Sounds like I need one more irresistible rose! Karen, thanks for posting the beautiful pictures and giving your input on Munstead Wood. Very interesting observation that your alkaline soil makes the color of the blooms of MW a lighter one. I have very alkaline soil and water and I noticed to my surprise that the first bloom that William Shakespeare 2000 has opened is much lighter than the flower is came with from Chamblee's. I like the darker bloom much better and maybe I will put some soil sulfur anorund the rose and see what happens. On the other hand I am growing 'The Prince' and this rose has the darkest velvety flowers of all the roses in my yard. Who knows maybe only some rose varieties are sensitive to alkaline soil/water in terms of changes in their flower color depending on their breeding lineage. JumboJimmy, in my garden Heritage shatters very quickly, it is almost annoying, but William Shakespeare 2000 seems to hold it blooms much longer. the bustopher, you are right, 'The Prince' burns in the heat very easily in my garden, too. It would be such an improvement if Munstead Wood wouldn't do that! Thanks for sharing this important observation! Christina Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

These are both terrific and unusual roses for color and scent. As Terry noticed already, Summer Song, which has arguably the most unusual and lovely orange hue I've ever seen in a rose, is not the best of rebloomers, currently 3 flushes a year on my plant (grafted on multiflora, I think, by DA-UK) which is now in its third season with me (first year: one flush). While it's not very resilient to BS, it does fairly well in my no-spray garden, spotting, but not much defoliating. It's a tall, vaseshaped plant with glossy leaves. The scent is deliciously banana! Munstead Wood on the other hand is already a terrific bloomer, quite vigorous, with petals of a thick velvety substance with a lovely shine to them. The color varies between a crimson purple of darker and lighter patches, and, in the cooler days of spring, an incredibly deep, black red, the blackest I've ever seen, and wonderfully many-petaled immensely large flowers. The damask scent takes a while develop when the flowers open, but is superb, once it's there. Health has been average so far, it eventually caught quite a bit of BS in my no-spray garden and lost some leaves, but we've had literally endless rain in July and August, and it's sitting next to the BS magnet The Dark Lady. Now it's rebounding quickly and keeps on blooming. One caution: it's an incredibly thorny rose, similar to Gertrude Jekyll, perhaps even more so. But it doesn't show any tendency toward lankiness or legginess, and has so far remained fairly short and manageable. Highly recommended. Andrea

Munstead Wood has a good, solid fragrance. The pictures I have of it do not do it justice. There is some seasonal color variation. This is another picture of it late in the fall. Again, the pictures from my camera do not do either this rose or other dark reds to purples justice, but you can get a general idea. The color on this year's David Austin catalog cover showing Munstead Wood is pretty close to actual. I am hoping this year will have some better flowers.

Thanks, everyone. Just wanted to mention again that Ascot seems very cold hardy, and shows no problem with heat, even the blooms. They don't fry in the heat and dry air we have, surprisingly. I think Ascot would be smaller in colder zones. For warm zones like Joe, a forum member whose user name is hoov has had problems with her Ascot blooming in her So Cal location. She thought perhaps this rose needs some chill to bloom best. Any California Ascot growers out there want to weigh in on Ascot's blooming in little winter chill places? Ascot has very faint scent. It was better in May, but now the hot dry air and windy days have reduced all my roses scent. Darn it. Diane