The blooms really do look like Teas . . . The foliage, though . . . not so much.

I'm not good at identifying, but to me, it looks a lot like my Perle des Jardins:

That was a brilliant call. I'm so impressed.

The flower sure looks like 'Perle des Jardins' in commerce, but the foliage is different. Those leaflets are livin' large.

I wonder what the foliage looks like for 'Mme E. Souffrain'. I only see bloom photos at HMF...

Anyone know or grow her?

Virginia

When I looked at the blooms, I thought as Pat did. Those blooms are so Perle des Jardins-esque. A rose I only dream of growing well. The wide vase-shaped shrub also resembles many Teas I've seen. But then I looked at the foliage. It's definitely, as others noted, "livin' larger" than a Tea (great description, Virginia). Carol

Pat, Your PdJ is to die for! Carol

Vesfl, that is one gorgeous (whatever cultivar) rose! Wow!! Carol

Based on the look of the foliage and the pronounced scrolling of the buds as they start to open, I'd say this is an early Hybrid Tea, not a purebred Tea. That said, I do not recognize the specific variety.

Some of the very early Kordes HT's were very "split personality" flowers, with HT style buds that opened to more "confused" Tea-like centers. 'Hinrich Gaede' comes to mind.

I think Paul's got it. There are any number of roses that fall somewhere in-between the Teas and the HTs, and are considered to be "Classic Hybrid Teas".

It's a gorgeous thing, what ever it is.

Thank you all! I knew that your observant eyes and knowledge would pick up on important clues that naturally escaped me.

Pat, your 'Perle des Jardins' looks amazing. What a beauty! I wish I can grow it in my zone but I will always look forward to you sharing your photos. The flowers are indeed almost exactly the same but I agree with others that the leaves are larger on this “mystery” rose. I forgot to mention that it has thorns, but it's neither super thorny nor nearly thornless.

Paul and Jeri, thank you so much! It’s interesting that, after looking at my iPhone photos, I noticed that the roses planted closest to it are Captain Philip Green and Blumenschmidt, both late teas. If the placement is anything to go by (and they tend to place roses from the same families together in this park), then it’s surely right there around the time of early HTs that you suggest. This must be it! I am grateful for you generously sharing your expertise.

Virginia, I am again about one week late for the full bloom of found noisettes but I will post updates with photos when I go back to this garden in 2-3 days. Thank you for chiming in on this mystery rose.

Carol and vaporvac, I’m so glad you liked it as well. An additional bonus is that it would be a marvelous choice for anyone who'd like to grow something similar in a shady area. As Jeri says, it is indeed a gorgeous thing!

It rather more reminds me of my 'Etoile de Lyon'. In particular, I think I noticed some of this rose's tell-tale outer petals.

Pat, I wonder if your pictured rose actually is 'Perle des Jardins'. Mine doesn't ever show the peachy-tints to the base, but my 'Etloie de Lyon' does.

:-)

~Christopher

I'm wondering if there aren't some marvels among early Hybrid Teas. I found a rose on a walk recently, neglected, flowering, six feet tall (taller than wide) and with a shrubby, well-branched habit. The flowers were HT style, yellowish cream. The plant was supposed to be old; it wasn't a variety I recognized. I got cuttings, and am hoping hard they'll root. What a great plant, in any case. How many others of similar quality are surviving here and there?

Interesting Christopher...my experience is the opposite. My PdJ from RU is a tall, vase shaped plant with large foliage for a tea and often exhibits a "peachiness" in its blooms. My EdL from Rose Petals Nursery is a short, wide bush with smaller, more tea like foliage, and although the unopened buds will sometimes have a pink streak, the open blooms are consistently a creamy yellow to creamy white. I wonder if one or both of mine are wrong...do I have more entries for the incorrectly labeled roses post?

EdL

and peachy pics of PdJ

I still think the foliage is a key. It just looks more early HT to my eye. Carol

Agreed. Just wondering, if Christopher thinks my PdJ is actually EdL, then what's my EdL...is it PdJ?

I think Carol is right. That does not look like Tea foliage. It looks like HT foliage.

Yes, Melissa, there ARE some marvels among the early HTs. Particularly so when they find a particularly suitable environment in which to flourish.

