I saw a movie just like this OLGA she was was so sweet and once outta view she turned into a hideous devil!
Please dont't touch your miraculous roses!

Olga, that's one of the funniest rose stories I've heard! ..."you can't even see canes because of all these leaves..."

We have a summer dinner party each June when the roses are in bloom, one guest asks if Alnwick Castle is a peony every year! (Carol and LA you've met this one, I'll leave it up to you to guess).

Thanks for making my morning.

George

"fat plants with shapeless flowers", Oh man I am laughing so hard! If she could only know how many of us would love to have Olga's "fat plants" in our gardens!!! Tee-hee! Bless her "HTs are the only real roses" soul.

Now see, I would have protested long and hard, said, "no, they are supposed to look like this" and gave her the lowdown. I do still get a couple of folks a year who point to Marchesa Boccella and Golden Wings and ask what kind of plants they are.

Keep on keepin' on dear Olga!!!

Olga's roses are fat - big and fat and luscious. I put in a lot of extra work this year after seeing her enormous bushes. Mine still don't look nearly as "good".

My response would have been:

"Well my dear those are Antique and Reproduction roses. Prior to 1867 ALL roses looked liked these."

- Snicker -

I keep laughing, Olga. Great story, unfortunately this kind of comments are not rare. I wish my Abe Darby ever looked half as good! Shapless blooms, WOW!

I'm amazed you were able to keep a straight face. I would have looked so shocked to hear that. Although I have had several comments about how the Ebb Tide in the front garden (which has a rather old fashioned shape) doesn't look like a rose. I usually say that is how it is supposed to look and point them towards the Ingrid Bergman rose behind it which looks like a "real rose" just to prove that I can grow roses and know what I'm talking about.

Olga, I guess you were not holding a stake in your hand? I have an idea for what to do with one...

It never ceases to amaze me how older people have no filter and no inclination to keep their negative opinions to themselves. I had to reprimand my own Mother this week for telling a checkout clerk at Old Navy that he could use a lesson in folding. I wanted to fall into a hole.

When I first saw the title of your post I thought "Oh boy! -Instructions from the guru of rosedom. I was looking forward to what tips you were going to share. But it was you who was the recipient of some very bizarre advice from the anti-guru. We can always do the OPPOSITE of what she suggested in hopes of having roses that look like yours...

Olga, this is unbelievable. How did you exercise such restraint! I think I might have made an enemy with my big mouth. Something like, "Oh these are not hybrid teas and this is just the way I like my roses to look".

Well, at least she didn't call them weird roses like folks here in my office do.

Barbara

I gave a couple of Rose de Rescht blooms to my wife's good friend. She asked what they were and I told her they were Antique Roses. She said, "These aren't roses!" You just can't tell some people things.

The pictures I've seen of your garden are incredible. I'm glad you could laugh. When you look at your beautiful bushes you'll have the last laugh. Jeff

Like huttnem, I thought this was going to be a tip on how you get your roses looking so fantastic. Still, I really enjoyed reading what this well-meaning but oh-so-wrong lady said about your roses!

Cass, you gave me a great laugh.

Jon, another good one! Here I am grinning like a fool after reading through this thread.

Molineux's response is pretty perfect.

I don't know if I could have restrained myself, you've got great control over yourself, Olga!

--Ron

I thought Martha Stewart had swayed the masses - she featured antique and Austin roses regularly in her magazine.

Olga, if it makes you feel any better, I posted here a few years ago about a neighbor who was walking his dog and asked me why did I not do something to my roses, comparing them to another neighbor who had a fresh bed of HTs installed by a nursery. I bit my tongue and kept putting out the Easy Feed. They were fine but I was trying to prevent the "yellowing" because they are in a raised bed and I water often. I just kept working. He said I should go down and see that neighbor's roses. (I had seen them). That neighbor's roses are now all dead and mine are still going fine. Ah, he has not bothered to mention that to me lately although he did come by today and bring me some tomatoes from his garden and mentioned that my front yard smelled good and wanted to know what it was. (He was standing next to Champney's Pink Cluster when he asked).

