It has been my experience that fragrant roses are most fragrant planted in groups or grown as enormous plants. I can't do this because I like to try as many as possible in a tiny space. So I have to smell the flowers one by one, as it were. Or brought indoors. I have Golden Wings, for example, which Helen van Pelt Wilson and Leonie Bell raved about, and I have never detected much fragrance from my specimen. But walking in Longwood Garden years ago, I experienced a powerful, delicious fragrance emanating from three large bushes planted in a corner of the garden at some distance away from me. (When I went back a few years later, they were gone, alas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Similarly , when visiting a Long Island nursery (it was Hicks) on an intermittently raining spring morning at a nursery I was delighted by the powerful fragrance coming from a row of potted plants of Rose de Rescht lined up for sale outside beside a bench. And I returned on subsequent days and they were still fragrant. My third memorable rose fragrance experience was at the Bronx Botanic Rose Garden, where a corner was planted with large specimens of Raubritter and Ispahan planted together. What a combo! And I think I went back on subsequent years to smell them. (Haven't been back in many years). I might as well add something from husband's and my trip to Venice some twenty years ago. There was a planting of -- I am almost sure -- Mermaid, that thorny beast -- trained up a very tall entrance doorway and growing horizontally across the entire second floor of an old building. (Those antique buildings have very high ceilings and tall, imposing doorways). You could smell the flowers from the next block, a very distinctive fragrance, somewhat unrose-like, and you wondered what it could be. It was amazing. How did they do it ? It was growing in a container and some gardener had skillfully trained it with love and skill to grow vertically about 12 or 15 feet up and then sideways about 20 (or more) feet, with all the flowers at the top in a brilliant yellow stripe across the building's second storey, as a way to deal with the thorny growth, I guess. It was a horticultural triumph.

Many (((hugs))) to all of you. Have missed everyone. Thanks for sharing your lives, flowers, family, and pets. Love it! I sure would have enjoyed that plant exchange, Cindee. Our garden club has one each May. It's such fun. I, too, was not with you for the whole summer. This has been the worst ever summer time-wise. Each time I turned around, something HAD to be done. Art class ran into June (which is no good for me). Then it started again in Sept., but I told her there's just no way, so I got a two-month reprieve. Start again this coming Thursday and am taking my 15-year-old granddaughter Katie with me as a visitor. She has awesome talent and is as bad with art as we are with Hippis. I purchased another garden tractor this summer - I now have three and use them all -- there is just so much to take care of. Have also been picking up kids from school - into June this year, and come Sept. that started again. It's 1-1/2 hours r/t which really cuts into my days. Next year they will at least both be in the same school. Now I'm dog-visiting. My friend went to FL for many weeks and her husband pays me to come and be with them for an hour each day while he works. Oh, and I decided a truck would be in order, so purchased my son's 2000 black Dodge Dakota V-8 Sport. The price was right, and this will be better to carry mulch. It was hard to get with the Explorer (plus it's fun to drive). This way I can just drive up to the mulch heap and have them dump a bucket into the truck. Then I can drive it right to the garden that needs it. My days are all just cut up and I get nothing done. Lots of my plants got frosted, and the hippis were under blankets for several 30 degree days. Had some construction going on until beginning of Oct. and could barely squeeze through the furniture stacked around for probably two months. It was not a bad summer, actually a pretty good one, but it was stressful. For the most part I was healthy, and pretty much kept up with things like the 25-year-old I think I am -- not the 74-year-old that I just turned today. I neglected my orchids and many of the gardens, but the hippis grew and grew. I repotted most of them for the sake of better growing medium. I could probably exchange some orchids in the spring if I get a chance to repot. Right now they should be throwing spikes, so not a good time. Also, some Hippi bulbs. I have to say, this has been like sitting down at a nice table under some palm trees with warm breezes relaxing with a bunch of dear friends that enjoy the same things and understand eachother's obsessions. Soon we'll all be sharing tons of gorgeous pictures. I also have a bunch of bulbs coming from RC and want to order some of those on my wish list. But gotta run now and try to dig the rest of my dahlias.

Your partial bush shot looks good! Blooms have a nice color to them.

Hi Carol R. gallica Officinalis has about 20 to possibly 30 petals. It is not a single, but it is not full either. Further, it is dark pink/almost purple. I bumped up June 1 photos with a closeup and a distance shot of parent bush r. gallica Offic. A rosarian friend said this sport/hybrid has a lighter color and it has so many petals, he did not think it was a sport - but perhaps a naturally pollinated hybrid from Compte de Chambord (nearby bush) and r. gallica Officinalis. There are so many suckering canes from r. gallica Officinalis, it is difficult to see if it is a separate bush - need to dig them up and untangle the roots? I probably won't do that for a while. Kathy