Dames de Chenonceau my absolute favorite rose. I have 2. One is in a huge pot and its about 3.75 feet tall and wide. It shrugs off disease and always has the largest most sumptuous blooms that last well in the vase as well as on the bush. I also have one in the ground that has stayed about the same size except for a few long canes that shot out to about 10 feet tall and I draped them over an arbor that was close by. These giant canes bloomed more often than the rest of the plant. Had I wanted to keep it compact I would have just pruned the down, but I love this rose so much I let it grow and will continue to let it grow as much as it wants. I would like to grow more Delbards as most of the ones I have tried have been great. Nahema for instance is another wonderful rose and has also done very well for me. I am hoping the nematodes don't ever get to either of these roses because they are both in the ground, but I keep them growing in lots of organic matter so hopefully they will stay far away.

Nahema is insanely perfumed...but is, I am afraid, leaving my garden on account of persistent die back, uneven and gracelessly stiff habits (a climber? - I think not) and horrible ugly foliage. It isn't the unyielding stiff canes which annoy me because Meg, grown nearby, has similar (but a hugely generous single summer flush), it is the uneven distribution of large yet brittle canes and parsimonious amount of blooms (after 4 years in FULL sun). For sure, a single bloom of that silvery-pink is lovely and the fragrance is to die for.....but. A few years ago, one of the larger garden companies like T&M or maybe Unwins, were heavily promoting Delbard roses - a couple of people I know bought a set (the painter series and Papi Delbard) but they are/were complete rubbish in a damp and cool English summer. However....in Crete? I also grow a few renaissance roses which, as a group, are all very tall (6-7feet), very stoutly upright (almost like a fastigiate yew in profile with blooms somewhat out of reach or sight) and horribly predisposed to blackspot (at least in my allotment). However, they do produce very good flowers for cutting and have a reliable, if delayed, rebloom (a second flush just coming along now). The sort of plant which makes a good freestanding specimen but assorts less well with others, especially those of a looser, more tumbling habit.

Thanks everyone for chiming in with responses! That is an important cautionary note, Thorntorn, about rose breeders having a possible agenda in promoting the fragrance of their own roses when they may be marginal at best. Certainly Delbard and Kordes roses do not come to mind when I think of fragrance, and I take Clements' statements of "highly fragrant" on a majority of his roses with a skeptical eye, since at least my poor nose can't detect much fragrance in most of his roses. Still, my impression of the Delbard book as a whole was an attempt to break down the components of different rose scents as "recipes" and celebrate the joy of smelling roses - most of the examples of scent combinations in the rest of the book were from OGRs. Also, until recent years I assume that fragrance was a not high priority in rose breeding, when more visual pursuits like high centered HTs or health concerns like BS resistance or hardiness have taken more precedence. For me in zone 5, those health/hardiness concerns are one of my highest priorities and I love the whole clan of (mostly) scentless Kordes and other types of roses. If I have to sacrifice wafting fragrance for that health I gladly will, but I'm glad there are the OGRs and new breeders like David Austin who have brought fragrance back into their lines. Regardless, I agree with you that it's too much work most of the time to try to detect (or imagine) a scent in a rose that is at best stingy with the scent. It's like trying to train my palate to detect the difference between a $10 bottle and a $50 bottle of wine. I can already tell the difference between truly cheap and a $10 bottle of wine, and frankly I don't WANT to develop a taste for expensive wines - I already have a taste for expensive roses! Sometimes the descriptions of rose scents are rather like those wine taster guides - who wants the taste (or scent) of "tar" or "smoke" in either one? For me, though, that doesn't mean that roses that don't have much in the scent department aren't worth wasting my time on. With my poor nose, I'd probably be stuck with a dozen or two roses that I could actually smell under normal conditions, and the intriguing look of roses like Red Intuition is totally worth it in my yard even though I can't imagine it having any appreciable scent. I realize that folks like Thorntorn choose roses with fragrance as a top priority, and that's part of the great thing about growing roses - that there's enough diversity of form, scent, growing habits, colors, and other types of roses to satisfy your own personal priorities. I totally agree with Suzy that what speaks to us about a particular rose is very individual and a complex combination of our experiences and priorities not just something that could be prescribed about the rose. So I agree with Mendocino rose that I wish my nose were better, but I'll settle for enjoying the look of most of my roses and the scent of a few select dear ones. I love the idea kittymoonbeam had to literally drink in some of the scent of those few favorites - I can't see doing that to try to coax a reluctant scent from a rose, but that would be so fun to try with my dear toe-curling fragrant Frances Dubrueil! Cynthia

This thread just makes me want Pink Intuition oh so bad.. I’m wondering how it would look between a bed of Moonstone, Love Song, and Our Lady of Guadeloupe, and the three Renaes I will be planting further down the wall. Funny how when you want a rose, suddenly it occurs to you where you might have room for it. 😏