Robert, our noisettes have grown to a good size after a couple of years. However, they look as lousy as the rest right now. All persist in sending up that single big cane you describe. The Old Blush trained on a tree lost all its leaves in the last couple of weeks, but was the first to bloom two months ago. The Champney's, Moulton and Alister Stella Gray are hanging in, and have new growth, so I'm hopeful.

I will add that one of the few roses not taking a big hit at the moment in Jaune Desprez. It's being trained on a tree, and it holds up like cast iron.

Lila

Robert -- There actually ARE two distinct types of Noisette -- the original, clustering sort which for the most part are arching shrubs (i.e., Blush Noisette) and the taller, often-climbing Tea Noisettes (i.e., MAC, Reve d'Or, Celine Forestiere).
I know of very very old long-surviving cluster-flowering Noisettes of the B.N. type which have survived for a hundred or more years in the Sierra Foothills goldrush country here, and in many other places as well. And those same cvs do really well in my mild coastal climate, so I'm not sure what's going on with your plants.

Here's the Vintage blurb on Noisettes:
http://www.vintagegardens.com/roses.aspx?cat_id=26

and on Tea-Noisettes:
http://www.vintagegardens.com/roses.aspx?cat_id=37

Jeri

Robert -

Olga has written about an evil strain of blackspot that she deals with. This may be a local issue you just have to deal with. I have more blackspot on the cluster flowering noisettes than I do on the later tea noisettes. In general, in my garden, the teas are the best performers, followed by the tea noisettes. With some maturity, Blush Noisette and others of that ilk actually have done better in terms of their blackspot resistance. As always, if it fails to amuse you, replace it. That's been my motto and it still works for me. :-)

Jean

Robert, I see two distinct kinds of canes on Champneys' Pink Cluster and Blush Noisette. After the first spring flush they send up several short, stout candelabra canes from the crown that are often more candelabra than cane. I usually cut them out entirely after the candelabras have done their thing. That goes on for several weeks, then they quit producing the candelabras and spend the rest of the season working on a new batch of long arching canes, which are blind in the case of CPC. BN blooms in the fall, but CPC is done for the season once it has turned its attention from short to long canes. Both plants are clean and healthy, so defoliation from BS can't have anything to do with the growth pattern. So far as I can tell they're just genetically programmed to grow that way.

My Narrow Water (a Nastarana sport) appears to have lost the ability to produce long arching canes and produces only the stout candelabra canes throughout the season. So far, at least. The plant is in its third season and looks a lot like a post-spring flush CPC that has had all of its long canes removed. It blooms heavily and takes up a lot less space that way but isn't nearly as graceful looking as its long armed cousins.

Both Alister Stella Gray and Crepuscule show some hint of the two cane type growth pattern. While they put most of their energy into arching canes (too short to climb in the case of ASG), they also pop up a short candelabra cane or two from their crowns after the spring flush. My semi-freestanding, essentially unpruned Crepuscule has grown so large that the candelabras can't break through to the light anymore and I have to crawl under there to cut them out. The rest of my noisettes and tea-noisettes seem to produce only a single type of basal cane, with the possible exception of my young Mary Washington. Too early to tell on that one.

Thanks, everyone. This is very helpful information.

Robert

Last year someone posted about noisettes being gangly and weak to which I agreed, and Ann came right back and disagreed, but the point I was trying to make is that in my zone they are (Blush Noisette, CPC, etc) weak and gangly until they are about 4-5 years old and then they hit their stride and become great plants, good producers and although they never seen to be able to keep foliage below their knees they are a worthy rose for the bloom constantly and smell up the whole garden with the most wonderful face powder smell.

Well we all have different experiences about the same rose grown in different conditions (climate zone, disease exponation) Blush Noisette is the most healthy noisette rose I know of (no spray needed), stays low and compact and have many hundreds of flowers in each flush (there may be different strains that do better than others?):

My Blush Noisette:

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The descriptions and pictures remind me of my polyanthas, Caldwell Pink and Clotilde Soupert. They do this same sort of candelabra growth.

I was unaware that I should prune out these things when the flowering was done. I was tempted, as they're not very attractive once the flowers are gone, but hesitated. As with the noisettes, should the candelabras on polyanthas be removed as well? And should they be cut all the way back to the point where they first emerge or somewhere higher up?

Personally, I snip off the blooms very high up, and let the plant determine where it wishes to start out from. If I delay a bit before deadheading, the plant will usually start to push out new growth, thus showing me exactly where to cut.

Jeri

Belle Vichysoise does well in zone 2 to 2.5 inche lavender pink blooms

I haven't tried growing any of the Noisettes except 'Nastarana' because I had read they weren't hardy here. Nastarana has been completely hardy. It doesn't get very big, but I didn't think it was supposed to? It certainly blooms its head off all season! It's completely disease-free, but then, I've heard that our desert climate doesn't bring out most of the rose diseases.
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Noisette such as MAC in zone 7, that is Atlantic seaboard zone 7, would have mildew and black spot and defoliate from the ground up to mid point. Still very vigorous and blooming like mad. It is best to pair it with clematis then the overall effect is very beautiful.

