I love white roses best I've grown several fragrant white climbers that can take heat but none that are truly thornless. I left my M.A.C. when I moved because I didn't like how pink it was, I prefer white roses that always bloom white. The following roses are not smooth stemmed, but have fewer prickles than average for their class and all are white and fragrant and grow well here in Northern California where summer temps are more often in the 80's than 90's: To my nose both these two rate an FFFF for maximum fragrance. 1. 'Snowbird' 1936 Hatton, also has a climbing form. "Snowbird" is the most fragrant vintage white H.T. that I've ever met. It has large flowers that bloom in an lovely antique floral shape, that remind me of 'Sombreuil'. "Secret Garden Climbing Musk' has small blossoms that have an intense spicy scent which Jeri Jennings describes as smelling like gingerbread. Mine is c. 5 feet tall now and has very few prickles, though more might come. To my nose "Snowbird" is far more deeply fragrant, and Secret Garden Climbing Musk" is quite a bit more intensely scented compared to "Mme. Alfred Carriere". Another of the most fragrant white roses I've ever grown is 'Nastarana". I grow the bush form which has a few but small prickles and I've read that someone who posts here grows a climbing form of this rose on the east coast. One of the Canadian nurseries might still sell it. I also grow cl. "Mrs. Herbert Stevens" Scent is a refined blend of sweet lemon and mixed floral. Less prickly than the average H.T. but not thornless. Can be grown self- supporting as a large Tea sized rosebush c. 8 feet in all directions. Twiggy growth habit inherited from the Tea class which also gave it its very early bloom habit, the only H.T. in a garden here, that blooms as early as the Tea roses do. Good luck in choosing a rose that you will love, Luxrosa

Hi GAgal. I'm in north FL, same zone as you. I have pretty much the same weather and soil as south GA. One that does well in my garden, that fits your requirements for the smaller rose is Clotilde Soupert. Not totally thornless but few and far between. One of the first to bloom in the spring, she laughs at our hot humid summers, and will still be blooming at Christmas. The flower opens more in dry weather, can ball a little in wet, though I find it quite charming. Lovely old fashioned powder scent (to me). I've had her I guess close to 10 yrs now. I see in your last post you are wondering about a rose for a teepee. Again, in my own yard Don Juan has been a real survivor and bloomer. But not thornless. Do you need thornless there too? Have you checked into any of the tea roses, they do well in this area. Are there any rose gardens near you? It's so helpful to be able to actually see real roses growing in your area. Donna

Well if you're on the wintersow forum than you'll have seen a few nods for JLhudsonseeds.net (shipping $1.50 and carries MANY of the drought tolerant plants on those lists, use the botanical name). You can probably also seed trade. Almost every drought tolerant plant requires regular water it's first year so you do need to plan that for your first summer. Low maintenance is ONLY possible if you kill all weeds first and mulch. Columbines will often bloom spring & go dormant over the summer without much water, but they'll generally live. With water you get a much longer bloom period. There are many heucheras (coral bells) - no pink, but is red ok? There's a firefly (red,) Dale's Strain (nice variegated leaf colors with cream flowers) or Palace Purple (deep purple leaves. white flower). They'll be easy enough to wintersow but grow slowly. All should fit in with their color scheme. Aquilegia (columbine) is VERY easy from seed and comes in all sorts of colors - yellow, white, blue or red - you pick, they'll all look good (just don't get a seedmix or you'll likely get pink!). Cerastium tomentosum (snow in summer Easy from seed, on their list further down) could be substituted for the ice plant as could serbian or greek yarrow. The coralberry gets 1 ft X 1 1/2ft or so - you could substitute penstemon husker red (for reddish foliage, has white flowers) although you won't have the "winter interest" the branches of a shrub would get you. For the redleaf rose, substitute another hardy shrub rose (not a climber) - you can find them in red, yellow or white easily enough. Looks like every color is already in the plan (currently the cream/white from the grasses) - so whichever color you pick should blend with the scheme.

K S.. I'm going to put a damper on things here and claim that it's impossible to be definitive as to which rose that is... too little is known about it.. ... If I may make a few suggestions though as to which direction to look in.. first, it's important I think to move away from any rose bred in the U.S... we're talking about an obscure part of NW France, possibly during the 1930's or so, therefore we have to imagine ourselves at that time, and what was available locally... this rose might simply have been obtained at some local market place, even unnamed... this is before the European Union where plants can be shifted around... and it's unlikely to be a rose bred anywhere outside of France.. ...Politics may also play a part here... during WW2 the Loire was occupied by the Germans... France and Germany never had friendly relations until the formation of the E.U.... would a French person plant a rose say bred in Germany at those times? like a Kordes?... I'm not sure they would... alternatively, it might even have been planted by a German rose lover.. we can imagine all sorts of things where nothing certain is known... ..which might rule out my first inclination which was the Kordes rose 'Sympathie' which I've grown, and it has that very lanky growth habit, although tends to bloom in more clusters.. but here's a HMF link.. but this rose is a 1960's. .bred. hnf ..with this in mind, I think it would be better to look for a French bred rose, perhaps from the 1950's as that rose has that time look about it... and you say it was used for vacations at that time.. ..Two French bred roses of the time.. 'Record' [aka Décor].. by Charles Mallerin and 'Rouge Meilland'.. both climbing red roses... either of these could be possibilities, but we don't know enough about them to check.. few photos available.. ...so you see the difficulties?... best of luck though with your research...