Nice! However I didn't like how it bleached during summer conditions here.

It's never bleached here ... though you can see that it does lighten as the bloom opens. I like that effect very much. But it does get more than a bit of shade.

One of my besties.

Lovely! I was down to choosing between Buff Beauty and Cornelia, and went with Cornelia. So far I’m a bit underwhelmed with Cornelia. How does it compare to Cornelia, bloom wise? I’m only getting a few clusters on the ends of long canes. Does Buff Beauty have this tendency, or does it produce more blooms all over? I think I’m regretting my choice. Buff Beauty is gorgeous! Lisa

I grew it in Berkeley (sunset 17) and Portland (USDA 8b) and it is amazing in both locations. It has a huge spring flush, and then some rebloom for the rest of the season (but like most hybrid musks, it's not nonstop). It is absolutely covered in flowers, and they smell like honey. I have not grown Cornelia so I can't compare directly. Buff Beauty likes less sun than many roses, so you won't want to put it in your sunniest spots, especially in your zone. There's one near Berkeley Horticultural Society (aka the Happiest Place on Earth) that blooms like mad on a fence under pretty heavy street shade trees.

Mine would be at least as covered as this one (random internet picture) every spring. By the way, I never watered it, never sprayed it; it got huge in one year at both places; I barely ever fed it, and I only pruned deadwood and occasionally tied it up or moved canes horizontally to get more bloom. Incredibly easy. http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/Catspa1/media/cGF0aDovQnVmZkI4MjRBcHIxM3NtYWxsZXItMS5qcGc=/?ref=

Beautiful, Jeri! No rebloom here yet or Fall flush. I'm hoping as mine gets older.

I also have Cornelia newly, Lisa. I hear she needs some time. I think Cornelia has smaller flowers always, so it will be a different effect than BB.

I agree, just beautiful! I have a rooted cutting that has to get thru the winter...the cutting is well rooted, but no action on the top! Just a green stick....that picture makes me want to take it in my room and baby it!! lol

Thanks for posting this Jeri. I ave 2 Buff Beauties (I accidentally ordered 2) and have been looking for a special place to plant them.

I'm going to look for a somewhat shady spot in my garden. How big are everyone's BB getting?

Embothrium...we're in the same area. How big did it get for you?

Rosy -- The BB we had years ago got to be spready-wide, easily 7-ft. across. We should have put in on a tripod or something. Here's the one in the Historic Sacramento City Cemetery:

'Cornelia' has never been happy here. She bloomed wonderfully for a couple of years. Now, mostly sits and sulks. Blooms are small, fragrant, very pretty, but there are not enough of them from this plant.

Hmm, thanks for the info on Cornelia. I might try twirling mine around a pillar to see if that helps. Mine is still fairly young, so maybe it needs more time as well. I’m definitely wishing I had chosen Buff Beauty, instead. The photos are gorgeous! Lisa

I love this rose, too, Jeri! Buff Beauty keeps Marechal Niel envy at bay as Marianne prevents my pining away for Gloire de Dijon. Carol

Lisa, in my experience ALL the Hybrid Musks take time, but a few, such as Ballerina, mature faster than others. Both Cornelia and BB have always taken a good 5 years to start showing their stuff. My climate is very different from yours, so it may be that your Cornelia experience will resemble Jeri's more than mine, but it's so hard to know how HMs will grow until they have matured. You could always purchase a BB and grow it is a very large pot until you decide whether Cornelia is thriving. That way you could swap in BB for C in time.

Sheila, my BB sure took its sweet time to repeat with a fall flush. It's definitely been a "long haul" kind of rose for me. Deadheading really helps with continuous bloom cycles. After a number of years, BB began offering a BIG late spring/early summer flush, clusters of blooms across the summer months and a smaller but lovely fall flush. If I fail to deadhead (as happened this year), I lose a chunk of the repeat.

Carol

Jeri....woah, that's a large and lusty Buff Beauty! That's my favourite way I like a rose to look...full and drapey and slightly rampant :)

Carol...what kind of sun exposure is your Buff Beauty in? We are in the same climate so mine will like the same conditions as yours.