After this discussion, I've been reading about early HTs and wonder if this rose or one of Pat's roses might be related to Pernet-Ducher's breeding or bred in that tradition. I'm reluctant to say Pernetiana as I'm not familiar with that class of HTs.

Classic old 'Pernetianas' seem to me to be much less sturdy than this bush. Of course, from some point onwards, all HTs acquired 'Pernetiana' blood.

Pat, if I saw your series of pics without names, I'd have reversed what you named them. Both of mine came from Rose Petals Nursery. PdJ typically has blooms that remind me of those of 'Clotilde Soupert', except for two things: for one, the color ranges from lemon yellow through white with no pink; for another, the petals curl back in points, rather than curling back rounded. The blooms open from a bullet-shaped bud and peel backward. There are many, many petals. On EdL, there are slightly fewer petals, but they're larger, and keep more of a high-centered unfurling spiral.

I don't seem to have any pics showing the two....hmmm......

:-/

~Christopher

Thanks Christopher. My PdJ may well be an early HT with its big blooms and big leaves. Odd that both our EdLs are from RPN, but different. sorry to have hijacked your post about this, Vesfl

Not at all, Pat. You have beautiful roses and thank you for the opportunity to see them. I wasn't aware that your PdJ/or-early HT also has large leaves. In that case, they could be the same or closely related. We were impressed at its size, lush and healthy foliage, and gorgeous blooms, all in part-shade. This spot probably gets the least amount of sun in the rose section of the park and yet this rose shrub is quite healthy with, what appears to be, minimal care.

Thought to update on this lovely rose. On our recent brief visit to New Orleans, I spoke to the curator, a wonderful and generous gentleman, who also demystified this rose for us. It's a tea, "Madame de Watteville." It was in bloom again and now with more pinkish undertones on some petals while others were pale to solid yellow as on these photos. It was amazing to learn how teas can seasonally change their colors. Many other roses were in full bloom (Arcadia Louisiana Tea took my breath away as did Gloire de Dijon and many others) and the entire garden looks stunning.

When I look at this again, I still think the rose looks more like 'Etoile de Lyon' than what it is labeled. And I still think Pat may have inadvertently mixed up the labels between her 'Etoile de Lyon' and 'Perle des Jardins'. I rarely pipe-up about Teas since I've seen so few, but it just so happens that I grow these.

:-)

~Christopher

vesfl, I have to thank you again for letting me know about this rose garden which is as close to "right under my nose" as it gets - I drive along the entire length of the park on Rampart street every single day and never noticed till you posted your photos from your trip. Now it's plain as day that those are old roses behind that fence! How did you contact the curator? Was he just wandering around being wonderful?

Now that I have some daylight after work I will have to stop by for a quick look/sniff!

Hi Vesfl, glad you were able to go back and see the gardens again and talk with the curator. My cousin's daughter is getting married in Baton Rouge in June. I don't normally have time to see any gardens when in the New Orleans area, but you've inspired me to try to take some extra time off to do so this visit. I'm not familiar with Madame de Watteville at all, but she looks lovely on HMF.

Christopher, I got my PdJ from RU spring of 2014 and planted it in a bed immediately. I didn't get my EdL from RPN until November of 2014 and it lived in a pot until spring of 2016 and then was planted in a different bed. I'm positive I have not inadvertently mixed up what RU sold me as PdJ and what RPN sold me as EdL...who knows if the nurseries were right in their labeling, though

Pat, that just makes my head itch. Then I don't know why our roses seem to behave so differently. Hmmm......

:-/

~Christopher

Christopher, makes me scratch my head, too, especially since you & I both got our EdL from RPN.

