Carol, Thank you for letting me know of your comment on my results page, I missed it and some other replies. If houzz notified me, I missed seeing the email. J E Murphy is a relatively new Tea the I got from Rose petal Nursery. I wish I could tell you more about it. Maybe ask Cydney about it. He is a pleasure to deal with. I actually made a order today. I had been really depressed and down this year. Haven't even been reading the forum much. We had a really rainy wet year. I don't understand why still. But I lost a bunch of Rose's. I did my potting soil like always, so I don't know. It had me really down and discouraged along with everything health wise going on. I was feeling better and planting a few that had survived. JE Murphy Pink was one, and it had a pretty pink bloom on it, and the scent was divine, it was a light in the darkness so to speak. Next year my husband is installing drip irrigation, I think it's called, on all of my Rose's in ground. I can't wait. Even though rain messed with my pots, it's not enough in between in those hot dry summer days. I know the rain messed up, and killed my Rose's in pots, but what I still don't understand is how. They didn't hold water. It flowed straight through them. Drainage looked excellent. From the outside. Still confused on that one. I guess it didn't dry out enough in between? Idk..

Ronda One of my favourite rose books was recommended by Rosebud, a former forum enabler, I'm not sure of the name of the book, it's at home in Oz and overseas so this is guess work ....Landscaping with Roses and I think the author's last name is Cox ???? I like it because it has lots of ideas for how to use roses rather than just describing individual blooms and bushes. The Tea Rose book is very good, it has quite a lot of technical information for the identification of varieties and as Jon said tries to explain some of the common mis-identification of roses. The whole thing about the Duchess being called Countess something or other makes me want to sulk though!!

also, this list might be of use to those who do not posses the type of olfactory receivers that pick up the scent of black tea in roses, because they might be able to smell these: 'Duchess de Brabant' totally raspberry to my nose 'Mrs. B.R. Cant' myrrh, which is quite like anise. 'Comtesse Emmeline de Guigne' only c. 1/3rd black tea blended with a fruity blend of ripe stone fruit, like plum mixed with a bit of ripe apricot. 'Delicious' is how 'Etoille de Lyon' is described by one author and I would agree, to me its a blend of fresh cream and warm honey with rose, ending with a note of honeysuckle. White Tea roses have a quite different scent, to my nose than the colored Teas. 'Ducher' to my nose, has what many of the white Tea roses exude: a distinct perfume which is a blend of: A. a seductive animal-origin musk scent, as was once used in perfune. This is quite different from the musk scent that shows in R. moschata and its' descendants. this animal musk scent is blended with B. a mixed light floral blend. together this makes for a marvelous fragrance that to me, is every bit as wonderful as the Damask rose scent, and I crave it. I smell this perfume-musk fragrance predominantly in 'Ducher', and equally in the marvelous 'Westside Road Cream Tea' (bless Phillip Robinson for finding this lost rose in Northern California). On warm humid days, the scent of these two white Teas, is quite strong, to my nose, and I rarely rate Tea roses as being strongly fragrant. 'Francis Dubruil' I believe must be a Hybrid Tea, because it so strongly carries the Damask rose scent, which would be inherited from the Hybrid Perpetual-Damask lineage, something which the Tea lineage lacks, except for a few Tea-Bourbon cultivars, which also have a Damask rose lineage on the Bourbon side. Thanks for the question, I love Tea roses. Luxrosa

I think the whole problem here is that we are trying to compare apples to oranges. HT's and Shrub roses are two different classes for a reason. If you are expecting HTs to grow and bloom in the same manner as Shrub roses then you surely will be disappointed. Same is true the other way around. If you are expecting Shrub roses to give you the large beautifully formed blooms of an HT you'll be disappointed too. You can not compare them to each other. That's unfair to both classes. In my experience if you try to even compare one HT against another you come up perplexed. EVERY variety of rose is DIFFERENT. They each have their own habits and no two are alike. You need to just enjoy and appreciate each one for it's own unique characteristics.