Actually my MAC always defoliated completely, but still bloomed nicely and was very vigorous. Much hardier then other Noisettes I tried. I lost it to RRD.
I tried to grow Jaune Despez, Celine Forrestier (terrible BS here)and Crepuscule (the healthiest out of all Noisettes I tried). They all lasted several years 3-4, reached some decent size, had huge dieback every winter and finally didn't survive one winter.
Not the best roses for MD climate (zone 6b/7a) based on my experience.
Olga

MAC has always had minor mildew problems in my coastal garden. Last winter's freeze hit it hard, and more than half of it is gone. I am strongly tempted to cut it to the ground, and see if it has enough "oomph" left to come back.

Jeri

Here, a tad further north, all the noisettes have taken their own sweet time to set themselves up into true performers. Long long long time. But it has been worth it.

They seem to need to be able to build that twiggy structure that then turns into canes that then pop out those bloomers. & here that translates into at least 3 or more years.

Fellemberg, Crepuscule, Celine Forestier, MAC, Champneys Pink, Mrs Keays Pink & Mt Vernon Purple who has been ided as I forget who now all have done very well here. Alistair, DAR & WAR didnt even think about overwintering for me. Meteor & La Biche came under cloak of Noisette but now have decamped for hardier classes. Fellemberg too?

While we can get BS, the roses here--in a completely no spray garden, will simply get a mild case at end of first flush for the first couple of seasons & then they seem to shrug it all off.

I thinkthat may because there is a great deal of non rose plant stuff all round that doesnt allow a tipping force weight of BS to build.

104 degrees outside for several days this week (humidity at 9%), and 'Nastarana' is still blooming its head off. No sign of disease, either. None of my other roses are blooming (I don't blame them!), but 'Nastarana' just never stops.

'Blush Noisette' is one of those roses that will be in every garden I ever grow because it is dead tough and a blooming fragrant fool and completely healthy. It sounds like it doesn't like your conditions. All the plants of it I've had (four gardens/yards so far) it has been a shrub rather than a climber, regardless whether it was grafted or own root. Anyway, it just sounds like a bad match of plant and growing conditions, because it is a wonderfully unfussy rose. Sorry, Robert, I think you may be out of luck on this variety.

Rosyone, thanks for the interesting exposition.

Melissa

I'm certainly not an expert on Noisettes, but they've performed so well for us, we are adding more. I love the way they keep on during the heat and I've had no "winter" damage thus far. I put "winter" in quotes, because what typically damages rose bushes is a hard freeze in the spring after days of 80 degree temps. My teas (I love teas) will take some damage from that, but recover in the heat, but thus far the noisettes are unscathed. Another year may teach me something else. They've also been clean for me.

My spray schedule gets out of whack (travel or work) just enough so that I have a full color illustration of those roses that are prone to black spot in my garden. The noisettes are always clean.

Boisemom,
If Nastarena does well for you, you might want to try R. moschata, its parent and a very similar grower. Moschata can handle serious cold once it puts out two to three year old canes. It can also come back from the roots when it's young.
I'm looking for a really strong Nastarena, maybe a found one, ours showed RMV symptoms two years ago (it was about four or five years in the ground then) and is in steady decline now.

To add to the short candelabras versus long and bigger canes, this spring, after the Easter wipe-out freeze, with bad drought both sides of the freeze, a number of our noisettes put up the short candelabras on strong canes; they didn't revert to the short thin stemmed shrubby canes.

Robert wrote "They seem to send up a 3ft cane that is topped with about 50-75 small flowers. Then the BS comes, defoliation, and, in most cases the canes die. " This is the situation where I don't let DH get in and prune my roses because my DH is red-green color blind and can't tell the difference between green and brown in shaded areas. And often I see that on the candelabras, 80% of the stems will die, BUT new growth (the rose's choice) will take off from the not-brown stems. And what Jeri mentioned above about pruning very high or waiting for the newer growth to emerge works on this side of the continent as well. New growth emerges very high, often within the previous candleabra. (I learned this by not pruning immediately after bloom, but waiting until I got around to it...lethargy has its merits.)

How big does r. moschata typically get? I remember considering purchasing this rose several years ago, but was afraid it might get too large for my yard. Information varied about its ultimate size, from a really huge shrub to a very small one.

Also, according to the sources that I found, I was a bit too far north for it, but that may have changed now, due to global warming. :) 'Mutabilis' and 'Old Blush' china roses do fine here, but 'Sombreuil' barely stays alive . . . that's where we are on the cold spectrum. I know that 'r. moschata' died the first year when it was planted at the Idaho Botanical Garden, but I don't remember whether it was from winterkill or other reasons. I wouldn't mind trying it at home, if I had a reasonable chance of success.