Roses behave (and LOOK) remarkably different in different climates. So much so that identifying a rose you are intimately familiar with in a different climate can be virtually impossible. Unless there are traits so obviously characteristic about the particular rose which don't vary widely due to conditions, it can be almost impossible. With extremely variable types (think most pastel Teas, MANY pastel Austins, etc.) they will appear so different from one season to the next that seeing them in a different set of conditions can make them indistinguishable from many others and impossible to identify. I'd been around many plants of Rosarium Uetersen in the inland valley heat and knew it intimately. It surprised me it had been used for breeding as in those conditions it had no sexual parts, only a ball of petals and petaloids in "Peter Max, fry your retinas, neon poster paint coral pink". I visited a coastal garden on a VCRS function many years ago and encountered this semi double, pastel coral bloom FULL of anthers and stamen. The foliage and plant looked so incredibly familiar but the flower didn't resemble anything I had previously seen. I asked Jeri Jennings, who was also in attendance what it was and she was quite surprised. She identified it as Rosarium Uetersen. The foliage, canes and prickles were completely right but the flower was unlike anything I had ever observed on any of the plants we had at the nursery nor any I had seen in gardens anywhere I'd encountered it. Since then, I have seen many of them in cool, damp, coastal conditions which matched what I observed in the VCRS meeting garden and many more just like the inland valley heat nursery conditions under which I was intimately familiar with it, in inland, hot, arid valley conditions. Very often, the only way to figure out what something is, is to grow it right beside what you think it may be, under the same conditions. Otherwise you have to be familiar with what it looks like in all the various conditions under which it may be grown and that's something very few are equipped to be able to do. Photos of roses from all around the country (and world, for that matter) can help. This image was taken in Jimofshermanoaks' garden just 8 miles away from my old Encino garden. This one was taken in the Encino garden. Both are the same USDA Zone, but his garden was fifteen degrees cooler than mine at the same time and he had daily fogs which promoted strong giant white fly infestations while mine never experienced any. Both images are Lauren. His plant was rooted from my original seedling so I know the identification was correct, but I didn't recognize it as being Lauren and not some other violet toned poly/multiflora hybrid when he showed it to me in person. It's easy to think identifying a rose flower might be easy when you primarily see it from your own garden, but when you see it in strikingly different conditions, it can be rather startling how different its appearance can be.

That's why I don't try to identify things from an area that foreign to mine. All I know is how things look HERE.

Vesfl, just to add to the confusion, I have NEVER had MdW flowers as white as those in your pix; my MdW is unabashedly PINK, lol. She's sometimes pale pink, other times darker, but always pink.

And Kim, just to reiterate your point about variabililty due to climate, you probably wouldn't recognize Lauren in my garden, either. Here, she's upright, though bushy, and a very, very dark, saturated violet red to red purple. On my monitor at least, the HMF photos by Jeri and scvirginia are closest to mine, and she's even darker, approaching a purple black, in the Fall. Love, love, love the girl, lol.

OT: I'm still hoping to find a Peach Drift standard to go with my Laurens. It will be a different look than in Jackie's garden, but I think the greater contrast will be just as good! (Maybe even go with a Coral Drift standard? Boom! Bang!)

John

I believe you, John! I'm glad you love her, I do, too! You know, you COULD bud your own Peach Drift standard. I know it's patented, but if you bought one so they would get the royalty, then rooted your own whip and budded it... If it makes you feel better, destroy the purchased plant afterwards so you still only have one.

Roseseek, John, Jeri and Christopher, it was very educational to read your comments and thank you for sharing your expertise. Mr. Leo Watemeier, the curator of this rose garden, also mentioned that some roses, as they are passed along through many decades and across different continents, can undergo some degree of transformation. (He wasn't commenting in this particular rose but in general.) I imagine that even a thorough and careful research might not always establish how much some of them are true to their original. Now, learning from you that the same rose can look differently depending on the location and climate adds even more to this fascinating discussion.

Pat, both your 'Etoile de Lyon' and 'Perle des Jardins' are absolutely magnificent. A couple of years ago, I was on a business trip to Baton Rouge where roses grace two public gardens, Burden and Botanical Gardens. Not as many as in this park in NOLA, but definitely worth a visit. Not sure how much they will be in bloom in June though...

Lyanna, you can see even more roses if you drive on St. Philip St., but even better just stop by there and you will be amazed at what you see. They've bloomed earlier this year and now is the good time to do it. There is also an annual rose sale at the Botanical Garden, many from the cuttings in this garden. I was accompanying my friend who lives in this area for this rose sale last Saturday and that's how I learned about the curator who is a fountain of knowledge. He is really doing a heroic job with this garden and keeps all roses organically. You live in one of the most beautiful places for sure! I will be adding more photos on helpmefind that I took last weekend.

