Alliance is both tender and tough. Mine is 8 years old and 12" tall and in its third location. I've given it up for dead every other spring, only to discover it is still alive. Its most recent location has worse soil and more exposure, but it has done more growing there than anywhere. So it stays.

My JB Sisley has very angular growth--straight out, sharp right turn up or down, and seems more prone to blackspot than other Chinas. Nor does it seem to be a profuse bloomer. A rather gawky child, even for a china.

I agree with catsrose about Jean Bach Sisley. I no longer have it.

McClinton Tea in my garden was one of the least spectacular roses (I really want to say ugly) I have ever seen. Someone else likened its flowers to scrambled eggs. The second time I grew it I was given it as a bonus rose and thought why not try it again. I quickly found out why I didn't want to.

Perle de Jardins for me, and I believe for Melissa in Italy, was a dud of a rose that never grew much or bloomed to any extent, and the blooms as I recall balled with great abandon. Others may have had more positive experiences.

Mme. Melanie Willermoz was a lovely but rather fragile plant which I gave away and I'm not able to say how it's doing now.

My Devoniensis is still a baby, and a very slow-growing one at that, but then it has the reputation of taking a long time to mature. I've heard enough good things about it to let it take its time. I'm disbudding it so can't comment about the blooms.

Westside Road Cream Tea had many good qualities and if it had behaved as it seems to for everyone else I would still have it. A healthy and vigorous rose with good bloom production. However, after some time, for most of the year the blooms would from the time they began as buds have a grayish-brown color and grow no larger than a quarter coin. In good times the blooms were large and fluffy but this strange phenomenon continued every year and I have no idea why. No one else here has ever mentioned having a similar experience.

Ingrid

I appreciate all the input, and will rank my choices accordingly. Of course, as I keep investigating, I have to ask about a few others:

'Homere'
'Le Pactole' (aka "Mc Ginnis Tea")
'Mme Bravy'
"Oneto Home Saffron"
'Queen Mab' (which may be the same as the previous rose)
'Rival de Paestum'

Most likely, any of these I get will be kept as pot-pets, and it'll probably be only the top 5 or so. I'm looking for scent as well, so if you grow any of these and can't smell anything on the flowers (AND you are able to smell other Teas in general), please let me know that as well. And if you have other suggestions for me, please feel free to mention them.

Thank you so much.

:-)

~Christopher

This post was edited by AquaEyes on Thu, Nov 14, 13 at 14:33

Christopher,

I think that Barcelona is an old hybrid tea, not a tea. It is a lovely, dark red rose with a lot of damask scent. It does well in a vase. I love it.

Some cautions about Devoniensis. I loved the creamy white color in its first year. (Think of a gardenia.) The second year, though, the color changed to palest pink, which was a big disappointment to me. The rose does have a very nice scent: tea, with something like a hint of freesia, I would say, but the latter scent is very fleeting. Not impressive in a vase either, where it flops. It is much prettier in the bud.

Ramblingly,

Larry

Yes, thanks, Larry. I mentioned it along with some others which I already had because I wanted to avoid them being mentioned by others as something to try. I have a little collection of fragrant dark-red HTs, and while my 'Barcelona' band bit the dust, a new one will come in Spring.

Thanks for the heads-up on 'Devoniensis'. I was interested in that one (as well as 'Le Pactole' and 'Safrano') because of their ancestry (those three are each genetically 3/4 'Parks Yellow') and for possible further breeding. I'm less concerned with garden performance with them than I am with feasibility of growing them in large pots here.

:-)

~Christopher

'Cramoisi Supeurieur' has been excellent for me, but it will fo a formidable 5' x 5' rather readily. It is happy as a lark growing in a pot on my porch, though. The fragrance is excellent, and the disease resistance for me has been superb - perfectly clean. It is a strong contender, especially if you will be moving South eventually.

Josh

Teas and chinas are not very hardy here and would need protection to grow in a pot to survive the winters. They also are very blackspot prone in this climate and need a regularly fungicide spraying to keep their leaves. That said, I don't grow any any longer I've only kept roses I can grow no-spray without winter protection and I've killed several on your list... You might want to wait until after you move south to purchase to save yourself some headaches.

Josh, thank you for the suggestion. It's interesting that your 'Cramoisi Supeurieur' is very fragrant. It's often confused with 'Louis Philippe', and depending on the nursery which carries both, one is often claimed to be very fragrant and the other not. I got my 'Louis Philippe' from Rogue Valley Roses, who put their LP as the fragrant one. I understand that other nurseries do the reverse. I'm still not 100% positive that I actually got LP, being as my rose hasn't had a fully double bloom yet, but it has been progressing in that direction since the first bloom. We'll see what it does in Spring, but I might just pester you to root your fragrant red China for me.

Lori, thank you for the heads-up. I planted some Chinas and Teas in the ground this year, so perhaps it'd be wise for me to hold-off on getting more until after the peak of Winter has passed here, and see how they look. I do have space for overwintering protection of planters which need it, so I'll keep that in mind.

I do plan on heading down to Florida after grad school, but my interest in having some fragrant Chinas and small Teas was in playing with hybridizing -- so it's more than just having them now to bring with me later. I want to try making new Noisettes, but broadening the gene pool by using Chinas other than 'Old Blush', and Teas other than 'Parks Yellow', and see what happens. I'd also like to see how 'Reverend Seidel' works in place of its parent, 'Rosa moschata' -- just a little hobby project.

As far as blackspot, it's hard to tell with what I planted so far. BS definitely did make a run through the yard this Summer, but most of what got hit was still in pots and kind of crammed together, waiting to be planted in the ground. I think that along the Atlantic, BS is just inevitable, and as long as the roses can shake it off (as they appear to have done here after a few weeks when left to their own devices), I'm not going to resort to fungicides. About as far as I'll go is neem oil in a Cornell mix spray, or lye soap for the hotter months.

:-)

~Christopher