"La France" 1867 is one of the earliest H.T.s and in my eyes one of the 12 best pink H.T.s, I also love its fragrance. cl. "Mrs. Herbert Stevens". This grows to be a self supporting rosebush of c. 7 feet tall by nearly as wide, that has the twiggy growth habit of a Tea rosebush. Leaflets are a bit small and scanty, if that matters to you. "Golden Ophelia" darling golden-yellow roses. A small plant suitable for the border. "Condesa de Sastago" one of my favorite Pernetiana type roses. Pernetiana roses "Soleil d'Or" has a growth habit and foliage that is like the wild rose it was bred from, a marvelous rose that shows a lot of character in plant and flower. I also love "Gruss an Coberg" it is a Pernetiana that is healthy in our no-spray garden and has a re- bloom rate of a Florabunda. H.T.s from the early 1900's "Polly" very fragrant and lovely "Snowbird" a white H.T. from the 1930's that has a bloom style one would expect more from a rose from the 1800's. Very floriferous and quick to re-bloom. Of all of the white roses in the whole wide world, it is one of my top 12 favorites, and I rate it only slightly below the white Tea roses. Not a Tea but very much like a Tea, with smaller roses, Spray "Cecille Brunner" a sport from the original rose that was bred from a Tea rose and a Polyantha, The bush has the size and twiggy growth habit of a Tea, and like Tea roses in our climate, it retains its foliage far longer in the Autumn, than H.T.s do. The roses are fragrant and dainty in size, pink and very pretty. I used to dislike the H.T. class as a whole, until I met more of the H.T.s from the 1800's-1930's, a few of which captivated my attention, especially the Pernetiana roses which grow well where I live. Luxrosa

I get so busy that I delay too long to say thank you. Garden 2 garden, you suggest cutting the dead wood and I have done that. I think I will also wait to see what happens. Ann, thank you. I will count on the rain, but not temps under 90. I think I saw that it is 86 today, and that is getting hot. I won't hesitate to water though. Kaye, thank you so much for posting. I am so sorry that your "Signature Roses" have been badly damaged. You have a great attitude about it, but then, what are our choices. I think it will be good for me to just remove the dead wood, and watch to see what happens. I have had quite a bit of damage in the past couple of years, and have waited to remove the dead wood, so it looks like there is more damage from the ice storm than there really is. It is so hard to keep up this time of year. I had the front of my house cared for, and went to the back. Now a couple of weeks later there are all kinds of weeds that have crept up in the front. Thanks again Sammy

I also lost no teas, no chinas, no noisettes. I did loose HTs. The stalwart Cl Old Blush was the strongest rose, it was blooming when the freeze hit, it made small, not freeze dried but color correct blooms in the weeks after the freeze. It's rebudded for rebloom. Other Chinas are doing the scattered bloom thing, although Pink Pet appears to have been on vacation during the freeze and came back with a bloom rush that was awesome albeit brief. Mutabilis has done the blooms and reset on bud replacement. There was fairly significant loss of stems and a few canes also are gone. With the teas, I get the feeling that the blooms are the sum of the rose's parts and those that had more damage will need more time to replace the stems first and then blooms will come in large numbers again. The noisettes are different and because we have R. moschatas growing near them, the difference is because of the moschata in them. The moschatas were damaged. The younger moschatas were damaged more than the older onoe. But all bounced back well and all bloomed in May, just less bloom than ususal. And right now, the moschatas and their descendents are the spots of color in the gardens. Moschatas make their new blooms near the base of the older sprays. And they held on to their more tender growth better. We saw the Champney's Pink bed at Biltmore and everything in it was blackened where it had emerged; but the really impressive part was (where other blackened growth was killed and the black had moved down the canes below the soil line) with Champney's Pink there, slightly buried leaf axils within a week were sprouting new stems that would be canes. This is a resistance to the creeping black crud that I haven't seen elsewhere. The resistance to 'black' death is not that present in the teas and chinas; for them younger stems seem to die back to older growth when death happens out on them. That's what hit my chinas and teas and not my noisettes.

Baronne Prevost could probably be trained on a pillar but it is fiercely prickly - the big, pointed kinds - I would not want to be the one to tie it up! We have Mme Joseph Schwarz growing in almost total shade in the Sacramento cemetery where it stays clean and blooms. I'm pretty sure it's a sport of Duchesse de Brabant since it sometimes throws pink flowers, but it performs much better. DdB gets mildew here, too, although our summer heat discourages it so the mildew is spring and fall. I heard a European speaker (don't remember who) extoll Mme Joseph Schwatz's virtues as a much superior plant to DdB, and that's been my experience too. Some teas are big. Some are huge. Mrs. Dudley Cross is in that category. Mme Antoine Mari is the closest to a moderate-sized tea that I've encountered but even that is building in our garden. Anita