Vesfl what the curator of roses was referring to are micro degenerative sports. Roses, like many plants, mutate fairly regularly. If you've noticed that commercial apple varieties which you have eaten and enjoyed for decades now taste terrible, that's a perfect example. The commercial orchardists test the fruit regularly for sugar content. Sugar is absolutely required for the taste you expect, but for a commercial production aspect, it is terrible. Sugar causes fermentation and that causes the fruit to spoil quickly, leading to a short shelf life. By identifying branches which micro degenerate by losing the ability to form sugar in the fruit, then propagating from those branches, they can create the next generation of each specific variety of apple which will not taste as good, but which will last much longer both on the shelf, as well as in nitrogen storage (for up to two years!), leading to year-round availability of the apple crop from the region, rather than seasonal availability from one region followed by availability from somewhere else in the world. Hence, the Red Delicious you buy at the grocery store tastes like rotten foam rubber with no apple taste nor sweetness. The Red Delicious tree you buy from a home fruit tree supplier will more likely taste like Red Delicious apples are supposed to taste. I've only eaten Honey Crisp apples for several years, paying the higher prices for the shorter season, because they taste GOOD. Now, it appears they have also selected those for less sugar as they are increasingly devoid of "THAT" flavor and scent, just as the commercial Gala and Braebrun have been for quite a few years. Cheap apples, available year-round, are evidence of varieties which have been selected for no sugar (therefore reduced to no taste).

Apples and roses are related and both experience those micro degenerative mutations, but in roses they may result in any number of changes from the original. Circus, French Lace, Angel Face and a few others were known to have produced more vigorous mutations which produced much more vigorous plants with muddier colors and a reduction of flower form. I've heard that called the "Brutus gene", but have not found documentation to explain it. J&P spent tens of thousands in prior decades eliminating the muddy colored French Lace which produced much more vigorous plants. Circus and Circus Parade were known to have produced the same degenerative flower on a more vigorous plant and may have now filtered out of commerce. You can still find stronger growing Angel Face plants in commerce with muddier colored mauve flowers which don't honestly resemble those of the original, but are propagated due to their generation of more material which grows stronger than the original.

It isn't uncommon when you have the ability to wander through a commercial nursery which provides thousands of plants of each variety to "the trade" to find some of those micro sports yielding sometimes wide variations of color, petal count, size, amount of prickles, even health. Some are due to viral issues. Some are due to variations in mutations from bush to climbing or color forms. But, it is sometimes possible to find a plant (or several) of a particular variety which vary quite a bit from "the original" in any number of ways. That's how sports are discovered. You won't as easily see them if the nursery only has a few to a few dozen of each variety, but when you can see several thousand bushes of each variety growing side by side, mutations are much more readily apparent.

Roseseek, many thanks and this explains a lot. I *love* apples and had no idea that Red Delicious and other apples commonly found at supermarkets can be tastier if not grown for mass production. I've avoided them from small growers at the farmers' market, thinking they were equally tasteless, but will surely give them a new try.

roseseek, thanks for hanging around and teaching us stuff! I went to grad school for the wrong thing.

vesfl I was briefly horrified that I had missed a rose sale until I remembered I have more roses than spaces already. I should probably be on the Botanical Gardens mailing list anyway. Since I was made aware of its existence via this board, I have heard that the gentleman who keeps up the Armstrong Park roses is exceptionally devoted and knowledgeable. I do hope I can manage to run into him at some point.

We are long overdue for a Sunday Stroll to the quarter from our house in the Bywater. It's a lovely walk and we used to make an afternoon of it with brunch and poking around antique shops we can't afford and all that, but it's been entirely too long, and it's raining again this weekend. My husband knows it's a mandatory stop next time.

I'm glad you found it interesting, thank you! Small growers, particularly organic ones, usually have the "real" varieties of whatever fruit you're looking for. I believe they've done similarly with many other stone fruits (peaches, nectarines, plums) as I haven't found any in any grocery store in years which tasted good, even when exposed to sunlight or even oven heat to help induce them to form sugars (the formation of sugar requires heat) which had much, if any, taste to them. Most often, they simply turn black around the pits without ever developing any flavor. I'll hit the farmers markets and only buy from those who offer samples, to make sure I get what I am buying...fruit which tastes as it should. Thankfully, when we bought this house (three years ago yesterday!), it came with a Santa Rosa plum and an unnamed peach, both of which are delicious! And, it surprised me to discover we can have up to 700 chill hours here, where our average temperature is only 75. Kippy shared a neat site with me which allows you to determine (for California locations) what your chill hours are and what various fruit varieties require. That means, I COULD grow more once-flowering types here, IF I desired. Who knew?