LOL!! I had a neighbor ask if my garden was 'supposed' to look like that...

I thought about this...we have to pity the poor woman. After years of raising HTs and fighting the black spot and other ills, she just went insane and decided that leggy leafless canes ARE the way roses should look.

My sister (who still lives on Long Island) sent me pics of her garden. I was trying to figure out what roses she had (they looked SO GOOD). They were peonies!

This is a great post------Gave me a good laugh this morning-----Patrick---what a great answer to the remark we all here so often----"they can't be "REAL ROSES"

Now I have to confess----about 50 years ago I might have thought the same thing---I only knew about "real roses" then I bought some lovely books and learned to love the OGR roses-----then we got a computer and I found GW ----thank goodness----the amazing thing is I already had learned to love the old roses and it was great to find the Antique Forum and all you wonderful smart rose-growers.

Olga----I would love to live close enough to you to enjoy your gorgeous fat roses.

Florence

The very elderly lady up the street keeps telling me how that's her very favorite rose,referring to a snow on the mountain bush.Talk about thick foliage.
As to why do we elderly tell it like we see it-why not?At our age we could care less about playing the role.

I've written two reponses and deleted both.
But I'm still mad for Olga and the rest of us and rosedom in general.
There's the old pearl of wisdom "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance." Either the woman is ignorant or malicious or, more probably, a bit of both.

But where does the fault lie for the ignorance? There's a group that declares that only hybrid teas with high pointed centers (no volcanoes (high pointed centers with holds in the middle)) can be the Queens of Show. There's another money-rich group that has made extremely well advertised Selections that for decades were only Hybrid Teas. There're several producers that have turned out looser roses with much publicity, to the extent that people expect rose plants to die, not to become the woody plants that they can and should become, lasting for decades (and being nice enough that we want them to last for decades).
I'll just guess that the unwanted visitor with attitude was directed to her myopic view of roses by people with comparable myopia.
And it's sad.
That same myopic group doesn't see RRD in their gardens, they're only looking for/at the blooms.
I think a major Society has failed to educate. And that's terribly sad.

Olga,
DON'T FEEL BAD. In cases like this, I am often reminded of a line from a short story by Lin Yutang, "the greater the music the fewer able to appreciate it."

I just read this in a book the other day. It was a collection of essays on garden plants and topics and I was reading a delightful 2 page essay on violas and johnny jump ups which the author really loved. She went on about their charm and particular loveliness. She mentioned having a lovely collection of violas in full bloom behind the picket fence in her front border. They were at their peak and she was so pleased with them. A lady walking by stopped to look at them carefully and then turned to the author and said, "Your pansies look puny." I thought it so funny and I guess illusstrates the ups and downs of the human race.

Olga,who grows beautiful roses, created a lovely garden, and possesses a beautiful spirit.

Jim

I have been following this thread and each time I read some new entries, I laugh all over again. I really have to wonder at someone (anyone) not appreciating your roses, Olga. Even if one is used to seeing HTs, your 'plants' are so healthy looking, not to mention all the wonderful blooms that cover all that foliage. I really find it hard to believe that anyone could fault your garden. They might not appreciate the flowers (too small or not shaped like HTs), but how could anyone not see the beauty of the 'plant' as a whole? Or the garden as a whole for that matter. Anyone who makes a comment like that little old lady of yours is really a nasty bit of work. Ignorance (and age) does not excuse such behavior. As we learned while still young--if you do not have something nice to say, say nothing at all!

I gotta try that trick of hacking the plant down in fall in order to get high-centered flowers. I wonder if it works with singles.

I grow mainly HT's in the front for show, the main part of the ogr's are in the backyard. The paradigm shift the tourist makes from viewing the front and then being taken to the back is priceless ... a look of total confusion, but the layout tends to overwhelm the "what roses are these look".

You did well not to react, my temptation had it happened to me on a hot muggy day would of been something along the lines of.

"Dear, these roses were here before your time and will be so after it."

Relatives are the worst; they're impossible to ignore.

You need to cut these (noisettes) back down to 18 inches.

