Countryman - going on year 18; recommendation from Sam Kedem. Other than Carefree Beauty and Earth Song (which everyone knows), the only Buck remaining from that planting. Not fragrant. A little blackspot toward end of season here in no spray NJ, but continues to bloom well all season. Sam was right.

Grace e,

That's easy. Quietness is my favorite Buck rose. It has it all: fragrance, heavy all season long bloom, lovely large quartered bloom, tip hardy with no winter protection, and incredible disease resistance.

Quietness is Buck's best rose, IMHO.

2nd. best is Aunt Honey, for these reasons: fragrance, tip hardy without protection, large hybrid tea type blooms. Aunt Honey comes in second behind Quietness because its repeat is not as quick as Quietness, its excellent disease resistance is just a step behind Q., and it's full open bloom soon goes tousled.

Some of the other Bucks, and I have tried about a dozen of them, are very good, but have faults of varying degrees that caused me to eliminate them from my garden.

A few last words on the Bucks....as much as I am smitten with Quietness and Aunt Honey, Carefree Beauty disappointed me big time. Black spot prone, floppy growth, and sparse repeat caused me to eliminate it.

Also, not all Buck roses met his goal of winter hardiness or vigor. Quietness and Aunt Honey do.

Moses

P.S. Forgot to add...a rose friend who is a Quietness devotee like me, once said that wouldn't an entire rose bed of Quietness be great. You know, since hearing that statement, I have often thought why not give up the perfect rose chase...always adding this new hopeful and that one, and just make it easy on myself and replace all the roses in my bed with Quietness.

Quiteness, Quiteness and Quiteness. ...

I know that's not much help since you said you already have Quiteness but she is my all around favorite and best rose in my garden. I have 2 and am thinking of adding a few more. If it ain't broke don't fix it and I think a whole bed like Moses suggested would be glorious!

Karen your Quiteness pics are stunning and the reason I love this rose!

I love Prairie Breeze - first one to bloom - until the horrendous rainstorm last week, it was covered in huge gorgeous big fat blooms. Hi Neighbor, Griff's Red, Polonaise, Barn Dance, Countryman, Bright Melody, Country Song, Dawn Star, Distant Drums, Dorcas, Honeysweet, Malaguena, Prairie Princess [once bloomer, but covers itself with blooms], Wanderin' Wind [mostly once bloomer], Wild Ginger, Winter Sunset are many of my favorites. The good ones are really fine roses and of course include Quietness too. Plenty of good ones to choose from!

Judith

My poor QUIETNESS is planted in a bad spot where it's overrun with weeds and hypericum that has managed to return after being dug out yrs ago. Haven't seen blooms in yrs. I don't even know if it's still alive in there. I'm hoping to get out and clean that area out sometime this yr tho.

My best (other) Buck roses are (sorry don't know about the scents):

SERENDIPITY - poor thing is still in a big pot. Does really well tho. Grows about 4ft tall. Colors change all the time. Apricot, amber, peach, orange, pink, yellow.

(THAT'S) INCREDIBLE - one of my very favorite ones. I love the stippling and the many colors it goes thru. Just wish the blooms would last a little longer.

WINTER SUNSET - gorgeous big apricot-orange blooms that fade to a creamy color. Grows about 3ft so far.

SPANISH RHAPSODY - another stippled one. Deeper colors, but they also blow pretty fast. About 2-3ft so far. (still in a pot)

DORCAS - yet another gorgeous stippled one mostly in the pink and peach tones. It's a short one... 2ft maybe.

Also have MOUNTAIN MUSIC, LES SJULIN, PRAIRIE LASS and IOBELLE. Those are still small and haven't bloomed as much.

I'll throw in Distant Drums. I really like the color of the blooms and fast repeat.

Applejack is the only one I still have, and the only one that's been cane hardy here.

I love my Carefree Beauty, have 8 or 9 of them as landscaping roses. I might go to Walmart to get more to make a hedge, they're in body bags for $6.44 each.

