If you are at all serious about using the flowers for anything, you will probably be much happier with something that blooms more. Madam Hardy is more of a show rose - the point being a small number of beautiful flowers. The classic attar roses are much bigger and produce a lot more flowers. However, those also run into the climate problems.

Damask perpetuals and perpetual mosses may work better in all directions.

There is zone 8 and then there is zone 8: I grew up in one, in north Florida, and live in one now, in northern Italy, and they are very very different. Florida gets sharp frosts and cool mornings, but then warms up during the day, so that during the course of the winter you don't actually get that many hours of cold. Here in Italy, in a warm winter such as we're having this year (and had the two years previous), temperatures may not drop much below freezing, and not do even that all that often. But you get day after day, week after week, of temperatures that most of the time stay in the thirties to forties. Even though it doesn't get that cold, it doesn't get that warm, and so you get the chill needed for lilacs, tulips, apples, and the once-blooming old roses.

Your wild cherries are probably Prunus serotina, native to eastern and middle North America, and adapted to its climate of hot humid summers and irregularly cold winters, unlike the sweet and pie cherries grown further north in the U.S. and in Europe, and which also do fine here in our Italian hills. There are species native to the southeastern U.S. of many European forest tree genera. I've wondered if it might be possible to develop forms of Prunus serotina with good fruit so that southerners could enjoy locally grown cherries too. The fruit of the wild tree is edible.

Chill hours / Chill units, in the sense that stone fruit trees collect them, are probably not relevant to roses. In any case the system for their collection is quite different. The "official" model for chilling was developed with peach trees. In their case, short days in the autumn trigger leaf drop. Once leafless, the trees go into light dormancy (light rest). At that point they are incapable of growing until the chilling cycle is over. They will have picked up a few degrees of cold hardiness at that point, but are not ready to collect chill, nor are they maximally hardened. Then the first freeze of the season occurs. Within 24 hours, they enter deep dormancy (deep rest) -- full cold-hardiness, and the chilling clock is activated. Then they collect chill units -- generally one unit per clock hour between 32-45°F, less than that between 45 and 55 (it takes longer and longer to acquire a unit as the temperature rises). Between about 55 and 65, the plant neither loses nor gains chilling, and above 65°F, it begins to subtract chilling.

Nearly all of the stone fruits (peach, apricot, plum, almond, cherry) and pome fruits (apple, pear, quince) seem to use this method, although the exact high and low temperatures for each range varies slightly among the species, and the actual number of chill units required varies a lot.

Roses also seem to need some sort of "chilling," but obviously, they don't use this method, in that

1. They don't normally go deciduous unless the leaves actually freeze.
2. They're perfectly happy to collect their form of "chilling" while still quite leafy
3. They never enter that physiological state where they are incapable of growing -- a week or two of warm sunny days can pop a growth flush on almost any rose, in mid-winter.

4. Because of #s 1 and 3, they don't do anything like the processes of light- and deep-dormancy that a fruit tree absolutely demands.

So the nature of chilling in a rose is inherently different from fruit trees. Still, there are certainly similarities.

It was suggested above that Florida gets more chilling than most of California. Not true. Most of California (other than the San Diego area) gets FAR more chill (in the peach tree sense) than anywhere in Florida. And certainly, there are many roses that flower well at the Huntington (Pasadena) that never, ever flower here in Lakeland. Compare California numbers (http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/Weather_Services/chilling_accumulation_models/Chill_Calculators/?type=chill) with Florida -- Miami <50, Tampa ~150-200, Lakeland 150, Gainesville 350, Tallahassee 650.

Perfectus, I wonder if a rugosa rose might be a better choice for attar and for Florida? 'Belle Poitevine' is a fragrant hybrid that is often recommended for southern gardens. I did read that most rugosas don't have much (or any) rebloom in hot summer areas, but your first choice isn't remontant either. They are fairly 'spready' and thorny (with some exceptions), so may not be a good choice for a small garden.

If you want a rose type of European ancestry, Centifolias are also used for attar, and might be happier in Florida than damasks? They are grown in North Africa, India and the Middle East, but I don't know if they're grown in warm-winter areas of those regions.

Good luck,

Virginia

Well, certainly Malcolm seems to feel that some of my questions in my first post above seem to have some merit.. I also feel, but cannot document, that daylight hours (season AND latitude dependent) do play a role in temperate climate rose lifecycle. My Med location, while mild and warm, is at a latitude similar to Northern California (Sacramento) while Florida is far far to the south.

