what a great job you did with these photos. I find it very difficult to get good photos in the bright sun as you have done. I love this garden. I've gotten to the point where i feel like I have a personal relationship with many of its roses.

Thanks so much to all your thoughts. You've set me onto a delightful reading trip looking up more about a bunch of roses. I've only been into roses for a year, but have a zillion terrific rose books, each with different little pieces of information, and of course, there's also HelpMeFind information and the various nurseries I might order from too. In the end I've decided (I think! But nothing is done until it's done...) on two roses for this long woods edge. There is actually room for more, but this is probably enough to start with. One long single variety might be ideal in a landscaping way, but I'm also considering different uses in filling vases alongside other flowers in the yard at the same time. (We also have lots of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, and bulbs for cutting.) The two choices are for Fortuniana and White Lady Banks. White Lady Banks fulfills every wish--thornless, leafy mostly evergreen, easy to grow, and blooming within the time when the sun hasn't started to be shaded out much by the leafiness of the deciduous trees. As a plus, Antique Rose Emporium says that deer don't particularly bother it. I forgot to say that we have a significant deer problem here, but we're not going to spend the time or money to try to do all the anti-deer things for this naturalized planting that we do for the other roses closer to the house. The main, perhaps the only, disadvantage to the White Lady Banks, is that it's iffy in terms of winter hardiness here. Theoretically, it won't be hardy over the long haul. I'm just thinking that the conditions in this particular spot might be somewhat less prone to the deep, deep freezes below 15 degrees that are sure to hit at some point within a ten-year period. But we'll find out, I guess. ;) It's a small investment financially, and no further investment in terms of time and attention once it's supported in establishing itself when first planted. We won't be watering, weeding, feeding, etc. I'm just guessing that it will do fine anyway, though, just as that wild multiflora did in our woods. The other rose will be Fortuniana. In terms of hardiness, it seems a pretty sure bet, and also fulfills the other criteria. Or almost. It's not thornless, but is relatively low in thorns. I don't know for sure that the deer will leave it alone, but I'm thinking that probably so, since it's fragrant and the deer, unless they're starving completely, don't like to risk being near very fragrant flowers that can cut off their early warning signs of predator dangers. The differences between the two flowers will be noticeable, and after we see how they do, perhaps repeating one or both of them in alternates might work out in terms of the landscape. But their bloom periods might not overlap anyway; White Lady Banks blooms about a month earlier than most roses, and Fortuniana blooms with most of the roses. I'm thinking that the two of them combined might give pretty good coverage for combining in a vase with other flowering plants from the yard over a long period of time in the spring. We do have a couple of fragrant azalea varieties and a couple of fragrant rhododendrons but the vast majority of all our plants are not fragrant and these varieties will make a nice addition to vases with most anything. Azaleas and rhododendrons don't last terribly welll in a vase, so it won't matter if the banksia don't last well as a cut flower either. The only piece of information that gives pause now is that Peter Beales, in his "Classic Roses" book shows them both as needing full sun. But to my mind, they'll be in close to full sun during the period they are first growing and putting on buds in the early spring. Influenced only by Peter, though, I'd probably tend to go with Mme. Plantier; he says that Mme. Plantier is suitable for a north wall. It's good for cutting, thornless, and does have some fragrance too. Mme. Plantier would work in every way, except that I find nothing to indicate that it might be evergreen like the banksias. Decisions, decisions... Regarding Hybrid Musks, I love just about every one of them and have spent a ton of time looking up the very same varieties again and again, just imagining them here. If I only had one type of rose in the yard, those are definitely what I'd go with. We have a couple of HM's, and I have maybe 20 or 25 others on a wish list for various spots. I just want to go with something different here for this particular area, and whatever does go here has to be capable of sustaining itself with essentially no care. I can't say that that's my intention for any of the Hybrid Musks; as a matter of fact, I've already started pegging one of them. (And it went into the ground last April; this is just the start of the second year with roses here.) Connie, I love gardenias and am drawn to any flowers that remind me of gardenias. I want the peony gardenia and the camellia gardenia, and now the rose gardenia too. I'm just thinking that I'll start with something with no or few thorns for this particular spot where my husband regularly walks nearby. Buford, I don't have any noisettes yet, but I do plan to have them, probably starting with Lamarque and Madame Alfred Carrière, but I am drawn to Crepuscle too. I do think the noisettes might want considerably more sun that what is available for this woods area, though, so when we get some noisettes, they'll go into a little different spot. Kiftsgate was one of the first roses I thought of, having seen so many positive remarks about it at the Beales' forums, and loving its flower form which, like dogwood flowers, would look terrific in our woods. However, it has the disadvantages of having thorns and also blooming significantly later than I'd hope for--meaning that it might not bloom well in the dense shade it would have to endure for too long before the buds open. Meredith, I do mean to get Purezza sometime and may end up getting it for this spot too this spring too. It's just that if the ability to bloom later takes away any of its focus on going all-out for the spring flush, then a once-bloomer might work out better, since the spot is too shady to get any noticeable number of blooms past May anyway, even if the rose wanted to. And Purezza isn't as vigorous as the other two, so the quick screening effect with that choice is somewhat lower. Thanks for mentioning Sebastopol Queen. I hadn't heard of that one but it's very, very appealing. I might find a place for it sometime, but probably this isn't the right spot. There's a gorgeous picture of Morletti in the Peter Beales' book, but he doesn't mention it for shade tolerance to any degree. And it's hard to say enough good things about Evangeline's looks; I've so many times stared at the full-page picture of it in the Scanniello & Bayard "Climbing Roses" book, wishing for that one. It's highly prone to mildew, though, and might be less than a sure thing in our no-spray yard. Blush Rambler looks perfect except that it's not noted for lots of shade tolerance. Cecile Brunner, Climbing, is likely easy to grow and there are spots here where it might do well, but it's noted that it's not heavy in foliage. Since we're looking for a screen, something with more foliage would work better. I didn't have an easy way to find any information on Wichuriana Curiosity, but if it blooms with the bulk of the other Wichuranas, the bloom period is later for this spot than would be ideal. Thanks to everyone for your input. I am very much farther along on the spring lists than just a day ago! Best wishes, Mary P.S. By the way, Randy, your user name is extremely attractive! I have that rose on the list for this spring for an area with some sun, near the other teas.