You can't see the house

Next time we come to visit I'm bringing my loppers

---and on and on and on--

MichaelAT

P.S. Speaking of Rose de Rescht, your photo of it from a few months back stands out in my mind each time I look at mine. Beautiful!

Olga this has been a very entertaining thread.

I have often heard the remark, "is that really a rose?" or along the lines of "I bought a red rose at the store last week in a bag, do you think it will live?". LOL

I shouldn't laugh because I was there once myself but having learned from masters like you I can now tell you a rose is a rose is a rose.

Your garden is an inspiration to me, I hope you never change your growing habits cause it is perfect from what I can see in your pics.

Valerie

I know I wasnÂt born with a gene to immediately see the beauty of OGRs, and IÂve learnt to appreciate their relaxing, quiet elegance over time, unlike birds were born knowing to build nest w/o taught. The shapely HT bloom was what led me to the rose world initially, and I still think theyÂre very pretty in their own way. As far as ignorance goes, some of us have the opportunity to learn more about roses at young age, some at middle age, some at old age, and some none at all. Sometimes itÂs hard for me to refrain from laughing at others or my own ignorance, and then I realize that I probably know too much for my own good. I think Olga handled the situation properly.

BTW, there are few OGRs that do have rather distorted bloom shape. But then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I know my Mother loves the HT shape and the fragrance of DAs so I always cut the HTs for her and mixed with some DAs, and I think IÂve found the perfect rose bush that is healthy, full and with shapely bloom for her: BelindaÂs Dream. She loves it.

She's desribing a technique used here to make Explorer shrub roses into climbers -- cut out the bushiness and allow the remaining canes to grow long. I have never heard that pruning effects flower form.

Olga, you seem like an even-tempered soul who couldn't take any offense. The lady offered incorrect advice, which you listened to and privately rejected. Miss Manners would be proud. I hope you replied with some useful knowledge for her -- that there are different classes of roses, and shrubs and teas are supposed to look the way they do in your garden. A teaching moment as someone said.

..... or maybe she was having a bad day, or needed a hug, or had gotten bad news, or was hearing a critical tape in her head from her past, or has dementia, was longing for a garden she once had, or maybe in her own blunt way, sincerely offered help from her perspective......

Olga, I am sure your roses are beautiful. I am also sure this lady does not know of what she speaks.

Carla

Days later, I'm still thinking about your visiter and chuckling to myself.

Rock on, Olga.

Rosefolly

Some people, who enjoy giving "advice" based on negativity, are really just plain jealous. Frankly, in my opinion, there is absolutely no excuse for rudeness, no matter what your age is. That woman was extremely rude. True advice is given in a non-insulting manner.

You handled her well, Olga. Someone like that is not even worth talking to.

A friend of mine on the forum was visiting and I went all out with a large bouquet of Sutter's Gold and a beautiful bloom of Stile 800. The fragrance was divine but they were not ogrs. Eagerly I waited her very valued opinion. Nothing.Finally I had to ask(ok I'm cursed), "Did you like the roses in your room?" She looked paniced and said "What roses?" We both rushed to her room and she laughed saying, "They were so perfect, I thought they were silk flowers." Olga, no matter how hard you try...We still laugh about this one.
la

Oh Olga - fat roses :-) I nearly fell out of my chair.

The first year I gardened in NC, I had a neighbor who asked me nearly every day when I was going to prune the roses.

My MIL has a friend at church (a master gardener) who announced very authoritatively "you cannot grow roses in the Piedmont". My MIL took great glee in inviting said friend for tea in June and I was so grateful the roses were showing off. We toured the gardens, with the quiz at nearly every bush - "is this a rose?"

Oh well!

May my roses grow as fat and healthy and lovely as yours for ever and ever.

Wait until you have some black folk visitors to your garden for some reason and you have to explain that blackspot is not a racial slur.

