How do rugosas perform in your climate and soil? You might want to check with local growers before ordering.

Hi nastarana, and that's always a good question. I am right in the centre of Australia's east coast temperate zone, and about 10km from the water in a 'garden belt'. Grafted roses here are usually grown on Fortuniana, not for nematode resistance but for what some believe to be a more drought-tolerant stock,

Rugosas do very well in my general area, which is sort of San Francisco-meets-Miami in temp range. No snow, but we do get some frost in winter, where the thermometer can drop to just above freezing. Summers can be blisteringly hot in Jan-Feb, but the rest of the time we drift along on an even Celsius keel. Some autumn show of colour , not as good as southern (colder) Melbourne and Canberra. Among the plants
I can't grow in my microclimate are blueberries and lilacs.

Rugosas offered by long-established, most trusted rose suppliers include Blanc Double, Roserie, Jen Munks, paulii, Belle Poitevine, alba, Rugspin, Scabrosa, Sarah van Fleet. Hansa would do well here too, and many Aussies would like to get that one, but not available in Oz that I know of Peter Beales in the UK apparently has a lock on it.

Soil: Rich sandy. Have never tested the pH. The noisettes seem to thrive, but they are the only garden roses that have just been shovelled into the ground with little more than best wishes. Any amendments you would suggest I would welcome with many thanks.

SteveinAustralia in HMF recommended Love Potion as low-thorn when I asked him for his opinion. He's very helpful - I like Aussie folks!

Ebb Tide fits your bill on scent, Betsy. Another one I have that smells of spice/clove/licorce is Tahitian Sunset. I always recommend it--stupidly healthy and the bloom form is top rate. I also admire the fact that it doesn't bleach-out or lose its peachy color in intense sunlight.

Flaurabunda, you are spot on with that choice. I've seen that rose mentioned on these pages time and time again with reference to the clove-ish scent.Of course, because I want it badly, it isn't available in Oz. Nor Midnight Blue* which sounds like a superior version of its sibling Ebb Tide. ET has gotten mixed reviews here (I want to try it, despite good advice to the contrary, just to smell a bloom).

But the good news , flaurabunda, is that while I was digging around for TS, I finally got to the source of Peter Mayle (MEIzincaro)which gets high marks all over this forum for scent. Found him in Oz as "Gift of Grace" . Now added to the list. Yay!

*Note to Oz readers here - the goss is that Swane's has a MB in their test fields, but is waiting to unload more of their Ebb Tide stock before releasing MB as the "improved" Ebb Tide. Just scurrilous rumour, I'm sure ;-)

Hmmm,I don't know about Midnight Blue being touted as an "improved" Ebb Tide so much. That's being said this year about Ebb Tide's offspring Twilight Zone, which I planted not too long ago. I have three Ebb Tide, so it will be interesting to compare the roses. You probably know that Ebb Tide fades pretty badly in hot, sunny, summer weather which we have. For me, Stephens' Big Purple has a gorgeous scent, but it's not really purple--sort of magenta-ish. It's a bit stingy on the blooming for me, but doesn't fade much. Diane

ND, I hear you. As you say and as I am given to understand from reports around the traps, Ebb Tide fades to really ghastly corpse-grey in the hot weather, which I suspect is ten times worse in my area than Idaho. A real negative, especially as our summers are long. I am only getting an ET to test the clove scent for myself. It will live in a container for two seasons. It could end up as compost if its performance overall is really tragic.

Stephen's Big Purple has been on and off my list for a few years. You've just put it back on for 2012. Its New Zealand breeding appeals, as does its reputation for fragrance. It also does fine in the heat, and gets bs only at the end of the season.

The stinginess bothers me, though. Depends on how stingey. The stingiest bloomer I ever had from a healthy plant was Adolf Horstmann, which delivered exactly four drop-dead magnificent blooms a year, for three years. Auf wiedersehn. Ditto my beloved Just Joeys, aka Just Stopped. After years of hoping for better bloom cycles I finally left them behind in one move after realising that having five of them made no diff; they all quit blooming together and took long, long naps.

Ack! I didn't realize you couldn't get TS in Oz. That's such a bummer.

I agree with what the other folks say about Ebb Tide. It does fade to blech in the heat, and the flowers are smallish and shaped more like ranunculus than roses, but I chose it because I like novelty.

I planted mine just east of a very tall climber, so it gets a little bit of sun-shield during the worst part of the afternoon and early evening. It keeps the color of the blooms from getting washed out to blah grey, but nothing keeps them from turning magenta in the heat. Right now, with our mild temps ET is blooming its pure, purple color.

The big question with rugosas is -- whether your conditions are acidic, or alkaline. Rugosas do not fare well in alkaline conditions, so its just best not to plant.'em, unless you have what they need.

Jeri

Jeri, thank you for bringing up this super-important point. I didn't know that. Luckily, our soil is slightly acidic. About 90 years ago the property belonged to the local pharmacist. He was also an American Seventh Day Adventist mssionary, and he loved gardening more than pills and plasters. He must have been homesick, because he removed most of the native eucalpyts and wattles,and replanted 2 acres of the place with stands and swathes of Northern Hemisphere trees - conifers, liquidambars, maples, oaks, elms. Over the 50 years he lived here, he pretty much created an entirely new uniform soil base to his liking. It's lightly acidic, about 5.7-5.9 from memory. He did beautiful work - the huge trees, hedges and little glades are delightful. Unfortunately , when the native plants went, so did a lot of the native bird life is sparse. Mostly cockaoos and galahs now, looking for a hand-out.

But yes, I think rugosas would not hate it here. If they fail to thrive, it'll be the gardener, not the dirt, to blame.