I planted two small quietness last summer, no blooms yet. Can't wait for them to grow up.

mad_gallica(zone 5 - eastern New York)

Applejack is the only one I still have, and the only one that's been cane hardy here

Sam Kedem noted Dr. Buck used Applejack in his breeding program as an "antifreeze".

I have three Buck roses, Applejack, Folksinger and Mountain Music. All are cane hardy in my Swedish zone 5b but my favorite is Folksinger. The others are in too much shade so they don't flower much. My fault and I will move them to better positions if I can work up the energy.

I have some good Buck plants but have never had a very good Distant Drums plant. I do like the blooms. I have Carefree Beauty in two spots. One of the plants gets some blackspot, and the other is bs free with great repeat , branchiness, and vigor. Blooms are big and to me the strong pink is a welcome color. Puts out a lot of big hips that germinate like crazy, if you want to try roses from seeds.

Prairie Breeze is one of my favorites for health, rebloom, shrubbiness, but also for the huge, fragrant, full blooms. I am pleased to see three new basals on my plant this year. It's one of the earliest to bloom.

Prairie Sunrise is gorgeous , healthy, with huge blooms but not as strong a grower in my garden:

Folksinger is simply an awesome shrub. Individual blooms are not as big or as outstanding but the plant is a marvel of vigor and rebloom. Is inconsistent about bs resistance. Has a light tea fragrance.

EArth Song is good, I love Quietness, Griff's Red is a very healthy red with big blooms. There is a nice but not powerful fragrance.

I have Iobelle but it is not in the ground yet and blooms have not been good yet.

Carefree Beauty plant:

Oh Wow! So gorgeous! I love the color of Folksinger and Distant Drums! The pink shade on Carefree Beauty is sooo much better than my double pink knockout. Someday, I would like to replace it if I can get my nephews to help me dig up the gigantic knockout.

Karen, Walmart has Carefree Beauty in body bag for $6.44. I paid much more than that plus shipping. I am going to get more tonight.

Prairie Harvest....for fragrance & its a "good" fragrance (not all roses have a good fragrance to my nose), also survived well in my z4 area & no major problem with disease

Summers and Karen, I wrote on another post that Menard's also has CB for $5.49. I now think I have to go back for three to make a nice massed planting, but only if it's good for BS. My BF grows it in Norther KY, but for some reason he NEVER gets BS even on Iceberg! wirosarian, Prairie harvest is really gorgeous!

I've got enough pink roses, but after reading all these glowing reports of Quietness, I may have to find a spot..... i like all of these Bucks for different reasons, but if I had to choose just one, it would be Prairie Sunrise.

Applejack- Doesn't grow like a hybrid tea, more like a full sized lilac bush. In my Chicagoland 5b climate, mine is tip hardy and will get 15 x 15 feet if I let it. One giant flush in the spring and sporadic blooms throughout the growing season. When its humid the foliage smells like Apples, the flowers are mildly fragrant as well. Not my favorite Buck rose, but it has its usefulness as a screen. Doesn't need spraying.

Carefree Beauty- I've had real good luck with this one, another no spray rose that is tip hardy for me. The flowers are mildly fragrant and come in great profusion all summer long. Not as thorny as some of the other Bucks, the bush wants to be lanky, about 5 1/2 feet high for me, and 3 feet around.

Prairie Sunrise- Is another no spray rose that blooms constantly, not as hardy as the others, but I've never lost one to winter and I don't do any winter protection. My only complaint about this is that the sun bleaches the flowers out quickly, so if you have a spot with morning sun only, I would put it there. Fragrance is strong and not like any other rose I've smelled. Grows to about 3 1/2 feet tall for me, thick, thorny canes, glossy foliage, a nice rounded bush, will tolerate less than full sun.

Prairie Harvest- Grows like a typical Hybrid Tea, about 4-5 feet tall and narrowish. Strong, sweet fragrance, thrips love it, dies to the ground in my winters but comes back well, also bleaches out in the sun. No spray needed.

Honey Sweet is my wifes favorite rose, too pink for my eye, and not enough fragrance for my nose, but a real quick repeat and nice rounded growing habit. Thick, strong canes with vicious thorns. Mostly healthy but will get a little BS if I don't spray.

