loved rev d or in Cypress, Tx no disease, nice color, nice foliage ........

'Mme. Antoine Mari', and she's gorgeous. I'll leave to gardeners in your area to say how they'll do where you are. But they're all fine varieties.

Old Blush always mildewed on the stems below the flowers, no matter how dry or hot the weather and I finally got very tired of that. Reve D'or is lovely and easy. Rosette Delizy is very floriferous and has very little disease. I love the very large, flat flowers of Mrs. Dudley Cross.

Thanks everyone! It's going to be a hard choice, I am trying to narrow it down to 3 but I have a feeling no matter which roses I end up ultimately choosing I can't go wrong with what I have on my wish list. Mrs. DC and Rosette Delizy are strong contenders.

IngridI hope your roses are getting all the rain I have been seeing in the weather for California.

Not to tempt you further but McClinton Tea is better (for me) than all of the above. Continuous gorgeous bloom. Healthy too.

Susan

Nashville, Tn

I also find the fragrance of McClinton Tea to be fantastic - easily smelled several feet away from the bush when in full flush. It also grows well in too much shade while being overshadowed by Cramoisi Superieur in my yard. Although it is definitely a favorite of mine, I seem to remember from past discussions that many do not care for its more muddled blossoms.

Ok I just looked up McClinton tea and it is beautiful! Thanks for the suggestion Susan and Planlover, now my decision making is going to be even harder although I am thinking it could be a strong contender considering it has a strong fragrance and I am looking for a very fragrant tea to go in a place close to a high traffic area in the yard. Decisions....decisions.....

Concerning 'Old Blush', it mildews for me, too, but I wouldn't be without it. Again, I hope others in your area will speak up. It's my impression it's a good rose for Texas, not necessarily for all parts of California, as Ingrid has noted.

Melissa I also have read good things about Old Blush doing well in Texas so I am for sure going to plant her. I love the historical significance of Old Blush so that in itself is one reason to have her in my garden and I also think she will do very well in my yard, I hope so anyways.

i had old blush also very healthy, beautiful foliage and flowers 12 months of the year in northwest houston also stayed a nice size from across the yard people would ask what kind of camellia it was......blooming in late fall and early winter

Boncrow, IMHO, all the roses grown at Antique Rose Emporium would be great for you (whether you purchase from them or not). They really focus on the low maintenance tough roses that do well in Texas! McClinton Tea is a nice vigorous rose. Le Vesuve does great for me, Monsieur Tillier. Rosette DeLizzy is another vigorous blooming rose. It's important to have roses that can take the heat for you.

As for Old Blush, I found a bloom today on one of mine I had brought into the garage for the cold spell!

Also I have Mlle de Sombreuil. She is glorious in the spring and early summer, slows in the heat but then flushes again in fall. Very nice scent and vigorous.

Susan

Zippity thanks for replies about Old Blush, she sounds like a great rose and I can't wait to have her growing in my yard.

Susan I plan on making a trip to Chamblees and ARE in the very early spring so trying to narrow down my list and I agree I think most all of the roses I want will do well in my heat. I appreciate your replies on your roses, I think MLLE DE Sombreuil sounds gorgeous and may have to take the place of one of my Austins.

New roses orders are exciting. I live in central Texas and have both old blush and MDC. I grew the old blush from a cutting in a 4 inch pot ( the parent plant at the nursery is thought to be at least 50 years old). I almost shoveled it. Took 3 years for he first bloom. It's since then taken off. I fondly call it Godzilla:) . It blooms it's head off spring fall and winter. Summer is sporadic given the heat and water restrictions. It also does not seem to mind my poor alkaline clay soil. I compost and mulch once a year and that's about it. Mine Is trained on a Cedar elm tree. It's disease free, though I did get some PM with very heavy rains this spring. But it recovered and looks great now. I did find that the squirrels have developed a taste for the buds.

MDC on the other hand is stingy with blooms. She balls and mildews in wet weather and gets a fair amount of BS. The newcfoliage is a pretty red, low thorns. Not sure how she got the Earthlind designation,, I don't find her to be very healthy. The blooms have no fragrance to my nose. Also don't make great cut flowers. Mine is in a prime spot in the garden. Tea roses I am told require patience. Mine is 4 years old. Jury still out on MDC.

I aldo have Maggie. Not one of my successes. I think she likes only morning sun and some shade in the afternoon and very fertile soil to bloom well.

I ordered M. Mari Antoine this spring too. ARE praises her as one of the best tea roses.

