When I planted Mme Berard I was under the impression that she was a large shrub, not a climber (I know that I read it somewhere, maybe in the ARS Encyclopedia). I can see how she could be a climber, with those long shoots she sends out. I do feel that it will make a good shrub once it has filled out. I may use some poles like Jeri mentioned to try and pull some of the canes toward the back so that the plant is balanced. For anyone who does not have this rose, it is a must have if you like fragrance. This is the spiciest smelling rose in the garden. Puerto Rico is going to get pruned pretty hard next weekend (along with some hts that have already grown to 8-10' since spring pruning). Puerto Rico doesn't grow like the other teas and I don't think it will send out zig zag growth from pruning. We'll see.

True Linda - they are not yellowthroats - only looked a bit like them. I saw one in Nova Scotia 2 years ago (attached) and was reminded of it.

The botanic garden did test the water. I think they are more up on this topic than I am ever likely to be. We use the same water, and I am within walking distance. I know not to use this fertilizer again in my conditions. Next year, it is back to diluted fish emulsion, or nothing, as usual. And we will see how the roses look. Sorry, no place for olive trees (and I don't want the mess), and grapevines are out because I have dogs (grapes are toxic to dogs, depending on the dog as to how much). But I did plant alfalfa within the last several years to see how it would do (fields growing alfalfa frequently supplement with boron). The alfalfa grows well here with zero supplementation. The wild creatures eat it like crazy however.

The Damask ancestry that included R. phoenicia was based on the writings of Hurst, who made his suppositions based on trying to tease apart features in Damasks and match them to other species. Until that genetic study came out a few years ago that indicated R. fedtschenkoana was a parent, it was never considered before. So I'd disregard the R. phoenicia bit. As to how it happened, I think it was Doug Seidel who wrote a piece about how R. gallica, R. moschata, and R. fedtschenkoana could have met up. Summarized..... R. moschata is not really a true species, but a particular clone of some species from the east that has been maintained in gardens for something like a thousand years. It and R. gallica -- especially something like 'Officinalis' or maybe 'Tuscany' or 'Conditorum' -- would have also been grown alongside R. moschata, since both were used in herbal "medicines" for a long time. The story Doug wrote mentioned something about some faction -- maybe church related -- that was either cast out or moved voluntarily from Europe to areas near Bulgaria or Turkey, and would have likely brought these roses with them, along with other plants, for their "physic gardens". In doing so, the earlier warm-up time would have allowed for R. moschata to start blooming with some overlap with R. gallica -- back in much of Europe, there would have been a gap between -- which could have resulted in R. gallica pollen hitting R. moschata, which generally doesn't set seed from its own pollen. Seeing hips on R. moschata, people may have thought that they could plant them as another way of getting more R. moschata -- not realizing that R. gallica was the daddy -- and the resulting hybrids would have been added to the list of things grown in those gardens. In that area, R. fedtschenkoana is native, and some bee could have carried pollen from outside the garden in. It all sounds improbable, but remember that the period of time would have been centuries, and the R. moschata X R. gallica hybrid could have had multiple generations of being raised by seed before being fertilized by R. fedtschenkoana. Even improbable things will eventually happen, given enough chances and time. R. moschata starts blooming after getting sufficient heat, then keeps going. In much of Europe, that meant starting in August. In warmer areas, it'd start earlier. R. fedtschenkoana has sprinkles of blooms on and off all season -- never really having a full flush at a time. It probably sets buds in response to water, responding to periodic rains that can come at any time during the growing season. 'Officinalis' is a cultivar, but was given a Latin name as was custom at the time. It doesn't breed true from seed, so it's neither a true species nor proper "form" botanically. Many old cultivars have Latin names that give the appearance of being species, but that's because after Linnaeus came up with a system of naming things, people used it for any little difference they found. Alba roses may have originated in Europe, or maybe closer to the Middle East where the Damasks happened. They might have been "weeds" that happened in the brush, when Damask pollen landed on native R. canina, or perhaps R. canina was used as a rootstock for Damasks, and a sucker bloomed and was fertilized by its Damask scion, and seed dropped in the garden. Rose traffic wasn't one-way, so that it was in the rose growing fields where we assume Damasks originated doesn't mean that Albas originated there as well, but it's possible. We do know that R. canina is pentaploid, and most Albas are hexaploid. Because of the way R. canina makes seed, R. canina was the mother and Damasks were the fathers. The R. sancta story is a bit muddled. Someone found rose remains in a tomb -- or art or wall painting or something -- and determined that it matched a rose called 'Rosa sanctae'. That's a very tenuous way to make a match. Later -- I can't remember which author wrote it -- 'R. sancta' as grown was found to be this R. gallica X R. arvensis hybrid that occurred in the wild, and even if what was in that old depiction was this same hybrid, it was almost certainly not the same individual clone of it. Since the hybrid occurred in the wild, many different clones of it are out there. And it could have also been something else entirely. R. foetida in the wild is a five-petaled rose. It had a sport known as 'Austrian Copper'. The third form is 'Persiana', which is a double form of the yellow. I think it originated in the Middle East, because when it made its way to Europe, it was heralded as the first double truly yellow rose that could easily be grown in gardens. The only other one was R. hemisphaerica, which often balled, and only had acceptable blooms when conditions were right. To my nose, it smells like R. fedtschenkoana -- which means (to me) like oil-based paint. That's not so "stinky" as just "surprisingly not what I'd expect from a rose." :-) ~Christopher