Roselady, I have grown BB in both partial shade and full sun. It's a very flexible rose, exposure-wise. In partial shade the color saturation and blooms of my BB had more staying power, but it produced slightly fewer blooms and the fall flush was less pronounced. However, since BB is floriferous, the number of blooms and cycles was still very satisfying! And there's something really charming about viewing those creamy golden yellow to buff blossoms in the dappled or morning light of a shady bed. BB is currently growing in noon through evening sun in my hot west bed. It's thriving. BB has definitely been one of my PNW go-to roses for all exposures! In my experience, once thoroughly established and maturing (3 years or so), a Portland area BB blooms without missing a beat in west gardens with only weekly to bi-weekly summer watering, depending on temps. My one refrain is that BB really does take a good 5 years to show its promise, and then it just gets better. I'd love to see photos of yours and read updates from your similar climate garden! Carol

'Buff Beauty' wasn't here long enough to develop any size, I was that put off. Since then I am growing the taller grower that looks quite like it - can't remember the name - without being bothered by its appearance. 'Cornelia' has been on Camano Island for a time but after being fine initially has started acting like it is on an incompatible stock - maybe that is also what is wrong with example(s) mentioned above. I used to have it here but don't anymore, this is another where I should really like it but remain ambivalent.

Cornelia is a better re-bloomer here (several flushes per season at least, though it seems you can always find a few) than Buff Beauty (a spectacular spring and maybe some fall flush if it hasn't been droughty). I think it gets too hot here in summer for BB and most hybrid musks -- they don't really enjoy our conditions. Cornelia and Felicia are the only two left, of all I have tried.

I grow 6 different Hybrid Musks & they are all slow growers with one notable exception............. Darlow' Enigma. It grew 5' the first year & the same the next year. I wanted it to fill an 8' space........ mission accomplished. Also Vif Eclat grew rapidly the first year & now stays quite compact.

Here, BB is an exception being slow growing. Most really take off here. We'll see in the Spring.

Sheila, just FYI, my BBs have been some of my slowest roses out of the starting gate. Carol

Thank you, Carol. That gives me hope!

Embothrium, have you tried own root? My Hybrid Musks have all been grown on their own roots and have thrived (after the initial slow starts). Your climate and soil are probably not identical, but maybe similar? Carol

Roselady, I just caught your question re size. My BBs have grown into large climbers for arches or trellises or fences. BB really needs support, in my opinion. On a fence or trellis, I grow BB to a 6-7 foot tall by 5 foot wide climber. Carol

I'm not sure the one 'Cornelia' IS grafted. But for whatever reason it ain't what it used to be, with incompatibility probably only one of a few possible sources of difficulty.

Darlow's possible re-introduction isn't necessarily a Hybrid Musk. (And that category is kind of a grab bag anyway). In fact the one I know myself that is most similar is the cultivar on the market as 'Nastarana' (who knows if anything being grown today under that latter name is the same as the minimally described original).

I'm not saying those two look - or act - closely similar in all respects, just that they multiple things in common structurally.

This is all very good info for me...thank you! My garden is mostly shady and dry, so it's nice to know there is a rose that can prosper even under those conditions.

I have a Darlow's Enigma that is gargantuan. It get's no supplemental water at all and only sun until 1pm. It is planted up against a split rail fence, which I was supposed to train it on, but it scoffed at such an idea and became a 15-foot-in all-directions behemoth.

I have to move the Darlow (thank goodness I have an intrepid young yard man to help me!) and I think I'm going to do a woodlandy Hybrid Musk area and sort of group them together and let them do their thing naturally.

Carol...yes, we can share tips as we have similar climates. Portland is definitely hotter than the Seattle area. I grew up in Portland and the Portland Rose garden was my family's favourite outing while I was growing up. Portland really does have such a wonderful climate for growing roses!