Prairie Star is one that doesn't get a lot of press, but I love it's unique fragrance. This one is a BS magnet, so if you don't spray, I wouldn't recommend it. The stems can be thin and spindly if you don't deadhead far enough down. If you can be a little brutal with the pruning there won't be a weak stem problem. Grows to a rounded mound shape about 4 feet high. Winter kills this one to the ground, but it comes back strong, fades to nearly White.

Another rose that is not a Buck rose, (Its by Ping Lim) but is like a Buck rose is Sweet Fragrance. This Apricot beauty holds its color fairly well and has all the good Buck qualities like quick rebloom, nice growth habit, good fragrance, no spray, winter hardiness. Mine aren't tip hardy, they die down to about 1 foot. In my opinion this is a better rose than any of my Bucks.

In other words you want to know which ones provide the best bang from the Buck.

Grace e: How about Buck parentage? I refer to Mother of Pearl.

As per HMF:

seed: Paloma Blanca (Buck) x Carefree Beauty(Buck).

I don't have one, though I wish I did.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40978.1&tab=32

Take note of the comments, including those of Dianne, HMF's exacting MichaelG, and especially (the late) John Moody - a great rose reviewer.

Wow lots of pretties! Love that GRIFFS RED and I'm not big on reds! And PRAIRIE HARVEST is quite lovely! I forgot I also have DISTANT DRUMS which is buried amongst the weeds and crap in a bed I haven't gotten to in awhile... doesn't bloom much; HONEYSWEET which almost died and is looking purty good right now!.. maybe a bloom soon... and I lost my FOLKSINGER a couple of yrs ago. I think RU is listing it now. Couldn't find it the last couple of yrs anywhere. RU also has another stippled one I want... GEE WHIZ!

Another one of Carefree Beauty

I like Honeysweet a lot for rebloom , colors, and fragrance. To me it's very fragrant.

Summer what are the hot pink/ red roses in the background of your picture?

I think I need Honeysweet!

Dingo, that's the $3.00 body bag William Baffin, it turned into a monster, I have 3 of them in the backyard.

Summer how is the repeat on WB?

It repeats some not a lot though, just here and there, the biggest show is in the spring, they’re covered with thousands and thousands blooms. My former backyard neighbors used to take family photos in front of them every year. Mine are 9-10 years old. Palatine has a huge one twice the size of mine, it repeats much better than mine, I saw it last summer while I was there. I don’t feed WB at all, maybe that’s the difference. I will try to feed them this year, they might repeat better.

Grace e, thank you for starting this topic and many thanks to bethnorcal, Al Mitchel, erasmus, and all the others who sent pictures and suggestions. My garden is nearly full but I've been thinking lately that I need some more Bucks (pun intentional ;-) . My suggestions won't be much help to you, Grace e. I don't live in your zone and I don't have any idea what you're looking for but some of these may be worth a try.

Golden Unicorn-This was a healthy hardy, tough-as-nails shrub that bloomed itself silly every year. My garden is no-spray. Not much blackspot, not enough to lose leaves or even slow it down. For me it was a soft golden yellow with nice fragrance that took on apricot tones when the weather cooled in fall. It seemed that fall was its best season here for blooming. Not a rose for arrangements, the flowers blew quickly but they were continual. It got to be 5 1/2-6 ft high and wider than that, double its supposed adult size. It was tip hardy for me, even after the polar vortex winter, but of course, that may not apply to your zone. I lost it to RRv.

FreckleFace- We got this as a memorial for our much loved dog, Dot. It was planted in a difficult spot in too much shade. For me it was a nice, healthy, little unremarkable pink rose that rarely had its famous stippling in that shady spot. It took a major hit during the polar vortex and I lost it when I tried to move it to a pot.

Carefree Beauty- Already spoken about, actually my mother grows this in z6 in Tennessee. It receives minimal care- never watered or fertilized, pruned haphazardly if at all. Still grows and blooms and occasionally my mother gives me a lbloom from it.