Most of my roses are definitely working off a dormancy trigger that has absolutely nothing to do with temperature. The most extreme is R. glauca, which sets hips in August, and seems to go dormant in September, a good month before frost. However, we often get warm spells in January, and the roses always just sit it out.

This is one of the thing that differentiate between roses that 'belong' here, and those who don't. We have had years when the HTs are still blooming in December, because we haven't had the sorts of temperatures that knock them hard on the head and tell them winter is coming. Then when we get temperatures well below zero in January, they take a very hard hit. The hardy roses never fall for that trick, and are leafless by the middle of November.

If you really want to grow a hardy rose in a warmer zone, plant it in a pot, and leave the pot in a Xlarge freezer for 3/4 weeks, then take it out, it should bloom for you. I did the freezer trick on tulips once........ :-)

You'll need to dedicate a large refrigerator for a fully grown damask.. lol

Ok Nik, changed it to Xlarge freezer. Lol

We've had a fairly mild winter here, with occasional freezes lasting only a few hours.

Yet I have two roses that have been dormant since we first got cold (upper 30's, low 40'sF) weather for several days; one is a presumed HP ("Barbara's Pasture Rose") and the other is 'Indian Love Call'. I mentioned this to Kim, and he thought that this could indicate that these roses might be my hardiest (or at least they might be the ones with the hardiest ancestors), which would make sense if you think about the protective role of dormancy.

Two roses that stayed dormant throughout the previous winter (which was not as mild) were roses I received from more northerly climes. They did not break dormancy for our occasional warm spells; they waited until the weather was already fairly hot before leafing out. One rose was a DA that was treated to artificially induce dormancy before it was shipped to me from Heirloom in October; the other was R. moschata, which came from Christopher in NJ in December... Neither rose went dormant this year.

I am almost as intrigued by which cues roses use to break dormancy, as I am by what causes some but not others to go dormant and stay dormant.

Virginia

Malcolm, thanks for the lecture on dormancy. You have willing students here. I do love my opportunities to learn when the experts speak up.

Mad_gallica is another expert and as usual my experiences agree with hers. The once-blooming old roses go dormant in fall. They drop their leaves and sit quietly until spring comes. The Teas, on the other hand, have been setting buds all winter, though they haven't had the conditions to open them.

Malcolm, Would you please explain why Jackie's Mme Hardy won't bloom much for her for 20 years? One bloom per year is pretty much no bloom.

I just planted Madame Hardy last year. I got it from another rosarian who also lives in Georgia, so I'm hoping we have enough chill hours. These and other damasks I have planted certainly went into dormancy (as soon as it was cold enough), so I'm hoping they will do well this spring.

I planted four own-root Mme. Hardy last March - I'd bought them the previous October in 2.5 litre pots and they spent the (very mild) winter in those pots before being planted out. Even though the plants were small they all flowered from mid-May for about three weeks but we then had extremely hot conditions so that was it for last year. They've more than doubled in size and we've had an even warmer winter this year - I wasn't aware that these roses needed 'winter chill' in order to flower. Having read through this thread I'm very interested to see how they will flower this spring.

Summersrhythm -- I can't explain that, except for a lack of winter cold. I'm not in any way suggesting that winter cold is not needed for roses; I was merely pointing out that the nature of "chilling" in roses is fundamentally different from the "chill units" collection that fruit trees do.

Hi tuderte, I think most people who responded to this post are in agreement that 'winter chill hours' as a measurement is not as important for roses as it is for, say, stone fruit. Day length and other factors are at least as important when it comes to roses.

I looked at your profile and saw that you're somewhere in Umbria; Terni is in the southern part of Umbria and is about 42 degrees latitude, which is about the same as Boston MA, Detroit, MI and Windsor ONT in N. America. These are latitudes in which I would expect OGR's to do well. I saw something online that said Terni was the USDA hardiness zone equivalent of 8b, so I'm guessing you're in a somewhat warmer microclimate if you're 9a equivalent, but your Mme. Hardy is doing well, and I'd expect it to keep flowering for you... at least when your springs are mild enough to not cut the bloom season short!

I hope you'll keep us posted about how she does this spring; she's really a lovely rose.

Virginia

I have learned so much valuable information from this thread already! It's starting to seem like 'Madame Hardy' may, sadly, not be the best choice for growing here. I did indeed have this variety picked out because I was planning on using it as an attar rose. I did some reading around as well and it turns out that this cultivar's scent really isn't as potent as the original damasks. So I guess what I need to find out next is what type of rose would be best for me to grow here in Ocala that will reliably bloom and also is ideal for making oil.

