Very mildew and rust friendly conditions. The teas we have going in the back at the moment are Rosette Delizy, Gilbert Nabonnand, Rubens, and Adam. Something a bit different from these would be a nice direction to follow, but whatever is trouble free and fitting will be the pick. My mom isn't a fan of the creamy yellow teas, otherwise Etoile de Lyon would be a perfect pick for this spot next to Reine des Violettes. Lady Hillingdon would be a great choice, but I can't find it available anywhere. Does anyone know if Burling tends to have it available? Given that my mom really likes the "reddish" toned or orange-pink teas, General Schablikine is probably the front runner, but I'd like to hear about Le Vesuve, Lady Hilligdon, and any other moderate to large Teas/Chinas you're enamored with that would look lovely between slightly off, creamy white and RdV. Jay

My plant of 'Alchymist' came from Pickering nurseries about 9 years ago, budded to R. multiflora. It is now about 12 feet tall, as a somewhat freestanding arched shrub. (I has a fence to "lean on" on one side) It has suffered badly from Blackspot infection some years to the point of near total defoliation by the time it is at full flush, but most years it has only partial defoliation from the disease. I do not spray the group of roses in that area because of their proximity to one of my vegetable beds, and so they have to fend for themselves. (Also in this area are 'Konigin von Danemark', 'Maiden's Blush, Great', 'Tour de Malakoff', 'Ville de Bruxelles', 'Stanwell Perpetual', 'Comte de Chambord', 'La Belle Sultane', and 'Alika', all of which require no spraying to remain healthy. It surprises me greatly that 'Comte de Chambord' remains Blackspot free in that part of the garden, as it is known for being quite disease prone in many parts of the country.) Andrea said: "I just talked to a rose expert at Peter Beales, and he told me that both La France (1867) and Gloire de Dijon (1850) have not been "as vigorous and healthy as one might want them to be" having shown "problems" for a long long time, certainly much predating the time he's been dealing with roses professionally, that is for 30 years. Beales only keeps these roses for collectors who buy them regardless of their poor performance. He thinks that these roses might have either never been especially healthy and vigorous, and/or that the cloning process is not as perfect as one might expect it to be." (emphasis mine) I tend to agree with that assessment. I suspect that many of these older roses were never particularly good growers and that 100 plus years ago, people were a lot more willing to tolerate their imperfections and work a lot harder to get a few perfect blooms than we are in this era. We have a lot of superb, vigorous roses available to us now and its against these that we measure all others. When you start to compare 'Gloire de Dijon' with a modern climber like 'Westerland', (to name only one of dozens of examples) you quickly discover the relative weakness of some of the older roses. As I said previously, I suspect gardeners of the early 1900's worked a lot harder to get roses of a quality that they deemed admirable for the period, keeping in mind that "admirable" by modern standards has risen to greater heights of perfection. I think many of these older roses we grow never were particularly good plants. 'Marechal Niel' is a good example: even the writings of that time went into great detail to describe what lengths one had to go to in order to obtain a few really good blooms. That included heavy manuring and growing under glass, to name but two. (I can't imagine what they must have had to do to fend off Mildew under glass, since its hard enough to prevent out in the open air!) In the case of varieties like 'Mme. Caroline Testout', which is indeed still an excellent rose, even by today's standards, I think these were excellent roses right from the start and have maintained their vigor and excellence because they were good varieties all along, not necessarily because they avoided the damage inflicted by decades of propagation and viral infection. (Although perhaps this was a factor: maybe 'Mme. Caroline Testout' has some ability to withstand viral/bacterial infections that other roses do not. We can't really know without extensive research what the mechanisms are that depress some cultivars when other seem unharmed. Case in point would be Ralph Moore's 'Climbing Yellow Sweetheart', a climbing Polyantha with superb vigor and health, and yet all plants of it have come from a lone specimen found a few years ago which has been proven to be infected with a fairly aggressive strain of RMV. The plant is an excellent one and seems to be unhampered in spite of the infection.) "I wonder if Paul or anyone else here could tell us something more specific about this generational factor (other than saying of course that "older" roses may be, or may be not weaker than "newer" roses.)" My knowledge on this matter is limited to what I have learned from experts in virology and nurserymen vastly more experienced than myself. I have come to certain opinions based on this knowledge, in combination with observations I have made on my own over 20 years of rose culture. I have also included in my knowledge the things I have learned by reading old catalogs and books from earlier periods (thanks to rosarians like Graham Thomas and archivists like Brent Dickerson), which often tell us quite a bit about the performance of older cultivars. That said, I believe that many, many factors play a role in the performance of some of our "antique" roses. I think viruses play a very important role, I also think that some cultivars may be more susceptible to "clonal degradation" (which may or may not be due to accumulated detrimental mutations) than others, just as some cultivars are far more inclined to generate sports. The 'Radiance' group would be a prime example of a rose that tends to sport often. Is it not reasonable to think that some roses are more inclined to suffer from detrimental mutations rather than desirable ones? I definitely think that some roses were never very good plants, not then, and not now. I think that in some cases, "Rose X" which we grow in our gardens may not even be the right variety, having been passed along for generations under the wrong name. In that case we are comparing oranges to apples and so we are looking for properties which the rose can't possible exhibit. I've said this before, so I won't go into detail on this point. Considering all of these possible factors, I think we are stuck in a kind of informational limbo and trying hard to make judgments that we can't very effectively make, since so much data isn't available to us. Some things we do know, such as the effect that accumulated viruses has on some cultivars. But there are undoubtedly other factors that we don't currently understand or even perceive yet, such as why some varieties appear to suffer from some kind of genetic degradation. So much can be speculated, and so little of it can be known with certainty. FWIW, Paul

That is so odd about DdB, no I don't have any Eucalypts anywhere nearby. I noticed the downward-pointing floppy wilted (yes, also slightly rolled) leaves when it was still in the pot I bought it in and even returned it to the nursery to ask advice. I was sure it must be verticillium wilt or similar. They said it was normal for DdB. I 100% know it had enough water as it was in a pot getting watered everyday! I even watered twice daily to see if I could change the new wilted growth but nothing happened and it wasn't even hot. I had significant misgivings about planting it in the ground, I guess I'll just keep an eye on it!

Oh, well, I ran out of garden space at my house.... Not really. My Italian-born-and-reared husband reached retirement age and we wanted to live outside the U.S. for a couple of years, which in our financial situation meant working. DH's brother-in-law offered him a job--typical Italian nepotism--so off we went. In a first wave of enthusiasm for Italy we bought an old farm, realized at the end of the two years that we had to choose between Italy or the U.S. as our permanent residence, and chose to stay in Italy. We came here in 2000. Our daughter, who was a year old when we came, has grown up here, but speaking English at home and enjoying long vacations in the U.S. with her American relatives, so that she has had the benefit of a bicultural upbringing.