I also have grown Prairie Sunrise, a wonderful little rose lost to RRv, and Distant Drums which seems to have found a happy place in my garden. It will be awhile before it achieves the excellence of Ken's, if ever, but it does reasonably well here for me and most importantly, survives the freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw cycle that passes for winter and spring here. And that is why I love Buck roses. The ones that I have grown can get through that even when other supposedly hardier roses fail.

I have about 25 Buck roses at the moment, and a good 10 of them stand out so far as having a notable presence for me. Quite a few of them are too new to be blooming much and some have not been hardy for me, which is surprising because they were bred next door in Iowa. I'll show my favorites and comment on some of the others.

I agree that Folksinger is awesome, even if the blooms to fade to cream once the summer sun gets hot. It can be a lovely soft apricot color, and it reliably bushes out well. It also survives and blooms well in my zone 4 pocket, which has only the tough survivors.

Prairie Sunrise is another keeper that is usually a little more reliably apricot. It also blooms in part shade in my zone 4 pocket on the north side of my house, and it's a good bushy rebloomer. Not quite as enthusiastic a rebloom as Folksinger, but more intriguing color variations like the vivid color in the photo below.

Prairie Sunset is nice but doesn't bloom as often and tends more toward hot pink with a little coral tinge. It's also not quite as double as Prairie Sunrise

To round out the Prairie series of very hardy Bucks, Prairie Princess is almost always cane hardy and it is huge, flopping over a 5' fence like you can see in the photo below. Mine isn't quite a once bloomer since I get sporadic blooms a little in June and July, but the main flush is at the end of May for me. I don't find it makes as much of a statement as I'd like, since the bloom is spread out over the large bush. Still, it's a nice back of the border bush. I should try pruning it back hard after bloom and seeing if it would come back stronger like Variegata di Bologna. It's a fairly generic pink bloom that's only semidouble, so it's in the profusion of bloom that it has its impact.

Of course Earth Song is fabulous when it has surviving cane, and it usually has at least some, but it doesn't come back quickly from being pruned to the ground (and mine is about 8 years old). The blooms can be huge and a vivid hot pink, and it's among the larger Buck roses at 5-6' feet.

I agree that Honeysweet is a way underappreciated Buck rose and it's highly variable and intriguing in color. Not a ton of blooms at any given time - not more than 3-4 blooms at a time on a modest bush, but I find it is eyecatching in the color and presence. It's pretty hardy for me and stays compact. When it fades it gets a more generic pale pink, but the flowers tend to be huge.

Winter Sunset makes a nice counterpart near Honeysweet, and it is also nicely changeable in color. It can be gold, blush apricot, coral, or pinkish, though rarely as vivid as Honeysweet can get. Here is is in an apricot sherbet mood.

Paloma Blanca is a very nice double white that is also mostly cane hardy in my zone 4 pocket. It can put out nice bushy clusters and repeats reasonably well, though the edges crisp like a lot of whites do in the summer. It's one of my more reliable fully double white roses. It is definitely a pure icy white rather than mucky cream.

Another that doesn't get much appreciation is Pearlie Mae. Mine chugged along for about 6 years in my zone 4 pocket, but it struggled to come back quickly enough after the winters and really prefers to be a zone 5 or better rose. The colors can be terrific with those dark reverse colors that Bucks can get. I also like that it's named for Minnie Pearl.

Barn Dance has been pretty reasonably hardy in my zone 4 pocket and it's a general hot pink bloom. Not a bloom to set my heart pitter patter, but anything that will survive and bloom well in zone 4 gets a positive vote from me.

I also love the color variations of Dorcas and Freckles, and both have been pretty hardy for me (Freckles even to zone 4), though I lost Dorcas through gardener error and am replacing her this year. My roses look pretty much like Beth's (well, not as good a photo as hers but that goes without saying).

I wish all those lovely stippled Buck roses were hardier for me, or had more surviving cane from the winter. Several of them I've had to move into a protected zone, and the following have failed at least once to survive a zone 5 winter, though they seem to be OK this year: Gee Whiz, Malaguena, Spanish Rhapsody, and September Song. Sadly, Incredible doesn't seem to be hardy, but I'm going to try a really protected spot.