Thank you, Olga, for such an entertaining thread! Yes, I too was expecting some hints for how to make one's roses look good, but this is MUCH better! It has been a really long, hard wk and I REALLY need all the laughs I can get!
That said, I was amazed and delighted when I first saw pics of the Austin roses, so much more attractive than the pointy shape of hybrid teas to me. But, peonies and the peony bloom shape are my ideals/idols. I have wonderful memories of peonies from childhood. Roses that look like peonies and w/ a greater range of colors, and reblooming- wonderful!
I admire your patience! I am looking forward to being able to bring in a rose or two to work, hopefully next summer, to amaze and delight my co-workers, and perfume my office. Neighbors like that keep your halo dusted off! Brandy

I love peonoies too! Maybe that's why I like roses that resemble them so much. Sure wish I could grow them here, but this climate is not even remotely anything they'd stand for.

Sandy

I show roses locally.

This year I asked for an additional class for English type roses; David Austin's and the like. I was told that I already had a class called Modern Shrub roses. "No!"

So I got 4 classes to show roses in; Dowager, Victorian, Classic & Modern Shrub classes. They had 34 different rose classes in our last show. Thanks ARS!

I did win best open HT but that looks like a peony. I like peonies.

Not that I am greedy, but ----- I started out with Austins and like the shock & awe bit rather than the aspect of examining a perfectly spiraled fat rose under glass. I enjoy being out in the garden with all of my JBs, BS spores, and blood --- mostly mine.

I think that the art of growing the perfect HT spiralled rose is a dying art. As I love roses in general this is somewhat sad.

There are gardening clubs out there, I just like to rant on about my favorite fluffies and not talk about hostas or something yucky like that.

Foghorn
NAGL

She was honest with her advice, nothing mean about her.

LOL!!

She also was clueless, and using the rose aesthetic of the 1940's & 50's. Why anyone would want a rose to be bare naked canes is beyond me!

Olga, I am sure your roses are beautiful. I am also sure this lady does not know of what she speaks.
Carla

When Olga's roses are in full bloom she posts pictures here. Her roses are to DIE for! :)

Olga, I am sure your roses are beautiful. I am also sure this lady does not know of what she speaks.
Carla

Carla, when Olga's roses are in full bloom she posts pictures here. Her roses are to DIE for! :)

Ahem........

Olga's roses are magazine worthy!

I work at a greenhouse and nursery so I get TONS of stuff like that, especially because I'm one of the younger members of the greenhouse staff, some of the older customers totally butt heads on what I suggest to them.

When I told a woman that rosemary wasn't hardy to overwinter in our area, some might be marginal towards the city, but nevertheless I was telling her about bringing it inside if she wanted to keep it- good harmless advice, but she insisted that she's had hers survive and make bushes here. I asked her if she had big bushes of it planted in her yard then and she said she didn't know where they were and that I didn't know my roseMARIE (her own pronunciation!) She was probably in her mid to late sixties- I was unsure.

I had another person today claim she took care of her geranium hanging basket and watered it EVERY day, which is why of course it was bone dry, practically leafless, and she was returning it- but noooo she said it was diseased from the start and insisted that the Japanese beetles ( I showed her the beetle damage and talked about nitrogen rich plant food to fix it) MUST have came in on the plant and all her other plants started looking bad after she brought it home, which of course was July, when the beetles come out. Possible, but sketchy with the disease thing. I asked if she deadheaded the flowers, she somewhat answered but in general didn't know what it was. She got out the receipt but then wouldn't give it to us because " It was wrong, her husband grabbed the wrong one". Anyway I found at least ten dead Japanese beetles in the bottom of the planter- if she had watered she would have seen those buggers chomping on the leaves- excuse my language ladies but this lady ( I want to say rich b*tch because she complained about having come from a hot and strenuous tennis lesson- but that doesn't justify income or snobbery) was just flat out lying to get her twenty dollars back! Normally we wouldn't accept it, but being a gentleman I said to the cashier girl to refund it because I was getting annoyed with her intolerance and I didn't want to start gritting my teeth or argue because that's not polite and you don't do that with customers. I know people want plants and shrubs and all, but why stay so ignorant about them?

It seems there is this abstraction people take with plants that just make them so black and white and set in stone, like the image of the ideal hybrid tea, they are a certain way and it doesn't change. A flower's a flower, give me one that I can't kill.

