Memorial Day, 2001
World War II Memorial Day, 2000
Tahitian Sunset, 2006
Paradise Found, 2009

Those are the ones from my garden that I can attest to. The strongest by far is WWII and I just love that rose. It looks like fine china--just absolutely a porcelain luster to the blooms.

I currently have 2 vases in the living room with one bloom each of Bride's Dream, Tahitian Sunset, Paradise Found, and Double Delight. It's overpowering and wonderful to get that much aroma from just 4 roses.

I don't think any of the roses I've grown (and I've grown many) from the last decade can compete with Fragrant Cloud or Double Delight or Mister Lincoln. Those roses have fabulous fragrance, but all of them also have practically no ability to stand up to disease pressure.

That said, next on the fragrance scale for me would be Ambridge Rose and then Munstead Wood and Firefighter, all of which I would rate as "average" disease resistance. None of them are "no-spray" roses.

After that would be Neptune and Memorial Day and Lasting Love, all of which have slightly less fragrance than the previous group, but significantly better disease resistance for my mildew alley here. And speaking in general, most Lavenders and some Purples are more fragrant than other colors, so that would also be a good place to look.

From my perspective, both of the new whites that are sold on the basis of high fragrance (Pope John Paul II from J&P and Weeks answer to that rose, Sugar Moon) are highly over-rated. Neither is all that fragrant to my nose.

Kathy (who is always on the lookout for fragrance and doesn't mind spraying consistently to get it).

The HT Buxom Beauty (aka "Parole") is extremely fragrant, with a very large bloom. Neptune is very fragrant, and the best lavender HT I've ever grown. Bolero (Bolero 2000) is really good, and a great little plant.

Dittos on Neptune. I have to bend down a little closer to catch a whiff of mine, but it's new. It is probably the most gorgeous lavender rose I've ever seen.

Diane, what is the generic name of the 'Bolero' you are recommending? Is is MEIdelweiss? Gotta love how Meilland recycles their favorite common names about every five years.

SH, I agree that 'Radio Times' has a fantastic fragrance (needs lots of room and fungicide, though).

Here are 2 more websites: The first website lists roses that won fragrant awards: http://www.rosefile.com/RosePages/AwardsFragrance.html

The second website is the list of most fragrant, as voted by rose forum for 2005-2006: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/roses/msg1113473012456.html

The third website is an old forum on what's fragrant as well as disease resistant: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/roses/msg0302564225651.html

Michaelg, yes, I meant "Bolero 2004", it is MEIdelweis.

In my garden the most fragrant are Heritage, Jude the Obscure, Gertrude Jekyll, and Munstead Wood.

Barbara Steisand, Lemon Spice. May be older...like me!

I'm not sure how recent they are, but the hybrid teas along my Perfumed Path include Double Delight, Elle (pink), Memoire (white), Valencia (buff/gold), Chrysler Imperial (red). Next spring, joining them will be Red Intuition which may not be quite as fragrant, but it is so beautiful, who cares!

In another strip along the driveway, I accidentally included a couple highly fragrant ones: Peter Mayle (hot pink) and Mrs. John Laing (hybrid perpetual--pink). But they probably aren't that recent either.

If you are more into David Austin types, isn't Molineux quite fragrant? Seem to remember it won some famous fragrance award.

Kate

Sonia Rykiel, blooms are to die for. Got mine at Roses Unlimited.

Evelyn

From the newer roses growing in my garden I would list Pope John Paul II, Sweetness, and Memorial Day as the ones with the strongest fragrance.

Christina

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

Betty White and Paradise Found are my two favorite roses, and they smell heavenly!!

Carol

By far, the most fragrant roses in my garden are Frederic Mistral and Evelyn. Following close behind are Brother Cadfael and Eglantyne. Ebb Tide also has a wonderful and unusual fragrance.

Julia Child smells like licorice and is a good healthy bloomer.

Thanks all. Anyone please post further comments on these roses that I am not familiar with:

World War II Memorial
Buxom Beauty/Parole
Bolero 2004
Paradise Found
Sweetness (Weeks 2008 mauve stripe)

Please mention susceptibility to balling/petal blight if you know.

Sweetness has been a big flop for me. It can't take the heat, doesn't grow, doesn't bloom much, and doesn't smell much, either. It's among the bottom three roses in my garden. Blueberry hill and Blue Bayou are much better lavender roses for me, except they aren't very fragrant. I'm sure there are others out there in different climates that have had more success with Sweetness than I have. Diane

'Crescendo' is a 2010 introduction that's very fragrant. Beautiful form and color, too.

MichaelG -- Sweetness is from 2008, but it is a J&P rose and not a stripe. It's solid lavender. The only lavender stripes I know of are Stranger and Tejoe (Blueberry Hill's striped sport), both of which I grow.

In any event Neptune is a far superior rose on every scale I can come up with to Sweetness. Vigor, fragrance, disease resistance, flowers that hold when cut, and so on. And actually, looking at the lineages of both, that should not be too much of a surprise -- Sweetness has about twice as much Sterling Silver in its genes as Neptune. I looked because Sweetness reminds me of Sterling Silver in many ways, growthwise. (That's not a compliment, lol).

Kathy-- I'm curious about Tejoe (which I'd never heard of) because I have a slightly striped sport of Blueberry Hill that I found. I can find only 3 pictures of Tejoe. Is it normally mostly pink as these pictures show? Mine has the base color of BH with some white, some bluer, and some magenta streaks, more on the reverse than the face. The face fades rapidly to base color in the sun. In cool weather, the reverse has a lot of magenta along with the other colors. In hot weather the flower is barely distinguishable from BH. Please tell me about your flowers.

