WOW! What beautiful pictures! Thanks everybody for sharing them. I was caught up in the fun of this, thinking of what rose flower I liked best, when I had a thought - most of the responses and pictures here focus on the beauty of the individual blooms. This is understandable, but it is also how 20th century hybridizers thought, and unfortunately it resulted in the development of: spindly upright ugly bushes; new roses with no fragrance whatever; & roses so disease prone that everybody had to spray poisons all over their gardens every 2 weeks! So, I would prefer a different definition of "beauty" - roses that are beautiful not only in their individual blossoms, but as an overall bush. Banksia lutea, as it bursts into bloom all over town, suddenly appearing all over large trees, and dripping down from on high, would certainly be my favorite. All of the teas are graceful shrubs if you have enough room for them, and also have gorgeous flowers. MAC is beautiful in my garden because it has climbed up several old plum & fig trees, and I can see blossoms from my bedroom window as I speak, seemingly floating all over the top of our fruit tree forrest. This has been going on non-stop since March! Ditto Cl Peace, which is now producing blossoms all over the top of a huge pomegranite bush - its third bloom flush so far this year. I have a dark red/purple many many petaled mystery rose that I found in our garden (from where it was growing inside of a Japanese quince bush, I would say it was planted at least in the 1930s) which I rooted & planted out by the street in the sun, right next to the sidewalk. It blooms for 10 months of the year, and is amazingly fragrant with that heady "old rose" fragrance. Our street is a busy street, as is the sidewalk. This rose is only about 4-5 feet tall, so the blossoms are very accessible to passer- byes who want to smell it. I enjoy watching people's reactions when I am near there weeding or whatever - it is truly a "beautiful" rose, as it startles people into a brief happiness! Jackie

Please stay away from Chateau de Clos Vougeot. It's a very weak and spindly plant, and I can personally confirm that it's a MAJOR PM DISASTER and also way up in the BS league. I wasn't even that thrilled with its floppy blooms. They never looked like that symmetrically petaled wonder bloom photo on HMF. I don't think the climbing version would be any better than the original I had. There are so many much much much better smelly reds out there, also among climbers. Check out the classic and strongly perfumed Ena Harkness, weak neck, but that's not bad in a climber. Or Climbing Etoile Hollande, or Crimson Glory. Or Gruss an Teplitz (check for hardiness though). Or Naheglut/That's Jazz. Or Dublin Bay, as others here have mentioned. As to Sympathy, I assume that it's the German rose Sympathie (note the difference in spelling ), bred by Kordes. It's supposed to be a very good rose, and smelly too (I don't grow it, though). Hooe this helps, Andrea Here is a link that might be useful: Sympathie

Holà , Nadine! Ici dans ma fraîche Belgique, je viens de récolter tous mes cynorhodons -15 jours d'avance cette année-. Inutile d'attendre jusqu'en Décembre que les oiseaux les mangent... A propos des "déchets", des "chétifs", je ne partage pas non plus l'avis des "pros", qui, il est vrai, n'ont ni beaucoup de temps ni assez de place. Je ne jette jamais un semis, même noir de Marsonia, chétif, mal formé etc, avant quelques années. En effet, des fleurs diformes peuvent devenir superbes sur une plante de trois ans, mieux "musclée" pour les nourrir ; une sensibilité aux maladies est le plus souvent l'indice d'une préférence pour des conditions de culture particulières (mi-ombre, sol frais, ou le contraire). A l'hybrideur amateur de les découvrir! J'ai pour l'instant un semis issu d'une reconstitution -supposée- du croisement qui a donné "Géant des batailles". C'est un petit truc rikiki, 11 centimètres de haut, tout blanc d'oidium tout l'été (plus rien maintenant), des folioles de 0,5 Cm de long....et des fleurs minuscules, semi-doubles, noires, oui, vraiment noires avec des reflets bruns, et des étamines jaunes qui ressortent d'autant plus. Et du parfum! le désespoir du parfumeur, bien que pour l'instant je l'appelle "Dracula" (humour belge). N'importe quel pro flanquerait celà au compost dans la seconde ; pour ma part, je vais le bichonner ququ années avant toute décision, rien que pour cette couleur et ce parfum. Et ce temps me permettra de savoir où et comment le cultiver pour éviter l'oidium! Bien amicalement, Pete.

There are quite a lot of red climbing roses. What would be best for you depends on the space you have available for it. I myself grow Cl. Etoile de Hollande and Sympathie. Both are very different. Etoile is velvety red and 'blues' in the sun so the flowers become velvety purple and this is kinda nice, but you have to like it. It is very fragrant. Sympathie's red is of much higher quality. It is a good red and it stays red even in the heat wave temperatures we have currently. It has only a light scent. Both roses are vigorous and tend to become leggy, so they are, I think, best against a wall and not for a pillar (like I grow them). I saw the Etoile in France covering a wall and it was like 4 m. high. Other red climbers that I do not grow are Santana, from Tantau, relatively new (1985) and probably healthy, not fragrant and good for a pillar spot. Amadeus, a new Kordes climber (2004), light fragrance, very glossy foliage and probably very disease resistant. The flowers seem to be semi-double and very red. I think you have to order it from Kordes. Santana is available in garden centres here. Older favourites are Don Juan, a classic climber with hybrid tea like flowers, and Altissimo, a red with single flowers. I don't know how they do in the resistance department. Other resistant classics are Dortmund (single flowers) and Parkdirektor Riggers (semi-double) but they both lack scent. Both are from Kordes and related to Sympathie (all three are so-called Kordesii-hybrids). Oh yes, then there is Red Eden Rose (or Eric Tabarly) with old-fashioned type of flowers and some scent (not very strong, even though advertised as such). It's new from Meilland (2004) and I have mixed feelings. The flowers are nice (raspberry red), but a bit overhyped and they tend to be damaged by rain and foggy mornings. It's still healthy though. The rose you see most in the garden centre, often without it's name, is Paul's Scarlet Climber. I do not grow it but I believe it has long been surpassed by better varieties. The above roses are modern roses that repeat flower. Generally, though, the shorter the rose stays the better it repeats. Santana and Amadeus are probably best for repeat, because they tend to stay shorter. You may also opt for once blooming varieties although I don't know wether there are pure reds in that category. Excelsa comes to mind, or maybe Super Excelsa, a repeat flowering child of Excelsa and more disease resistant. Last, but not least, roses need a lot of sun and good airflow. I grow many roses in good spots and they do not get disease. However, the roses in my parent's garden get disease easily because they are planted in a small garden with fences (schutting) all around and trees blocking the sun. So, with respect to health, your mileage may vary. Hope I was of help :-) Rob