twrosz, I am brand new to roses, but the general consensus is that the 'mystery rose' in my backyard is a 'Rose de Rescht.' This is our second summer in this house, and it sat empty for three years before us. This rose grew under a pine tree for at least those three years without any help at all. This past winter we had record snowfall and brutal cold. All I had to do was tip prune this Spring. This rose IS tough as nails here in 4b/5a, and has wonderful, wonderful bloms and scent. It had only a flimsy rebloom, but it is also very shaded. This fall she gets moved to the sun, and we'll see how that goes!

Yesterday it hit 90F with very high humidity, and there were some crispy roses out there today. We were SUPPOSED to get a rain storm, but it mostly missed us, giving just a light drizzle for about 30 minutes. Hopefully the rain that's supposed to come late tonight will hit its target. 'Golden Celebration' opened its first flowers yesterday during the heat, but today it seems unfazed. If it continues to arch to the point of flopping, I just may put together a rebar tripod for it. 'Purple Skyliner' was also unfazed by the heat, and continues to grow and grow against the fence. There are two fat new shoots going straight up from the base. You can clearly see the one in the center in this pic. It's hard to believe that this came as a rooted cutting from Kim Rupert just last year. Flashback to when it first arrived a year ago, June 2013: This is a pic of Paul Barden's 'Golden Buddha', with a one-day-old flower on the left, next to a four-days-old flower on the right (and another cut-off in the top edge of the pic). The color fades, especially in the heat, but the form of the flower remains for a long time. The petals won't crumple or look unattractive for another week if I leave the flowers on the plant, and I actually LIKE the faded color. So I don't deadhead this one until the flowers start to fall apart -- which is usually over a week from the day they open. The first flower on 'Georges Vibert' -- one of my two striped Gallicas -- shrunk after yesterday's heat, but still smells very nice. There are many other buds waiting to open, and the next few days will be more mild. 'Charles de Mills' also unfortunately opened its first three blooms yesterday, and today they are looking a bit droopy. I know some people say it's scentless, but I can catch a moderate-to-strong fragrance on it. The scent isn't as sharp as Damask, nor sweet -- it's something like a floral-herbal potpourri smell. 'Honorine de Brabant' still has only baby-canes that have self-pegged under their own weight. I won't cut them back until thick new shoots have come up -- for now, they're feeding the plant. And as you can see, many flowers got fried in yesterday's heat and high-humidity. 'Nouveau Monde' just keeps on blooming -- no fried flowers, though there are some that are fading simply from age. I told myself that I'm not going to deadhead any of the once-bloomers to see if any make hips. Whichever don't I'll know to deadhead next year simply for neatness. And besides that, there are seedlings of Nicotiana 'Bella' coming up in front of 'Nouveau Monde', so I don't want to step there right now. The new brick-lined bed I made against the neighbor's house has only three roses -- "Grandmother's Hat", 'Napoleon' and 'Perle d'Or.' The rest of the plants are Summer-blooming perennials that like the heat, since this bed gets full-sun until mid-afternoon. This is Coreopsis 'Moonlight' beginning to bloom. The rose to the left is 'Napoleon.' Planted in front and to the left of the rose "Grandmother's Hat" is Penstemon 'Mesa' which has also started to bloom. The one long cane on 'Duchesse d'Angouleme' I tied against my front porch railing has started to bloom, just as the flowers on its neighbor-to-the-left 'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain' are beginning to fade. To its right is 'Archduke Charles' which is still rather tiny, and should be blooming soon. :-) ~Christopher

Thanks for your comments gardengal - especially a propos since we're close geographically, and it looks like you have oodles of experience. One of the reasons I didn't want to yet place in the ground is because of comfrey growing behind the roses - well, now up through ÂePeaceÂf as well, sigh. 'Peace' seems to be suffering for it, and/or maybe for other reasons. The roses have a fair bit of blackspot; I'd prefer better access until (?if!) I get that under better control. Have just now pruned most of the dead bits, and will gradually prune more, after blooms, so also need access for that. I likely need to prune more aggressively in the first place, but so far IÂfm not adequately decisive. I agree about how nice the clems would look with these roses, but it just seems to me they'd really cover them (& already were growing over a foot above Abe). There are about 9 hefty vine stems coming from each pot, with off-branching I think. One possibility for one of the blue clems is near a purple azalea - of course they wonÂft be in bloom at the same time. This azalea seems to be dying out on about half so the clematis could cover up the dead branches (& more)Âc though maybe not great if hope of it recovering significantly (sentimental value, coming from a family member). ThatÂfs a more shady area (north side of house). I haven't looked/done enough rose/clematis combos to make a fully informed assessment of ÂgoverwhelmingÂh the rose. The only other ones we have are: 'Nelly Moser' growing up from under 'Compassion' (not such a great color match to my eyes, but now difficult to get at Nelly) - and 'Jackmanii' providing a nice bridging color between 'Elina' and 'Pink Peace' roses... but going up a trellis so not really on the roses. Hmmm, now that I think about it, also have 'Comptesse de Bouchard' getting mixed in (but usually mostly trellised beside) with 'Sunsprite', and 'The President' sort of trellised, mostly beside but also through a bit of 'Mary' rose (love that combo). None of those are super vigorous (probably need feeding). Our biggest clematis is probably 'Allanah' (gorgeous deep red, not near a rose) - I can't picture her right on a rose unless many of the vines were teased out to grow trellised outside of the rose too. Also - back with the blue Integrifolias... there's another rose (label kaput so not sure what variety - it was so covered up that it hasn't seen much light of day lately), from large peat pot, that has rooted into the ground just adjacent to the clems, much closer than the other roses, such that if I dig the clems up, I'd probably need to extricate the roots from this rose (which ideally I'd move too).... too much, too close!! I'll have to look more for combo pics. Meanwhile, probably will wait to move/re-pot ÂeBlue BoyÂf and ÂeBlue BellÂf. Maybe will try an obelisk for now.

Could be but there are multiples that look similar. Hard to exactly id these two. They are certainly Type II large flowered hybrids.