I couldn't decide between rev dor and crepescule and went with the latter.

will be interesting to compare notes to see how they do.

Thanks for the comments Ashrose, I am looking forward to all my new roses and how they will perform in my yard. I am hoping Maggie will really like my yard lol. I am still trying to figure out my final list and everyone's comments have been very helpful. I know Old Blush and Maggie are for sure going in my yard but haven't quite decided on the others. I don't know why it's so hard to decide lol.

I agree. I spend all fall agonizing over what to order :). And then if I should change the order once I place it :)

So true, I drive myself crazy trying to decide because usually once I plant it, it's going to stay there for a while so I want to make sure I have the right choice. I know it's crazy because there are no guarentees that any Rose is the "right" one and will do well in my yard but that's just how I am lol. So far I have been pleased with all my roses and am learning as I go so that also has helped in my choosing :)

Not that this will help you at all, since I'm not in Texas. I grow Maggie, Mrs. Dudley Cross and Old Blush. All of these roses get some shade and may even get a little too much. All died back (MDC and OB to the ground) after the 2013-2014 "polar vortex" and the cold and ice storms of 2014-2015 didn't do them any favors. So most of what I say is pre-"polar vortex".

Maggie is one of my older roses. I got her in 1997 which was a busy year, as I recall. I managed to throw her in the ground in a spot where I thought she'd be safe from kids, traffic and dogs just before the snow fell that year. Eventually she grew to be about 4'x6' and eventually bloomed like mad in the spring, with scattered bloom thereafter. The flowers were a lovely rose red, full and fragrant. The buds even had an interesting spicy smell, sort of like black pepper. She does blackspot but seems to grow in spite of it.

Old Blush is a couple years younger. I had great hopes for OB. It was the first rose to bloom every year, but then would immediately blackspot, lose its leaves and stay that way till fall. Not much fragrance that I could tell. It was never a heavy bloomer for me, either. It never got much bigger than 3 ft. tall and about 2' wide at its largest. I don't know whether I will hang on to this one much longer. If I had another spot for it, I'd move it. I can't believe that a rose with this many accolades is such a lousy performer.

I've had Mrs. Dudley Cross for the shortest time of these but still for over 10 years. She was about 5 1/2' tall. She has no thorns and doesn't even look like a rosebush. Her new growth is red; when she's starting to leaf out, visitors have thought that she's a Japanese maple. I feel like she's a really slow starter. She blooms a little later than the other two. The blooms are delicate looking and have only a little fragrance, usually more apparent in the spring, early AM, when it's humid. She is the closest rose I have to being immune to disease. She loves hot weather and doesn't seem to take off till the temps are in the 80's. She was just starting to show me what she's all about when she died back to the ground the winter before last.

All 3 have come back somewhat. OB isn't too far from its original size, maybe 2/3 of what it was, but following the same growth pattern. MDC is still quite small and no blooms but grew steadily this summer, so I have hope. Maggie may not make it. Although she didn't die to the ground the way the other two did, it seems to have weakened her and she didn't grow much over the summers.

Kes thanks for the low down on your roses. Thank goodness we don't get as cold as you do, I don't think I have ever had any roses die back to the ground in the winter. Thankfully I have very good fertile soil too so that helps a lot. My place is on a old homestead that used to be a farm with cattle and huge vegetable gardens. So far everything I plant has done exceptionally well and I know it has to be my soil and not me :). So I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope Maggie does well for me. I am really excited about her and can't wait to watch her grow.

I've grown them in 2 TX climates--hot, humid coastal prairie (sw of Houston) & the new-to-me zone nw of SA. Both were no-spray gardens.

Old Blush--happy anywhere but in deep shade. I've noticed a huge difference in vigor & flowering if it's in full sun. Healthy, steadily gets bigger. "Old Common Monthly" is an accurate old name for it. Almost monthly flushes of raggedy little pink flowers as long as the weather is warm--nothing special individually, but so many of them. Lots of fat, red, & good tasting hips on mature bushes. And such an interesting rose historically. This plant is ~4yrs old. We've had mostly severe drought since moving here so I'm impressed with plants that look so nice under these conditions. I really don't baby them much & even minimize watering with heavy mulch.

Mrs Dudley Cross--how can you not like a thornless tea? Very large flowers, lots of color variation on them depending on temperature--pure cream to a strongly blushed pink on a cream base. I started the plants I have now from chopped root body bags (10 bucks from HEB in spring) & after 3 years they're starting to look very good--pushing 5' tall, lottso blooms. IIRC, it was named "The Rose of San Antonio" for the many fine specimens growing there, so it may be particularly good in the cent. TX climate.