Isn't he the one who climbed the Himalayan mountains to get white 'Easter' lilies and suffered a broken leg from a boulder that rolled down on him? Quite an adventurer! Wonder if he left a diary or if there is a book about his plant collecting trips? He did! "published several books: Three Years Wanderings in the Northern Provinces in China (1847), A Journey to the Tea Districts of China (1852), A Residence among the Chinese: Inland, On the Coast and at Sea (1857)" Also he brought back Rosa Fortuniana which is used as a root stock for southern roses as well as being a beautiful rose itself. I didn't know he introduced Rosa banksiae to the west. What a guy! Thanks for the post! Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Wikipedia on Robert Fortune ...

Jeri, your rose is lovely. I see them around our area and would love to get one someday...if I can find an appropriate spot! They get so huge around here that they scare me. They are more than house eaters. They look like they want to take over everything. We live not far from Tombstone Arizona, where the " biggest rose in the world " lives. My husband and I paid the 5 bucks to go see it, and it really is an impressive Lady Banks. I took a picture of my two youngest children sitting by the massive "trunk" and it looks like a tree trunk. This spring I want to go see it in bloom. About the mandatory water rationing you expect to be implemented soon...does that affect only those on city water? If you have your own well, can you water a bit more freely? We lived in California nearly 20 years, through some terrible drought years. I almost cried driving through the central valley, seeing acre after acre of nut and fruit trees dead because of the water being shut off. When I saw the golf courses still growing rich, green grass, I felt very angry...there was a lot of talk about fines if you keep your gardens watered. We lived very close to two large, beautiful golf courses and a soccer park. Through the worst of the droughts, they never went brown. I told my husband that I will keep watering my gardens as long as they stay green. If they let the golf courses die, I will take the water restrictions seriously. They never did go brown and I never stopped watering my gardens (we had our own well) and in time, the rains came so heavily that the reservoirs were so full they had to open the emergency outlets to keep the dams from breaking. So it seems that the cycle of droughts continues. But take heart, the rains eventually come! Our last monsoon season here was incredible and the countryside turned green as Ireland. God only knows what this year will be like.