I haven't been able to overwinter on several tries the following Buck roses, some of whom I've tried in zone 6 spots: El Catala, Calico Gal, Iobelle. Several weren't hardy in a standard zone 5 spot but might be OK in my protected zone 6 areas: Golden Princess, Enchanted Autumn, Serendipity, Sevilliana, Musicale, Allamande Ho, Gee Whiz. I can attest that the following Bucks aren't hardy to zone 4, but I am trying them again in a more normal zone 5 spot: Aunt Honey, Frontier Twirl, Hawkeye Belle, Mary Susan, September Song, Prairie Star, Cinnamon Spice. Country Dancer survived several years in part sun but finally faded and I haven't been excited enough about it to replace it yet - in that location it was a sparse bloomer, but it's probably not the rose's fault. Prairie Breeze didn't come back from one winter, but given the part sun spot it was in I'm not prepared to say it's not hardy for me yet in a normal reasonably sunny spot.

The only Buck that I actually dislike is Mountain Music. I expected to like it from the hmf photos, but mine was a monster gangly bush that barely bloomed once in prime location with scruffy barely semidouble blooms. It was reasonably hardy, so I dug it up and moved it to a tough part shade spot where other roses wouldn't grow, so it won't bug me there. It didn't quite get shovel pruned, but it definitely got demoted.

No clues about fragrance on any of these, being sadly deficient in the schnozz department myself, but I would grow Bucks for the color and bushiness rather than the scent anyway.

Cynthia

Cynthia boy am I glad I found your pics. I'm 99% sure my should be Distant Drums is Prairie Sunset. I planted it close, so I could see it. I hate hot pink. I guess I'll have to call RU. It looks healthy, maybe I can give it (force) my Mom to take it. I was most looking forward to DD too.

Hi Witchygirrl - I responded on your other thread on this topic to make sure it has those solid yellow reverses before you assume it's Prairie Sunset and not Distant Drums. DD can be a really mutable rose and mine has never had the smoky mauve-apricot tones in earlier pictures on this thread. My DD varies between solid carnation pink to hot pink to pale blush pink, but never looks particularly apricot in our heat.

Cynthia

Someone may have already said this, but if not an entire bed of Quietness, then possibly interspersing more Quietness among your other roses. I can't think of another color that soft pink wouldn't blend with.

Thinking back to Pappu's rose beds, he grew all one variety per bed and one of them was Carefree Wonder. His photos are so hard to find now. I wish Houzz would provide a way to open them again.

Quietness is the only Buck rose I have, and it is pretty much perfect.

I have/had 3 Buck roses: Enchanted Autumn, Quietness, Distant Drums. I live in Florida and all 3 were from Chamblees and were own root. Enchanted Autumn either died from nematodes or from a Royal Palm tree that the roots kept it from getting the nutrients that it needed. Not sure which it was, because I was a newbie rose grower and had no idea about nematodes or that Royal Palms are really nothing but an invasive TALL weed that I have come to hate. I loved Enchanted Autumns color. It was very thorny though, but I would replace him if I could get it on fortuniana. It smelled divine. It did not seem to have much trouble with blackspot or with insects. Next up, is Quietness. I have two of her. One that I bought from Chamblees, and another that a rose friend gave me. Both are on own root. The insects love her.... June Beetles, spider mites, white fly and the dreaded leaf cutting bee that likes to turn her leaves into swiss cheese. Unfortunately, her leaves have a tendency to burn from insecticides, but it is either the slight burn around her leaves or a flower on the end of a leafless stick. She does get black spot some, but even with her few flaws she smells divine and I love her. Then I have Distant Drums. He is by FARRRRRR my best performer of the three Buck roses. No BS. No insects. He even had a royal palm snap him off when a palm frond fell on him, but he came back like a champ. I would love to get more of the Buck roses, but I can't seem to find them on fortuniana root stock. I do LOVE them, and think that they are great roses.