I have Cornelia and I like it a lot, I got it because it was said to have a wafting fragrance and to be impervious to disease and most importantly for my garden to withstand shade and therefore was the recipient of very high ratings from growers. I was disappointed with Cornelia it at first because I didn't think it "wafted" -- though now I do. Anyway it has been very reliable for me and I appreciate its discrete charm.

Buff Beauty I planted for a friend because they have more sunny conditions. (Though it turns out their conditions were not really so good -- very sandy and with voles and little supplementary feeding or watering. But it is still hanging on after 20 years or so.) I have to say that Buff Beauty when well grown is on a whole other plane -- a really distinctive, memorable & beautiful rose. For one thing, the fragrance is absolutely delicious and you can sink your nose it it. The arching habit is beautiful. The flowers are maybe not so large as roses go, but they are among the largest of the musk roses. To me, they hang more prettily than Penelope or Felicia. I am not immediately drawn to apricot colored roses -- but this is one of the exceptions in my view. It fades, but so do all the ice-cream sherbet-colored musk roses.

Cathy....beautiful pictures! I am excited because I have Compassion on order for this spring and it's going to be planted in the absolute focal point of my rose garden. I'm really looking forward to it! Any info or advice you could give me on growing it would be wonderful.

I also planted Polka...the three blooms I got last summer while it was in it's pot were stunning. Huge and scented.

I will check out the others you showed as well...

Editing to add: I just went and looked up Della BAlfour and learned it's otherwise known as Royal Pageant. I just planted that rose in the spot next to where Compassion will be growing! You and I have similar taste in roses :)

monarda....your description of Buff Beauty should be used in a catalogue! I'm really looking forward to growing it now!

Just for contrast, I found BB relatively fast to grow and fill in both locations I planted it. In Portland, I had it on the east facing wall of the house. It was several feet up and wide within 1-2 years, and up onto the second story deck by the third year. It was own-root. And it was magnificent every spring, easy the rest of the time. I'm sort of baffled by the descriptions of it being slow. The thing is practically a weed!

Nickel . . . I think maybe it's partially location. The one I planted on the East side of the house behaved similarly.

hmmmm....interesting....so Buff Beauty seems to prefer an eastern exposure. That's very good to know! My Darlow is also in an eastern exposure spot.

The one near Berkeley Hort faces west. I don't know how fast it grew, but it's amazing in significant shade.

The one I planted in Berkeley was on a fence that faced south but straight into the house (fence close to house) so it really only got sun from overhead. Both were definitely not the highest light sites around the house.

I have the sense mine gets a bit too much baking here, but I am going to wait and see if she grows over the next couple of years.

nickelsmum, I just noticed your earlier mention of the BB across the street from the Berkeley Hort nursery, growing under heavy shade -- it's gone, as of about 2 years ago. I talked to the homeowner as he was cutting out the remains and he said it just up and died, didn't know why. The plant of mine shown in the Photobucket photo you linked -- not a "random internet picture" to me :-) -- is also in the process of being removed, as it is entirely suffused with gall and starting to go into a decline, suffer dieback. That was its big spring flush, in that photo, when, truly, you could hardly see the leaves. I'm not sure what will replace it yet.

catspat....I am SO sorry to hear your BB is being removed! That picture, the one nickelsmum linked, of your BB is one of my favourites of this rose! How old was that plant?

The plant was about 10 years old at the time of that photo; about 13 years old now.

Catspat, what a bummer! I'm sorry. That BB in Berkeley must have been at least 20 years old as I remember it from 1991... I don't know what became of the Berkeley plant I grew myself, but the Portland one was 12 years old last time I saw it, and fine. I should go see if the buyers left it, and what condition its in. Was yours own-root?

Mine was own-root, nickelsmumz.

I bought a Buff Beauty last year and it is a really winner. It wouldn't stop blooming! I did move it at the end of the season, after realizing it really needed a nice fence to droop over or a little hill to fall down. My garden has a spot which was raised about 3 feet so now she cascades over the drop looking very proud of herself. She really lets me know when she wants more water (she pouts).