Thank you, Malcolm Manners, for that thorough explanation about the dormancy of roses vs stone fruit dormancy. I am in the Jax, Fl area (zone9a) and I had often wondered about rose dormancy. I also grow Plumeria that I overwinter in my greenhouse which drop their leaves in the winter whether it really gets cold or not, so probably more in response to less light than the weather. Some winters they tend to keep their leaves longer than others though.

~Sjn

I wonder if 'Rose Edouard' may work for you, perfectusinfinitusvita. I don't know how productive it would be for making rose oil, and it's not white, but it is very fragrant and is grown in areas without real Winter. Another possibility which IS white would be 'Rosa moschata', but I don't know how that one works for making rose oil. That one releases most of its fragrance through its stamens rather than its petals, so that's the part you'd use for extraction.

:-)

~Christopher

"Mme Plantier will bloom for you", Jeri mentioned it in the other thread " What a scent". :-)

Hi Virginia, thank you for kindly providing that information. Terni is about 45 kms due South of us. Its elevation is only 125 metres whereas Google Earth shows our property to be at 290 metres. From my own observations, Terni is hotter in Summer and colder in Winter. For the past two winters we have had very mild weather. No hard frosts at all last year and only three or four this winter - I grow gardenias in a sheltered bed and only need to protect them with a hessian cloth. We have had no snow since 2012. At the moment my four Mme. Hardy are still bare branches but I'm hoping they will bloom around the middle of May, as they did last year. I will certainly post photos. I fell in love with her when I visited my local (more or less - 45 minutes further north) rose nursery at Assisi. They specialise in old garden and David Austin roses. The nursery was established in 2010 and, by Spring of 2014 their group planting of five bushes of Mme. Hardy were really magnificent.

tuderte, I did wonder if you'd purchased your roses locally. And, yes, I'd consider a nursery less than an hour's drive away as 'local'. How nice that there's a good nursery so close to where you live.

Their proximity does make me optimistic that the lovely 'Mme Hardy' will continue to do well for you; I am supposing that there aren't any drastic climate differences involved...

I do worry about how climate change will effect chill hours going forward; not so much the impact on roses, but fruits, nuts and other crops that require these climate-based cues; I thought this article was interesting and a little worrisome: http://agadapt.ucdavis.edu/chillhours/

Virginia

Yeah, that's a really good point. It was unusually warm this winter here, as we had temps up in the 80's until January. Everyone thought we weren't even going to have a winter this year lol. This February, we had about three weeks of cold...and that was it! I am wondering if this type of weather pattern is going to continue in the future...

I too wonder what the future holds...

Michael g might have Mme Hardy in his SC garden. Would like to hear his input. What happened to him? Anyone knows? Haven't seen his posts for a long time.

I have grown numerous once blooming garden roses, including Madame Hardy, in a very low winter chill hours location and no trouble with them blooming a lot . I never knew there was a problem and that I couldn't grow them until attending rose events where I was told this--and in online forums discussing that they require more winter chill than they get in my garden. My area is known to be good for citrus fruits (I have oranges, lemons, kumquats, and grapefruits in my yard) but things like apples don't get enough chill hours and fruit very little if at all unless a very low chill hour selection is grown. But I've never noticed any problems flowering for my once bloomers, and that includes gallicas and damasks. Even though the chill hours are low, my once blooming roses do go dormant and drop their leaves. Now the roses I have terrible trouble growing are the teas and chinas. They don't seem to like the high heat and drought of summer (I irrigate only sparingly) and instead of going dormant, they often die.

IMHO it is a combination of factors, or perhaps a range of conditions that allow the various classes of roses to do better in certain gardens rather than others. Not just one thing explains the "why". How much do latitude, elevation, air humidity, rainfall (and timing of it) amounts, fertilizer (amount/richness, frequency, and time of year used), irrigation (number, amount, time of year used), pruning or lack of, mulching, soil type (sandy, loamy, clay), soil ph, sun intensity/exposure, etc. count? Some gardens may have more advantageous normal conditions that suit what particular types of roses prefer and in addition the care and maintenance practiced by the gardener may favor certain roses over others. I know from years of growing them that European old garden roses and species roses do really well in my garden. They thrive with little care, yet other roses struggle just to survive.

My Madame Hardy was reliably a heavy bloomer until it was smothered by a massive Cl.Cecile Brunner and got no sun at all. She may be still alive in that forest, in complete shade, but I'll have to hack thru the Cecile Brunner thicket to find out.

