What an interesting rose! When another bud starts to open, pls take a pic of it, and also one which is fully open if you can. Also a picture of the entire plant would help. Then, I am sure that someone on here will be able to identify it - it is quite striking.

Re your 6 foot roses - once you have been able to identify what type of roses they are (HT? climber? etc), it will be easy to get advice on how to treat them.

Jackie

Right off the top of my head I want to say Ellen Wilmont. Need to see the bloom looking down on it.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=3053

Golden Wings is the most common yellow rose with that number of large petals. The bud shape is also correct.

I've never seen Golden Wings with petals with that much substance, also GW is a lighter, purer yellow and denser less curved prickles.

Is this a repeat blooming rose? If not, it could possibly be R. gigantea. I' ve only seen gigantea once but the petals' color and substance match my memory; darned that I don't remember the leaves at all.....the blooms were so magnificent.

Here is another vote for Golden WIngs. Click on the link to HMF which zack posted, and see what you think. HMF is usually reliable, as long as those gardening in mild or warm climates ignore the size predictions - those will always be too small for us.

Jackie

It doesn't look like Golden Wings to me. The maroon stems are quite amazing, and unique. I've grown Golden Wings, and if it had those stems, I'd definitely remember. My guess is some warm climate rose that I've never seen.

As requested, the inside of the bloom and the whole plant, as well as the bud again which is now starting to open and a bonus shot of a really odd conjoined leaf. This shows no sign of being pruned, so I'm guessing it's either fairly new (unlikely) or 3' to 4'-ish is its max height. Maybe 5'? I need to pay attention next time I'm out there. The black fence behind it is 4' anyway.

We're on the water so we're quite temperate here. The surrounding area even 1/2mile inland is Zone 8 and gets both warmer and colder than we do.

It seems to have too many petals to be Golden Wings. According to helpmefind.com that has 5 petals and I'm seeing at least 8 in these photos (I didn't count while I was out there). It definitely doesn't have pink edges, so not Ellen Wilmott either. I'll need to remember to smell it next time I pop out. I have a terrible sense of smell so it could be scented.

I'm not sure if it's a repeat bloomer. I honestly didn't remember what color it was - I'm quite pleased it's yellow as I've just planted a yellow mini rose at its feet and it's at the edge of my flame garden! We've been here two years and were only just getting started cataloging our plants. I have a goal to figure out what roses we have this spring at the very least. There are quite a lot of them scattered around the property. We found a new white one we hadn't even seen before buried inside a hydrangea just yesterday. I'll pop it up here - I'm not having much luck with an ID on the Antique Roses forum.

What about Ormiston Roy? It's a parent of Golden Wings, and from what I can see in photos it might have a maroon stem.

http://www.gapphotos.com/imagedetails.asp?imageno=161901

No. The foliage is all wrong for a pimp. This afternoon I posted some pictures of a couple, and you can see the typical foliage.

A pimp? Fill a rose newbie in. :) I can't seem to find your post...

Short for "pimpinellifolia". You can't find the post because it is on the Antique Rose forum under "spinossissima". Both are species rose types (wild). HMF says the names are synonyms (just to confuse newbies, the longer a rose has been in cultivation, the more names it has, even in latin).

mad_gallica - have you looked at the amazing picture of the hip of Ormiston Roy on HMF? Dark purple and prickly all over. I tried to compare the leaves on the pics you posted with those pugetsoundgardener posted, but I cannot because your pics are too far away. Unfortunately, the pics of Ormiston Roy on HMF do not show the leaves well. Could you post some close up pictures of the leaves on your roses?

pugetsoundgardener - leave all the blooms on your rose to see if it makes hips (some roses do, some do not). If it does, please post close up pictures of hips on here - it is another clue to identifying a rose.

Jackie

Pimps and spins - pimpinellifolias and spinossissimas. The species name has been changed, and I don't remember which one is currently technically correct. They have small, ferny foliage with many leaflets. Ormiston Roy is a species hybrid, and has the usual foliage.

In general, the key to IDing roses is to glance at the flower, then study the foliage, canes, growth habit, and everything that isn't the flower.

We must have posted at the same time.

This is a picture from a few weeks ago of R. hugonis leaves and buds. There isn't anything there for scale, but the buds are about the size of a fingernail.

My buds are definitely bigger. Maybe 1" to 1.5"? No hips on this one at the moment, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. And it's definitely about 3' tall. (The taller thing I was seeing in the photo was another bush.) I'll keep an eye on it and try to snap the next bud opening.

Off to research the difference between spinosissima and pimpinellifolia. I seem to have inherited a lot of interesting roses with this house. Time to learn about roses!

I do have an 8' tall giant pink rose that still has hips. I'll pop that one up next. Hopefully it'll be a bit easier to figure out. Who knew IDing roses could be so hard? It makes my rhody collection look like a breeze...