Ingrid, I forgot to put 'Mme. Hardy' on the "roses it can't be" list. If nothing else, MH is a tall growing rose, as well as different in bud. Actually, I suspect there aren't that many candidates. Gallicas are mostly pink-red-purple-lilac hues; there aren't many pale ones. And this rose doesn't look have a hybridized look about it, so I can exclude Bourbons, Hybrid Perpetuals and certainly anything of predominantly oriental blood. It's not an Alba (tall and upright, smooth canes, thorns sparse and strong, blueish or grayish foliage) or a moss rose. It might possibly be a Centifolia or a Damask, though Centifolias tend to be lanky and nastily thorny, while this rose doesn't have the narrow tubular receptacle or the long fringed sepals that characterize most of the Damasks I'm acquainted with. So the field is narrower than you might think, or at least so it seems to me. I wouldn't have put the question if I thought it had an impossibly broad range of likely answers. labrea, Was that the site in a language you didn't know that made you want to make an order? I finally found out that it was Finnish (one of the few non-Indo-European languages of Europe, and nastily incomprehensible to just about everyone who's not a Finn). It's spectacular! I wanted all those Gallicas too! Melissa

>already on my short list (Gruss an achen Hi Nicole, I have the impression that more than one cultivar for Gruss An Aachen is available, and I'd like to recommend the cultivar of Gruss An Aachen sold by Chamblee's Roses (www.chambleeroses.com/). We had three healthy Gruss An Aachens from there and when we replace them (they were lost to Rose Rosette Disease) I'm going to get them from Chamblee's again. The particular cultivar from Chamblees did particularly well here. >Mary, Old Blush looks really great too... I know chinas don't do so well here but I might try her anyway. It is a shame they don't like our climate- many have such a lovely, elegant bush shape. I have actually seen a big bush of Old Blush growing in Asheville, Nicole. It was 1995, before I was really into roses, but you couldn't miss this large beauty. It looked splendid and healthy. I don't know whether it's still there or not, but if you want to visit the botanical gardens at 151 WT Weaver Blvd., adjacent to the campus of UNV-Asheville, you can look for it. When there, go through the entrance building and take the path to the right at the building exit to enter the grounds. The rose is about 20 feet off to the right after you've walked just a short distance up that path. As for spraying or not spraying, I'd suggest you get started with roses that don't require spraying to look good most of the time. A little blackspot isn't a big deal, but a total loss of leaves isn't too attractive if there's nothing in front of the rose to hide the leafless plant. I'd also suggest that once you do get started with spraying, if you do, then roses that otherwise could have developed good disease resistance on their own (it can take up to three years) will either never have the processes stimulated to make that happen or will have much more difficulty making it happen. Amy Padgett in Eastern NC has a website with a large section on roses. Not every variety she can grow there is necessarily good for your spot, but some of her observations on the amount of disease resistance of different roses in an organically oriented yard might be. I'll attach that address. The thing about Old Blush that gives me pause isn't that I think we couldn't grow it successfully here in this no-spray yard--we have never used poison chemicals at all and I feel sure that if others can grow it no-spray, we can too--but that the rose is a little thornier than the impression I've gotten from many different internet comments. I actually wrote Michael Shroup regarding the thorniness of Old Blush and he said that it's average, a 5 out of 10. >Connie, I've been reading your blog for a while... I almost mentioned Ducher and Duchesse de Brabant to you too, but when I saw a zone 7 listing at HMF decided not to mention them. But if they grow well for Connie... I really think they might grow for you too. Because of family, I've often kept up with the weather in Connie's area. And the same for Asheville. Usually the temp differences with us here are similar-- usually 3 or 4 degrees difference, at the most, with Asheville and 3-5 degrees difference for northern Virginia. I do think perhaps Connie's location might have had a rougher winter there than you did in Asheville in this last particular winter. Do consider your topography in figuring out how the low temperatures in your own yard relate to the official lows at the airport. Your yard can be warmer than most if it has some slope on it and doesn't sit at the very bottom of hills. Proximity to pavement can help too. Anyway, both Ducher and Duchesse de Brabant went into the ground here last fall as a healthy one-gallon plant (Chamblee's) and wintered over with no special protection other then a few leaves as mulch. They were planted a bit more deeply than when they arrived, so that might have helped some too. Ducher and Duchesse de Brabant made it through the winter evergreen, not losing any leaves (Ducher), or many (Duchesse de Brabant). It didn't seem too wise to me to keep their leaves, but we let the plants decide on it. :) We had a pretty good spring here--no amazingly wide temperature flucuations bringing the worst of winter in April or anything like that--so it might not have been the best of years to judge how winter hardy those two roses are for here (in the Piedmont). But anyway, Ducher incautiously took off growing at the first sign of warming in February and didn't let any of the intervening frosts slow her down much. Duchesse took maybe 3 weeks longer to get going in the spring and she looked less perky in her foliage overall at the end of winter, but once she started growing she was off to the races. Both roses are sizable, full four-foot high plants now, with a strong tendancy to bloom, bloom, bloom... and bloom some more. Absolutely no blackspot or powdery mildew on either rose. Both look really good as a shrub with an attractive shape and attractive foliage. You might say that there are plenty of good hardy pink roses, but I don't know of any offhand with that particular wonderful scent on a fairly low-thorns rose. If you are up to trying a questionable thing in terms of winter hardiness, Duchesse de Brabant would be a really good choice. It lasts reasonably well in a vase, better than some of our other tea roses. I thought of one other pink rose: Mortimer Sackler. Healthy, healthy, healthy. Great beauty, and nicely fragrant too. Almost no thorns! Best wishes, Mary Here is a link that might be useful: Amy Padgett's rose website

Ann , me too. Horrible heat, Hot, muggy and rains all the time. We have similar weather conditions. When I bought Maggie, I used to freak out over BS . But her China kicks in later or maybe she don't BS that much and now it is barely minimum. I have not Spray Maggie for 1 year now . She is over 6 ft and slightly over 3 ft wide. She is will be 2 yrs old. We been getting daily rain as you can see her foliage still has rain drops. I think she resist as she ages or very little . Right now I just check the whole rose bush and she is clean. Vap, if you ever make that drink . You can used any rose blooms that is very fragrant not necessarily Maggie so you know . jin

cut to the ground and apply stump killer or undiluted round up ... to the cut ... else it will eventually bust up the fence ... or move the rose ... either are weed trees.. imo ... and not to be encouraged ... ken