I just got mine too, so I'm not much of an expert on it. I actually have two -- and both originated with K&M roses -- one I bought directly from K&M and another I budded up myself from a particularly well-striped stem of a plant a friend of mine had bought from K&M -- I was determined to get the stripes. K&M is (or maybe was) selling the striped sport as Blueberry Hill. Is that where you got yours, or did yours also sport spontaneously? All I know is that another K&M customer had already registered it as TeJoe (what a dorky name for a pretty rose) when I got mine. Both of my plants are less than a year old now.

But to try to answer your question, the stripes (so far) do not seem to be particularly stable with this one, so it varies all over the place from stripes to splotches and in various shades of mauve from pinky to silvery. The pictures on HMF are mine. I picked those blooms to photograph because they had the most stripes.

I got my BH 10 or 12 years ago from Regan, and it sported in my garden, or maybe one cane had already sported, but I didn't notice it the first year or two. I offered to give budwood and registration/patent rights to Edmunds, but they went under before I got around to sending it. Look at Beth's pictures of BH on HMF--they are striped somewhat like mine. I cloned the sport and it has been stable.

Andre le Notre is a newer Meilland (2002) that is good, great flower and very fragrant. Repeats well too good foliage.

Paradise Found - It has a very unusual scent that I can't describe. I looked it up awhile ago and think I read that the scent is verbena and cloves. I can't go by it without stopping to smell it. I adore the fragrance. Mine survived my great roses in pots die off in the garage - so it's pretty tough. It is quick to rebloom. The petals stay swirled forever and ages nicely. I love this rose.

Bolero - Very seldom out of bloom. Most of the summer it had masses of blooms. Scent is weakish and cold creamish I think. Mine got mildew. Short plant.

Betty White - is my favorite rose (just a bit higher than Paradise Found). The fragrance is very strong - old rose I think. The flowers last forever and there are many. The roses age well. I loooooove this rose!!!

Carol

I grow bolero. Nice blooms, good fragrance.

Peter Mayle
McCartney Rose
Ebb Tide
Pope John Paul II
Sweetness

Betty White is another name for Andre le Notre. A good rose!

Wow! First...Chas Bono...and now...Betty White. I can't take it.

I was watching the Emmy's when Betty White appeared. Is the rose named after her? Any one know?

michaelg--

I grow Parole aka Buxom Beauty. This is it's first year but so far so good! It has a wonderful fragrance. The blooms are huge and they hold the fragrance and you can literally bury your face in the bloom to sniff it. I don't think that the fragrance wafts in the breeze much since it is contained by the huge blossoms. As far as disease--no disease in my Seattle garden this year. But although we Seattlites like to complain about disease, we don't have nearly the disease pressure of those that live in humid climates and this summer was very dry. As far as balling--I don't think that will be a problem. The petals have substance and the petal count isn't too high. In hot climates people may find that the blooms open quicker and may not get as large.

Although not "newish", I am extremely fond of China Town....it smells peachy. I have Gertrude Jekyll in a pot by my entrance and she gets raves from everyone who rings my doorbell. Chrysler Imperial smells wonderful, but now barely alive because my husband planted grapes over it...so does not get any sun. The rose I love to put in a vase is Lichtkonigen Lucia. Not too strong when you smell it on the shrub, but after it sits in the vase for a couple of hours, the room is filled with its fragrance. Royal Sunset smells like cotton candy, is a stunning climber. And the complexity of the scent of Golden Celebration is simply wonderful. New Zealand and Tamora also are very fragrant. And how can you not love the scent of Oklahoma?

I ordered Parole/Buxom Beauty and Bolero on the basis of this thread. Bolero seems good so far and does have a nice fragrance. Parole, grafted, came as an undersized plant with blackening cane stubs and died without breaking dormancy. The vendor replaced it, but the replacement also had blackening stubs (possibly botrytis cane blight). It is barely surviving and hasn't bloomed yet. This was from a highly reputable supplier, so I wonder if the variety (Parole) is particularly susceptible to dieback?

Glad to see some follow-up on an older thread. I would second Pope John Paul II, beautiful to behold and fragrance to bring me to my knees...I might have to try another one out here at our new place, although the conditions are brutal.

the most fragrant 'rose' smelling rose in my moderns is Nahema - a real 'old ladies nightcream' sort of fragrance.

I agree with peachiekean, Peter Mayle has fragrance almost as good as our Mr. Lincolns and Double Delights. I would also rank New Zealand right up there with those three. Our own root Golden Celebration is very fragrant to my nose. We think Jubilee Celebration, an Austin rose, is the best of the Austins, stronger than Jude the Obscure and even better than Gertrude Jekyll.

Lee

I'd love to hear others' opinions on The Wedgwood Rose's fragrance, if you grow it. I think it is especially fragrant and nice, and my dad commented on that on his own, too. But I also planted it very close to the entryway where its roses are right at nose level ;). I think it wafts, though. I'll suggest it unless I hear my experience is unusual.

My most fragrant newer intros are Pope John Paul II and Julia Child. Dick Clark has some fragrance but not a lot. PJP is probably the strongest.

'Jubilee Celebration' sounds promising. In that color range I have 'Radio Times', which has outstanding fragrance but is very susceptible to blackspot, a sprawling, thorny monster.