Madame Antoine Mari--absolutely one of the best, most carefree teas in both climates. Clean & healthy, steadily grows & fills out more each year, with no care, always has blooms in warm weather, sets hips, propagates easily. A nice bushy full plant, lots of healthy leaves & flowers. Only criticism is it's "just not an exciting flower"--and that's true in some ways. It's just PINK, & not large. But it's a very attractive flower--it IS pink, but with subtly darker pink backsides that shade & emphasize the delicate soft color of the interior. The early stages are nicely formed & scrolled, like a small HT, which some ogrs folks might not like as much. But it strikes me as an elegant bloom & it's easy to appreciate it as a beautiful, non-fussy plant.

Rosette Delizy--another very easy tea, lots of flowers, happy plant. In the old zone I neglected it for years & still feel guilty at the thought of it churning out flowers under the deep shade of an elm, but growing more sparse every year. Just got one here, & am determined to give it the sun it wants. So far, very good here, too. This is from a nice sized ARE plant & doing well. Reminds me a bit of Mrs. Dudley--lots of temperature influenced color variation, but it's almost always much darker, with some golden yellow blushed with darker rose. That's fun to watch, & the cool weather fall blooms are especially nice.

Maggie---gee whiz, I've never done real well with this one, but friends & neighbors did. I want to make it happy as I love the big romantic fragrant blooms. Too early to say how it will do here--I planted it in too shady an area, but just trimmed back tree limbs, so maybe this spring it will improve. Don't reject it because of anything I say--virtually every rose grower I knew in both zones did just fine with it!

Sombreuil--don't have a good opinion on this one, as I've just grown it from body bag plants, picked up on a whim. I guess I'm growing the old HT, not the real thing. Very pretty flower on a very thorny plant. Not the best doer I've had, but I haven't really tried starting with a well-raised plant. Have one now, doing well, so far, too young to comment much about, but seems fairly healthy & has thrown quite a few of those beautiful, fragrant, white overstuffed blooms.

Reve D'Or--very pleased with this. Here, it's growing up a crepe myrtle & the blooms are lovely. It definitely wants to be a climber--the plant is young & doesn't have all that many canes, but they are very long. Not a fast grower for me, just steady.

Hope this might be useful for your area, but; remember, my area has been in severe drought & I don't water--or fertilize--a lot. I'm on caliche with alkaline water. I start young plants off in potting soil & plant them in a big hole full of that. Once a plant has a dense root ball that fills up a 2 gallon pot or so, when it goes in the ground, it gets a very heavy mulch & only gets a deep hose watering once every 3 weeks or so. Some things that haven't been vigorous for me might do much better with more care. We've received good fall & winter rains so far, so it will be exciting to see what happens this spring.

Bluegirl thanks for all the info on your roses and the beautiful pics, your roses look great and it makes me excited to grow these roses. You have a challenging environment for roses with all the caliche but you seem to have found a way to make it work and be successful.

You're very welcome--I hope you enjoy your new roses. And if you'd like cuttings of any you don't order--email me--happy to send them. Of course, if you live near to Chamblees, you can get well established plants for pretty reasonable :-D

I have had Bluegirl's experience with Maggie. If you get a good plant, let us know! You will have so much fun growing these beautiful roses!

Susan

Nice write-up & lovely pix, bluegirl! I second all the nice things you said about Old Blush. It's not a refined as the teas on your list, boncrow, but it's such a classic and so stout and hard-working in this area that it would be a shame not to have grown it at least once.

We've also got Mrs DC, and she has strong flushes in spring & fall, with (for us, so far), with scattered blooms in between of nice, fat, full flowers. As bluegirl says, the thornlessness is a nice feature. It's not my favorite rose, but it's a perfectly serviceable, solid rose, if you know what I mean.

And, fwiw, Rosette D is high on my wish list.

Side note: How is Rosette Delizy pronounced? For some reason, I always feel compelled to pronounce the "z" Italianishly: "delitsy" which annoys my husband to no end--he says "delizzy." We both use a short "i," for some reason: "deliihhhtsy". But really, why not "de-light-sy" or "de-leet-sy"? And if it's French, we should probably actually be ignoring half the consonants and pronouncing it something like "de-lee."