And one final question: do you think r. moschata would flower well in a shady area? (I have read that 'Nastarana' does, and if this is true, I thought its parent might share the characteristic.)

I don't know about R. moschata in shade; my first I kept in full sunlight, even though we've moved it (shudder) four times.
But I do have a moschata that's on the NW corner of a bed that has Blush Noisette (about eight feet tall) to the east and Cl Old Blush About 12' tall a bit farther east and to the west some found noisettes that are five feet tall right now. That moschata is doing well with only noon to 4 ot 5pm sun and the rest dappled.

I never trust Botanical Gardens to tell me what dies; what lives? I can believe my eyes, but there are so many ways to kill a rose. If they had it in soils that are usually used for HTs, they could have forced fall growth and late fall growth could have taken it down with winter kill.
I have another moschata in the species garden, growing in really ghastly red clay. It lives and blooms there, and I have given it some water in this drought, but it can survive 'un-rosy' soils, perhaps better than it can survive in pampered rose soils.
Heights of my moschatas are about six feet, and about four feet wide.

Ann...I'm wondering now whether I've "babied" these roses too much...i.e., give them water too late in the season to keep them growing...I've found that some of my neglected roses (those I forget to water or can't reach with the hose) seem to be doing much better... just a thought.

Robert

And maybe we'll know what works for each of us.
Fall drought happens. And when it happens, plants survive.
What really, really bothered me (since I had been listening to all the HT-centric rose wisdom of the local rose sages) was that I could grow roses that they said wouldn't live here. Then these same roses made it through winter with canes intact. Then as I started keeping temperature records, I found that the 'tender' roses could handle temps much colder than they should have.
Then...we had a summer AND fall with great rainfall. Trees along our fields put on so much growth upwards that we couldn't see some neighbors on hilltops not that far away. And with the greatrain fall came a milder winter than previous. And totally against what I'd been expecting, I got more winter damage than in colder winters.
And you cannot know how it bothered me to mutter to myself that maybe fall dryness is a good thing for roses.
It's only when we start really looking at our gardens in the context of what's happening rain and temp wise (and fertilizer wise) that we see the way the plants respond to things beyond their control, BUT some of which are within our control.

I am in Olga's zone. I assume it is 6b rather than my old 7. However, I find MAC does quite well here (sprayed of course - I can give it 1 minute of backpack time twice a month) as do the bush/shrub types as well. Celine has not fared as well and barely survives.

I have R. moschata and R. moschata plena and both survive well here in somewhat sheltered positions. I find the mature size to be about 6'W X 8'H in a sunny position sheltered from the north by a good sized shed. I have observed the candelabras on both forms of the species as well as on a few other plants in the garden which makes me believe that they all may have the moschata genes in them. For example, I see the candelabra on Cecile Brunner and Spray Cecile Brunner (the 6' version - that some erronously called Bloomfield Abundance - with candelabras 6' tall and 100 blooms. I cut them to the ground after blooming - they have few if any leaves and little if any new growth that I remember. Interestingly, a well nourished Moonlight in my hybrid musk bed after the spring flush has sent up a 6' candelabra with over 100 blooms on it as well. I will have to trace its orgins to confirm R. moschata in it sometime (but that's in the name of the class!!!) However, that stalk is truely impressive. - Best

Ann,

I'm interested in knowing some things. First, do you supply additional water to you roses? And, if so, elaborate. I'm considering stopping the supplemental watering at the end of summer to encourage hardening off of some of the more tender roses. When would you suggest no more supplemental water?

Robert

Hmmm . . . I guess I don't have a good spot for a 6-8 ft. r. moschata right now; the only spot I can think of is on the north side of the house, so probably I shouldn't try it. Ah, well. Maybe the perfect spot will "open up" someday.

My soil is sand rather than clay. We have the sprinkler lines "blown out" every year in early October, but we do usually get some natural precipitation during the winter . . . just a little, but enough to keep most things alive. (Our 'Edith Bogue' magnolia has occasionally required water during an exceptionally long dry spell in winter.) I have worried about 'Nastarana' because it has a tendency to stay green a lot longer into the winter than my other roses, making me think it would be more vulnerable to freezing, but it's been fine for so many years that I don't worry anymore.

I do not have hardiness issues in zone 8 - so far. However, I agree with Olga that Celine Forestier gets blackspot (not so horrible here but I usually spray it) and Crepuscule and Jaune Desprez are very clean, I never sprayed them. I have never seen defoliation on any of them.

Gloire de Dijon was hard hit by the Easter freeze and it is very slow to recover. I find this surprising because neither Devoniensis nor Marechal Niel lost one bud or leaf and these two are the most tender roses I grow.

With the exception of Devoniensis all my Noisettes or Noisette- teas are grafted so they grow faster and bloom sooner than the own root clones. Still, Crepuscule gave me only two flushes (spring and fall) in the first two years but by now it is constantly blooming.