Bloom form is incredible and even more, every color compliments the next! I love old roses too, give me some names :)

Variegata de Bologna, Konigin von Danemark, Fantin Latour, Supasse Tout, Alba Maxima, Belle Isis, Belle de Crecy, and Madame Hardy.

I know variegata, will look into the rest! Very beautiful arrangement

I can't grow any of them but am captivated by their beauty. As much as I love the varieties I can grow in my climate, nothing can surpass the beauty and charm of these once-blooming old varieties.

..just my type of bouquet... wonderful... I hope you won't let it stop there..

Those colours are perfect. That is the ideal combination, for my taste.

I love the container! It's hard to get OGRs in a nice arrangement because they are mostly short stemmed. But you did a great job.

Beautiful! The fragrance must be out of this world.

Yummy!

Very beautiful... I think the dark vase nicely frames the blooms.

Sumptuous is the perfect word for that bouquet!

Heavenly!

Beautiful roses, and its a lovely basket/container. I would love one of those! I remember seeing a similar one at a second hand auction once ( well before the rose fascination kicked in), but sadly the only place they seem to be available here nowadays is at high end vintage stores.

Wow...I didn't know they made vases like that! I need to get one of those. I haven't been keeping my cuttings because they won't stand up in vases

Swoon!

I hugely admire the once-blooming old roses and wish more people grew them. I'm not quite sure why they're relatively unpopular. Of course people want rebloom, but there are all the folks who have short growing season anyway; why not them? I think part of it is that the plants look so different from the Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, and modern shrub roses that the world has gotten used to thinking of as the normal appearance of roses. These roses here grow on wilder looking plants, ones that don't look, like HTs, like they'd be happy lined up in a vegetable patch. They don't work at all in the formality that seems to be the landscaping norm. For my part, I can't get enough of them.

I like your vase a lot, too. Will have to keep my eyes open for something that might work. Usually I just cut a few blooms and cram them in a small vase where they hold each other up, but yours is definitely better.

Childhood memories of my Edwardian grandmother's and my mother's arrangements plus a bit of research (ie Googling) tells me that those flower arranging aids for holding stems in place are called 'frogs'. There are various different kinds, but the kind with holes can be a built-in part of the structure of the vase or a removable insert designed to sit at or near the top, or sometimes on the bottom of the vase, anchored with florists' sticky stuff. The frogs can be bought separately, or as a removable insert that comes with the vase.

There seem to be quite a lot of them currently advertised on ebay, although nothing I could see as special as Scott's beauties. Anyway, googling 'flower arranging frogs' or 'vase with frog' should bring up a selection for anyone interested. A couple of cheap 'n' cheerful alternatives are 1) to lightly scrunch up a piece of chicken wire into a ball of a size that will lodge firmly in the neck or body of the vase, or alternatively rest on the bottom, anchored with that florists' stuff (sorry the proper name eludes me), and 2) to make a criss-cross grid across the top of the vase with clear sticky tape to create holes for flower stems - the tape shouldn't be visible once the vase is full of flowers. Possibly not something you'd want to do with your valuable antique porcelain vases but good for your basic everyday containers. :-)

Scott, is the vase/bowl in that last photo Turkish? I wonder if it was originally designed for fresh flower arrangements or for rose-petal potpourri?

I so agree about the old roses. Their very fragility is part of their charm.

I love your bouquet of my favorite colored roses, and the basket is perfection. Diane

Oh ok so they're called floral frogs. Thanks for that comtessedelacouche - I can't wait to go find some!

Meanwhile, I found this youtube video that explains floral frogs a bit and gives some ideas:

How to Use Floral Frogs: Traditional Flower Arrangement with a Twist

I have a few metal frogs. you can also buy plastic frogs for one time use. Or in a pinch, you can spread tape across the container in a cross pattern to help hold up the roses. But I would love to find a container like Scott's.

Flower Arranging with tape.

You're welcome, Derek! :-) Thanks for the link - I absolutely love that guy's white hydrangea and delphinium arrangement in the video. I really like to mix roses with greenery and other flowers in arrangements - MAC with branches of almond blossom (from the edible kind of almond tree with only a whisper of pink in the centre of the white blossom) was my favourite combination as they both burst into full bloom in mid-winter here - but I used to pick anything that was in flower, along with ivy leaves, and whatever other greenery was around. I do think a green background enhances the appearance of roses, and any other special flower.

There's a Martha Stewart video on flower arranging frogs too somewhere - I'll try and find it again and post a link. It was good in that it showed a full range of the different types of frog, including the heavy metal pin-holder kind.

Buford - it may be worth trying searching for potpourri containers, since I suspect that's what Scott's second one is, and so maybe the first, which he said it's similar to, is too. I'm guessing from its appearance it's Turkish or from some other Middle Eastern country - Syria keeps popping into my mind for some reason.

Comtesse :-)

Here's the link: www.marthastewart.com/271596/how-to-use-flower-frogs

The article links in turn to a short video.

Well... My roses went to the trash today. One thing roses are not is long lasting. ☹️ For those of you who were interested in my silver plate basket with built in flower frog... I'm attaching a few photos of it empty. As you can see it's a lovely piece. However, it still needs a good polishing! LOL. I found it on eBay a few years back. I was the only bidder, the auction had no reserve and I got it for 65.00. Sweet! P.S. Lizzie Mae says hello!

What a great find, Scott. And, I must say, very attractively set off here by your charming friend on the left. :-)