Hi Vesfl and Pat. As a Baton Rouge resident, let me second vesfl's recommendation for Burden and the Botanical Gardens at Independence Park. The roses at Burden are mostly modern, but they do have some antiques (SdlM and Duchesse de Brabant, both of which are always pruned hard and I don't understand why). They also have a nice row of David Austin roses and all kinds of Kordes, Meilland, also drift roses. I'm sure there is the Peach Drift that John mentions as well.

It looks that a local rose society is involved in expanding the rose garden at the Botanicals and I've seen more antique than modern varieties there.

Like Lyanna and Pat, I'm now also intent on going to visit the Louis Armstrong Park to see this beautiful yellow rose as well as all others.

For some reason my comment completely disappeared. I read that it happened to other people on other forums so it sounds that Houzz has some technical problems. Let me post it again and hope it works this time.

Hi Vesfl and Pat. As a Baton Rouge resident, let me second vesfl's recommendation for Burden and the Botanical Gardens at Independence Park. The roses at Burden are mostly modern, but they do have some antiques (SdlM and Duchesse de Brabant, both of which are always pruned hard and I don't understand why). They also have a nice row of David Austin roses and all kinds of Kordes, Meilland, also drift roses. I'm sure there is the Peach Drift that John mentions as well.

It looks that a local rose society is involved in expanding the rose garden at the Botanicals and I've seen more antique than modern varieties there.

Like Lyanna and Pat, I'm now also intent on going to visit the Louis Armstrong Park to see this beautiful yellow rose as well as all others.

JBP, Thanks for reposting! I got an email alert when you originally posted, but the email only included a portion of it. When I came to Houzz to read the post in full, it wasn't here.

I grow a bunch of moderns, too, so enjoy seeing gardens with them, as well. I will definitely add the Baton Rouge gardens you and Vesfl recommend to my plans while there.

Lots of great info here from all who have posted...thanks!!!

This is old to me. I just saw this. I don't know if it has been identified or not but could be Reve d'Or or Perles des Jardin.

Thank you. It's still a mystery and the last time I was there, the tag for Mme de Watteville was removed. It's not a climber which rules out Reve d'Or but indeed it could be Perles des Jardin or Etoile de Lyon.

Thank you, Leo. I am thrilled that you have joined the forum. We actually met a couple of years ago and you graciously gave my friend and me a tour of this fantastic rose garden. You are not only a knowledgable and dedicated curator but also a gracious person. I mentioned you in my comment up on this thread. I posted the photo of this gorgeous rose on helpmefind.com and a couple of rosarians, as it were from Australia, contested that it's Mme de Watteville. I eventually had to remove the photo I posted there because I didn't want to cause any controversy and one HMF member felt very strongly that it was not Mme de Watteville. Either way it's gorgeous.

I was so excited about the incredible roses you grow there that I enthusiastically posted on my visit to this garden twice on this forum:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4807667/visit-to-armstrong-park-rose-garden-nola

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4965219/new-orleans-rose-gardens-update-generals-noisettes-fairies

BTW, I initiated that Louis Armstrong Rose Garden is included among the public gardens on helpmefind.com and provided them with the list as I saw them on tags during my visits in 2017 and 2018. If and when you have time, please take a look at that list and correct if any need be added or removed. The link is here:

https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.25191&tab=32

Based on that list, a dedicated administrator provided the links for each rose in the garden:

https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.25191&tab=2

General information with your name as the curator is here:

https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.25191&tab=1

I will be in New Orleans later this summer and hope we'll have a chance to meet again. Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing preserving the roses.

I am concerned about you saying Perle d'Or is a climber. I have a Perle d'Or that is 25 years old and it has never climbed. It is more polyantha than anything else. Mine is about 5-6 feet tall and about that big around. Where did you see that it is a climber?

There is a climbing version.https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.19368.1

@Patricianat, it was Reve d'Or that both you and I mentioned, not Perle d'Or, and Reve d'Or is a climber.

Vap, I'm glad to learn that there is a climbing version of Perle d'Or as well. Thank you.