Oh well, a bit of a tangent, but people like that make me a bit mad.

- Max ( who would have a yard full of rosemary if it was possible)

...fat plants with shapeless flowers...

Ha ha ha! That's a riot!

One time a neighbor saw my 'Yves Piaget' and said, "Oh my God! You're growing peonies in Southern California!" Her husband corrected her. I was relieved I didn't have to--she's a very nice person.

For someone who started out trying to preserve old fashioned roses Vintage has noticed this trend:

"The old adage "familiarity breeds comtempt," aptly describes what may be in store for this largest group of rose hybrids ever created. Hybrid Teas have held sway in the public favor for so long that they have eclipsed all the other classes. With the recent renaissance of interest in old roses, and with the advent of David Austin's widely popular English Roses, Hybrid Teas have begun to lose their grip on gardeners. Many aficionados of old-fashioned roses will have nothing to do with Hybrid Teas, and this may be the start of a wider rejection of the class. Few rose collectors bother with Hybrid Teas, and the older varieties are largely being conserved in public gardens, where space is in demand for old roses and English roses. Ironic it is that a decade ago we were fighting for the old roses and today we spend our energy championing the preservation of them (HTs")."

I may even buy a "Knockout Rose" this year just to show I am "with" the times, and a fat rose just to be ornery.

Here is a link that might be useful: older HTs

Oath, I've grown a rosemary 'Arp' plant for several years now and it is hardy here and does get bushy. That is the most hardy of the rosemary varieties. So your old lady might have been right on that account. It is rather dubious that Japanese Beetles would have come in on a nursery plant and not from her own yard, though.

Yes, Oath, you can get rosemary Arp from plantdelights.com in Raleigh NC. Mine is 4 ft tall and at least 3 ft wide now (of course, I live in zone 8a). I love mine and it makes potatoes taste so yummy! Brandy

Does Rosemary 'Arp' do ok in red clay or would it rather have sandy or slightly alkalin soils?
Down here, some plant rosemary on top of granite chicken grit.

And iowa jade's show experience is pretty typical. For our regional fair they have made great strides: now there's one class for shrub roses and one for OGRs (the two used to be lumped). And polyanthas are still lumped with any climber. Three catagories...out of sixty six.

I've found some descriptions of early rose shows (1800's pre ARS) and there were classes for roses growing in pots!

I think Buist talks about roses growing in pots.

Years ago, when we lived outside Philly, I bought a rosemary at a local nursery. In retrospect, it might have been intended for life outside. I've always had it in a pot, but it did fine with the same water that a gardenia loved. I'd definitely be willing to try it with red clay, particularly if it didn't cost a lot. One thing I've read and seen about rosemary is that it doesn't particularly like it dry. Particularly now, when it's time for a major repotting and root pruning session, it requires regular watering.

My soil is red clay amended with compost. The rosemary is growing in this. Mine is planted on a slope for better draining because I thought it would like that. In clay soil with mulch on top it's carefree; I don't water it or do anything with it.

Lori elf, 'Arp' is what I ultimately recommended her to try, we have small little pots of it, nothing substantial compared to (at the time) larger pots of officianalis, which she had put in her cart and made me comment on bringing it inside - she had never heard of 'Arp' which made me skeptical of her claims, along with her reluctance of saying whether or not she had shrubs. No straight answers. Whatever, she might have been right, she might have been wrong, but the emphasis was that she wasn't very nice, rude, and pretentious, much like Olga's little old rose visitor.

I'll definitely try 'Arp' though, I'll bring some home.

Now I must send my apologies to Olga, I did not mean to hijack her thread- people just make me mad.

My garden-idiot sister asked me once about the Golden Celebration blossoms in the vase if they were peonies; then the next time when she was in the yard, where Golden Celebration, Louise Odier and Sombreuil were in full bloom, I asked her if she wantd a bouquet, she said she didn't like CHEAP roses! I was pissed but then again what's the point of explainning.

I am wondering now that when I am 70 years old, would I comment to someone with an all-HT front yard the way Olga's neighbor would...

Fun thread, Olga, thanks!