I would check to see what roses your neighbors are growing that look happy, and take into consideration the classes of roses that have done well for you in the past. My garden climate may be very different than what you have. Here the air is very dry most of the year, and rainfall is low (also almost no rain at all for the summer months). That may induce a dormancy that a climate with more rain throughout the year might not. Perhaps the dry summer rest is the equivalent to a cold winter rest???

Yeah we definitely get a lot of rain here. I wish I could check around here to see what others are growing, but all anyone seems to grow around here are those god forsaken, screaming magenta Knock Out roses. This will actually be my first time with any roses at all. There's a rose nursery in Gainesville that I want to check out that can be visited by appointment only. I'll try to ask them some questions about it. Anyone have any experience with Mme Hardy's scent compared to an older Damask?

Perfectusinfinitusvita, You're always welcome to visit the Florida Southern College gardens in Lakeland -- We grow around 200 varieties, the majority of them OGRs but some moderns, in two gardens and a range of greenhouses. We've tried to emphasize those things that will grow and flower well in our climate. We just pruned, so at the moment, we're a "thorny stump garden" but should be back in peak bloom the first or second week in April.

I have Madame Plantier and it's done very well so far, so Hopefully Madame Hardy will too. Perfectus, are you talking about Rose Petals Nursery? They have great selections and are very helpful.

The usual description of Madam Hardy's scent is 'cold cream'. I don't find it strong, and it isn't at all the same as a true damask like Ispahan. Mme. Plantier, while a very nice rose in many respects, also doesn't have a scent anything like the damasks, though it has been several years since mine bloomed. (I honestly thought it had succumbed to the trees, but apparently not)

IIRC, the usual recommendations for damask fragrance in hot climates is the General Jack-Crimson Glory HT line. However, the fragrance goes along with red flowers.

I think i might actually be okay if whatever I get doesn't have the same scent profile as a damask, just as long as it has a stong, pleasant smell and I can distill it. I have started lookig towards Mme Plantier as a possibility. In all honesty, I'm learning that there are kind of spicier smelling roses, and they are really starting to intrigue me. I took a look at one called 'midnigt blue' and found out it has kind of a clove scent, and it has piqued my interest a bit. Perhaps I can do a mixture of cultivars and distill my own special rose blend that's unique to my yard ^_^

Rose water is grown in many diverse climates from Wales to France, from Kazanlak (images of Kazanlak rose festival) in Bulgaria, the oasis of Qamsar/ Kashan in Iran to Ta'if in Saudi Arabia( link2).

According to this French article, roses used for rose water are:

R. X damascena,

R. damascena trigintipetala,

Rosa X centifolia,(only in Grasse, France, for Chanel)

Rosa X alba, R. moschata (Southern Europe, North Africa, Asia).

R. gallica, Bourbon Rose and R. rugosa. (Turkey, Bulgaria and Russia)

Note 1 Rose à Parfum de l'Hay & Roseraie de l'Haÿ were created by Gravereaux in order to fight Bulgarian rose water dominance.

Note2 Liv Tyler is used for Very Irresistible line of Givenchy

Note 3: Organic seeds of R. mochata of the Chilean Andes is used by Weleda

Note4: Hybrid of R. rugosa and R. sertata are used in China to produce essential oils.

Here is the French page, courtesy of google translate in funny English :-)

I'd agree that for sheer intensity of "old rose" scent, some of the HTs may be best in your situation. Chrysler Imperial, Mister Lincoln, Oklahoma, Fragrant Cloud, Dolly Parton are all very fragrant in our garden. Autumn Damask is also quite fragrant, and it does repeat (but not very heavily) here.

Rose Petals nursery is fabulous! I got "Jesse Hildreth" and it is doing very well.

Even though I'm "Middle South" I've notice some similar disease issues with my OGR as some posters from Fl. Madame Hardy as lovely as she was contracted the most disgusting case of "Damasks Crud" you have ever seen each summer. Every leaf completely blackened and refused to fall off. It dibilitated her over the course of a few years and I finally shovel pruned her. So in addition to cold requirements you might need to consider some disease issues with damask roses as well.

Malcolm, By any chance do you have Blushing Lucy in your test garden ? It's an old rambler only repeats in warmer zones, it's a once bloomer here due to the cold. Is this possible? I am wondering if the nursery sent me a wrong plant.

I don't know that rose at all, summersrhythm.

Ok, thanks Malcolm.

Dug out this older thread which I had started but had forgotten all about it.

Additionaly, this thread, linked to in the thread above is also interesting.

