WOW! What beautiful pictures! Thanks everybody for sharing them. I was caught up in the fun of this, thinking of what rose flower I liked best, when I had a thought - most of the responses and pictures here focus on the beauty of the individual blooms. This is understandable, but it is also how 20th century hybridizers thought, and unfortunately it resulted in the development of: spindly upright ugly bushes; new roses with no fragrance whatever; & roses so disease prone that everybody had to spray poisons all over their gardens every 2 weeks! So, I would prefer a different definition of "beauty" - roses that are beautiful not only in their individual blossoms, but as an overall bush. Banksia lutea, as it bursts into bloom all over town, suddenly appearing all over large trees, and dripping down from on high, would certainly be my favorite. All of the teas are graceful shrubs if you have enough room for them, and also have gorgeous flowers. MAC is beautiful in my garden because it has climbed up several old plum & fig trees, and I can see blossoms from my bedroom window as I speak, seemingly floating all over the top of our fruit tree forrest. This has been going on non-stop since March! Ditto Cl Peace, which is now producing blossoms all over the top of a huge pomegranite bush - its third bloom flush so far this year. I have a dark red/purple many many petaled mystery rose that I found in our garden (from where it was growing inside of a Japanese quince bush, I would say it was planted at least in the 1930s) which I rooted & planted out by the street in the sun, right next to the sidewalk. It blooms for 10 months of the year, and is amazingly fragrant with that heady "old rose" fragrance. Our street is a busy street, as is the sidewalk. This rose is only about 4-5 feet tall, so the blossoms are very accessible to passer- byes who want to smell it. I enjoy watching people's reactions when I am near there weeding or whatever - it is truly a "beautiful" rose, as it startles people into a brief happiness! Jackie

hi, Monarda, Mine came from Pickering which no longer sells it, but it is available on the Hortico site. RU may still carry it, I don't know. It behaves like a climber with long canes. Mine does not have the blind shoots that others have complained about on helpmefind. It is vigorous and thorny. The older canes don't seem to develop the stiffness of say, New Dawn, but it is only about three years now, and it's been moved once when I realized it was going to need more room than its previous spot had. Blooms develop at the end of canes or laterals, if canes are moved horizontally. It develops a lot of bud breaks along bent canes. The blooms are beautiful and fragrant. It is not a small rose as it is about 7 feet tall and still growing. I am going to prune the laterals back a lot after the first flush and see what happens. It is very disease resistant here. I think it would be best grown as a climber with the canes grown laterally. I had no idea what this rose would develop as here. I thought it might be a tall stiff hybrid tea, but it is not that at all. It is a climbing rose. How large it is actually going to be I am not sure. It is not in the best spot now and will probably have to be moved again so it can spread out more than it can now.

Good morning Jeff! What a lovely recommendation! Thank you! I have loved this rose since it germinated, but I am prejudiced. The complete lack of prickles; at least here, spotless foliage; wonderful fragrance and her insistence to flower, even at the expense of growth, gained her a place in my heart. You can imagine my delight when my dear friend graciously permitted me to name it for her. You have now experienced what I've always said about disbudding to encourage climbing growth. If you can harden your heart and pick off the individual flower buds, she will respond with thick, strong basals which WILL climb, then explode into wonderful bunches of those exquisite blooms. She has never set hips for me and is easily dead headed either by shaking the "bite-less" canes or washing the plant out with a garden hose. Against a block wall here, debris, dirt and spider webs (not spider mites, traditional spiders) collect in her limbs as they do in all the other climbers on the walls. A strong stream of water run through all of them keep the plants clean and healthy. It also keeps Annie Laurie McDowell free from spent flowers and they all appreciate the hydration and cooling off from the bath. We do, why not the roses? The browning foliage in the photos is due to high heat and water stress, not disease. My experience with Annie Laurie McDowell agrees with yours, Jeff, she stays clean as a whistle here. Thanks for sharing your experience and I hope she brings you joy for years to come! Kim Here is a link that might be useful: Disbudding to push new growth on immature plants

I had read the comments from the Tea Bag ladies, but will go back to one of the first questions I asked about 'Francis Dubreuil', when this thread first began to drift from its original topic: Was the original 'Francis Dubreuil' a "true Tea", or was he a "Hybrid Tea"? Or was he that other thing, a "Tea hybrid"? The earliest descriptions of FD say his color was a dark red with pink or cerise or amaranth highlights. My assumption is that 'FD' was darker than other red Teas, but would not have looked terribly out of place hanging out with other reds such as 'Gen Gallieni', 'M. Tillier', 'Souv. de David d'Angers', 'Mlle Christine de Nouë', ''Corallina', 'Safrano a Fleurs Rouges', 'Princesse de Sagan', 'Bardou Job' and- of course- 'Souv de Therese Levet'. Here's a 1901 review from a German rose reviewer about Francis: "Francis Dubreuil (Dubreuil 1895) is not only one of the most excellent red Tea roses but also one of the best Tea roses of all. The flower is in fact only of medium size, and sometimes even small, but keeps extremely well. It lasts In bud form for a very long time, and is then at its most beautiful. The growth is vigorous and the crown is well branched. What I like most about this rose, is its capacity to produce solitary flowers on long, upright stems, I do not like roses in flower umbels (in clusters). Its floriferousness (flowering period) is very long, it lasts right up to the frosts." That mention of "solitary flowers on long, upright stems" makes me think we might find some HP ancestry in Francis' background, no? And it accords well with other early mentions of FD having "diffuse growth"... Here's an early discrepancy, though; the review above says 'FD' "lasts in bud form for a very long time, and is then at its most beautiful". Contrast that with an earlier British review- Francis "is described as full flower of a fine form, opening very readily, perhaps too much so"... So if Francis was dark red and had diffuse growth, he seems to be quacking like an early HT, and not a "pure Tea"? Was he classified as a Tea because of his fragrance? According to Guillot, 'FD' is descended from 'Souv de David d'Angers' (described as "deliciously fragrant" in 1864) who is in turn descended from 'Caroline', the Tea that may be synonymous with 'Bermuda Spice'. Some early reviews of 'FD' say he is fragrant, most say nothing, and at least one reviewer says "not fragrant". This assortment of varying opinions shouldn't be surprising, given humans' different capacities for smell, and given the way odors can vary according to temperature, time of day, etc. The scent of Tea roses seems to be especially elusive, and elicits a confusion of descriptions, so I'm inclined to believe that the original Francis probably had a Tea scent and was fragrant to some people and not to others. However, I think it's also possible that if there were an early confusion with at least one grower offering a different rose as 'Francis D', the differences in opinion about form and fragrance could stem from an early switcheroo. Just because there was a later mix-up with 'Barcelona' doesn't mean there wasn't also an earlier mix-up somewheres down the line. And if there were an earlier misidentification, this early imposter might be the rose that was later sent from Sangerhausen to Oz in 1981? Another question I have relates to size. The Tea rose grown by Mr Knight just outside of Sydney was a large rose bush. The roses grown in the U.S. and Oz as FD today both seem to be more compact and HT-like (although the Aussie plant that hails from Sangerhausen seems to have a earlier HT look than 'Barcelona' does?) I'm trying to get things straight in my own head, so if I'm off-course in my suppositions, please get me back on track. Virginia