I use the more Italian pronunciation for Delizy too, plectrudis. I guess to follow through, I should also pronounce Rosette as "Rosettay" .....but I don't. Lovely rose, though. Melodye

I agree with bluegirl's assessment of 'Old Blush' and 'Mme. Antoine Mari', but will add that they may surprise her one day. On rare occasions, when weather conditions were ideal--a prolonged period of moderate temperatures, sun, plenty of moisture--'Old Blush' has produced large, shapely flowers, delicately veined. The same for MAM: usually the blooms are smallish, but I've seen her produce flowers four inches across and very double under favorable conditions. She's beautiful at all times, and I don't find her flowers boring at all, but once in a while they're sumptuous. By the way, 'Mme. Antoine Mari' has flowers like a Hybrid Tea because the HTs inherited that bloom form from the Teas. It's not an HT style bloom, but a Tea style bloom

I have two minis ordered but after that I haven't a clue. I'd really like to get some more OGRs but space is really limited and a lot of them (the ones I want) get pretty big so...I mostly just dream and come here to enjoy the pictures!

Thanks Bluegirl for the offer of cuttings, if I can't get what I want from ARE and Chambless I'll let you know.

I am very excited about all my roses and will have to give updates on how they are all doing once I make up my mind and get them planted lol. I will especially update on Maggie since she seems to be a problem child for some people. I'm hoping my climate is similar to what she was found in since I'm close to the Lousianna border. I appreciate everyone's input and enthusiasm about their roses.

Thanks for the kind comments.

I haven't the slightest idea how to pronounce most rose names & am always embarrassing myself or *relearning* how to say them correctly *sigh*.

Forvo is a neat site for pronunciation help

http://www.forvo.com/languages/fr/

Melissa: yes! I like plants that show you how the evolution started from one group to another. MAM, more than other teas I've grown, forms those HT scrolled blooms.

I like them--and I like the raggedy blooms of cream blushed pink that are thought of as "traditional" tea flowers, also.

Marchioness de Londonderry is one of the HPs that in my climate, you can see how they may have influenced the scrolled blooms popular in the later 20th century HTs (dang, I can't find a photo, but it throws scrolled light pink flowers you'd swear were any HT's, not the blousey big blooms I think of when I think "HP")

Boncrow, even before I read your comment, I was thinking to myself that everyone I've known who particularly loved Maggie's performance was in east TX, Louisiana, etc. Maybe it's one of those roses that just love heat plus humidity.

In Welch's book, Antique Roses for the South, he mentions it was one of the first antique roses he collected & he got it near Mangham, LA, then grew it in College Station TX (also hot & humid) & eventually forwarded it to ARE & others.

It should have done well in my first location--probably I mistreated it. That yard was way too shady & I grew a lot of things in pots where I could haul them into sun.

For you Old Blush admirers, try Ralph Moore's Pink Poodle! It's from a cross of a climbing mini x Old Blush & really shows its daddy's features--so cute. Not widely available, but I've got it & it roots easily. It wasn't marketed as a mini ogr or mini China because the rose growing public hadn't caught on the the charms of ogrs yet.

Whaal, I do now know not to say "See-sill Brun-ner", but that's about all :-p

Hit me up for a Pink Poodle this spring--I still have rooted cuttings from fall. It's slow to build own-root & really wants full sun, but it's especially cute in a big pot near Old Blush. And it's not in commerce, according to friends.

Gorgeous bouquet!

I planted Mrs. B. R. here & thank goodness I asked for opinions on spacing before putting her in the ground--my gosh, what a big girl! And so happy! Tons of those pretty cupped blooms on a huge buffalo of a rose bush. All this under extreme drought conditions, plus I didn't amend the cruddy dirt as well as I'm doing now.

That's lovely--you have a lot to look forward to as she gets her feet under her--tons of those pretty blooms :-D

Here in humid heat central Mrs. Dudley Cross is a definite and so is Maggie. Sombreuil is lovely but got bs.

I'm not in East TX or LA or FL, but I'm hoping "Maggie" likes our brand of heat + humidity since I have her ordered for the spring...

I understand that she needs some patience while she's getting established, and can supply that, but I may not have enough sunshine on offer here. It's always a gamble!

Lovely pix, everyone.

Virginia

Thanks Maria, I'm glad to hear Maggie has done well for you. How long have you had her?

Good luck to you too VIRGINIA with your Maggie, I hope she grows well for you! I don't know why your name is in all caps lol, my computor won't let me change it either.

I can't wait to hear how Maggie is going to do with everyone that plans on growing her this year!