In my garden, I help the few european OGRs I have defoliate and this, as I said above, seems to help. At this very time of this unnaturally warm year, when most of my roses are already sprouting vigorously, my once blooming european OGRs are still asleep. Apart from Charles de Mills which is already showing some bud eye activity. My problem with these roses is not getting them to bloom, it is keeping them from looking horribly mildewed and crudy after their flush until they go dormant in fall.. And this also applies, mostly, to the repeating european OGRs (Comte de Chambord and most any Bourbon spring to mind).

Nik, maybe we're going about this in the round about area.

The damask rose is grown in desert climates.

Could it be the extreme heat that puts the roses into dormancy?
Or could it be the extreme temperature swings in the desert climates?

Deserts are defined by amount of rainfall, independent of temperature. The largest desert in the world is Antarctica.

Many deserts in warmer regions experience dramatic temperature differences between day and night, and can get rather cold when those nights are long in Winter.

:-)

~Christopher

Here's an article on genetic characteristics of damask roses, but that also happens to include information on annual rainfall and altitude of where the various damasks were tested. Food for thought. Genetic characterization of Rosa damascena species.... Some rather deserty areas--HOT desert areas, not so much like Antarctica.;)

Tessiess, the paper somewhat saddened me, probably most of these centers are destroyed by now....

Sorry Christopher, if I was not precise enough ;-)

By desert, I meant desert climate, i.e.Damask rose, should in theory flourish in these environments. Here are the climate charts for some of the rosewater production centers with a "Desert climate" Taif, in Saudi Arabia, Kashan in Iran and Damascus, in Syria.

Hmmm... after looking at the article you linked to, Tessiess, I encountered this article from 'Scientific American' (March 2016). We hear a lot about the political struggles in (and about) Syria, but not as much about the role played by drought in destabilizing Syria's government, and the subsequent refugee crisis.

It looks like most of the Syrian roses that were sampled in that study lived in the semi-arid eastern parts of the country which traditionally received plenty of rain in the winter months, and not in the more arid parts to the west where mountains block moisture moving inland from the Mediterranean.

Damascus is where most of the sampled roses came from; in addition to rainy winters, Damascus is on the Barada River.

Interesting article- thanks!

Virginia

Aleppo, one of the cities listed, is at 392 meters elevation or about 1286 feet. My garden is at 1272 feet elevation. Rainfall for Aleppo is stated as 350-450mm or 13.78-17.72 inches. That is also within the average for my area (not in the drought however!), which also normally gets most of its rain in winter. Maybe these conditions are similar enough to explain why damasks are happy here.

Aleppo was...

There is something to consider about Damasks with regard to needing Winter. First, that some of the "original" Damasks are grown in hot climates probably owes to the fact that they're half R. fedtschenkoana, which is a very tough species that seems both Winter-hardy and heat-tolerant. But there are a few "Damasks" which were likely further bred with European natives, so that will likely affect how they'll do in areas with little or no Winter. Some have opined that 'Mme Hardy' owes its white color to Alba ancestry. If that's the case, then it may need more Winter than, say, 'Kazanlik'. So while we're talking about where Damasks grow, consider WHICH Damasks. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for all.

:-)

~Christopher

At least here in Greece (and in neighbouring Bulgaria) commercial cultivation takes place in (micro)climates which are not particularly warm during the winter. I would guess they are probably zone 8a at most. This caused either due to altitude or the distance from the Med. There's no doubt in my mind that for best results these roses need their winter to be 'wintery' but I do agree with Malcolm that they are not like stone fruit trees with regards to their strict requirements for 'chill hours'.

I was reading some details about commercial cultivation practices in places in northern Greece where damasks are grown. The altitude is at least 500m (about 1500ft), soil neutral with good drainage and preferably inclined and breezy. Irrigation is provided only during the first summer after planting at 10 day intervals at about 1 gal per plant. Fertilization is done with manure AFTER the flush. Older canes are removed after 5 years and plant productive life is estimated to 20-25 years. Planting distances are about 3ft apart in the row.

A damask field in the Chalkidiki peninsula uplands (photo from www.bostanistas.gr ). This particular field is about 7.5 acres and produces 1/4 gallon of rose essential oil yearly, from about 4 metric tons of rose petals, which fetches about 7000-8000 Euro in the bulk market.

Hence, why I thought the OP would be better off with Damask rather than an Alba...

Nik, there is a letter published by one of GST's friends at the end of his rose book, which describes more or less the same protocol for rose growing in Saudi Arabia....