"La France" 1867 is one of the earliest H.T.s and in my eyes one of the 12 best pink H.T.s, I also love its fragrance. cl. "Mrs. Herbert Stevens". This grows to be a self supporting rosebush of c. 7 feet tall by nearly as wide, that has the twiggy growth habit of a Tea rosebush. Leaflets are a bit small and scanty, if that matters to you. "Golden Ophelia" darling golden-yellow roses. A small plant suitable for the border. "Condesa de Sastago" one of my favorite Pernetiana type roses. Pernetiana roses "Soleil d'Or" has a growth habit and foliage that is like the wild rose it was bred from, a marvelous rose that shows a lot of character in plant and flower. I also love "Gruss an Coberg" it is a Pernetiana that is healthy in our no-spray garden and has a re- bloom rate of a Florabunda. H.T.s from the early 1900's "Polly" very fragrant and lovely "Snowbird" a white H.T. from the 1930's that has a bloom style one would expect more from a rose from the 1800's. Very floriferous and quick to re-bloom. Of all of the white roses in the whole wide world, it is one of my top 12 favorites, and I rate it only slightly below the white Tea roses. Not a Tea but very much like a Tea, with smaller roses, Spray "Cecille Brunner" a sport from the original rose that was bred from a Tea rose and a Polyantha, The bush has the size and twiggy growth habit of a Tea, and like Tea roses in our climate, it retains its foliage far longer in the Autumn, than H.T.s do. The roses are fragrant and dainty in size, pink and very pretty. I used to dislike the H.T. class as a whole, until I met more of the H.T.s from the 1800's-1930's, a few of which captivated my attention, especially the Pernetiana roses which grow well where I live. Luxrosa

Mme. Antoine Mari" is one of my 12 favorite Tea roses, for beauty of blossom, leaf, and bush, and Tea is my favorite rose class. The new foliage is purplish and very attractive, and as with nearly all roses of this class re-bloom is quite fast, over an extended bloom season, until the first frost. There are c. 6 or so Tea roses that are slightly more tolerant to cold and M.A.M. is said to be one of them, from Bourbon influence, but I don't know if it can be grown in 6b. Mme. Caroline Testout' is a fine rose, one of the early H.T.s with broad blooms that resemble a Hybrid Perpetual more than most H.T.s. "Heritage" did not perform well in our organic method garden, it was covered with powdery mildew, and was slow to re-bloom, and the petals were damaged by rain. Of all the pink Austin roses, my favorite is "Mary Rose" for its fragrant pink roses, pretty foliage and more graceful cane growth habit. It was the only Austin rose among 14 different Austin roses that bloomed as early as our Tea roses in spring. "Mary Rose" also produced good re-bloom. - In our garden, near San Francisco, California "Mary Rose" bloomed as often as a Florabunda, producing between 3 and 4 bloom cycles each year. I hope my advice is of some help. Luxrosa

Hi Windeaux, I apologize for taking so long to reply to your questions. We had a three and a half hour, unexpected power outage in the neighborhood yesterday which fouled up the ever-wonderful Time-Warner service until about an hour ago. I went out and bought a new modem and fixed it myself. The "caring customer service representative" at Time-Warner stated last night that since I still have TV and telephone, "you are not a priority repair, so it will not be until September 5 that repair can be there." To answer your questions, HMF and its Administrators don't actually have a policy concerning archived collections and gardens. They are primarily concerned with the moderation, development and maintenance of the site, which is actually rather expensive, both in time and money. ALL of the information you find on HMF has mainly been added to the site by volunteers who have selected and added the content. If the information found in the REFERENCES conflict with each other or with patent information, they take the time to point out both that there may be an error in rose literature or even in the patent. The owners are completely open to suggestions as to content, but a number of the archived "collections" are there because I found them interesting; I collected the information and I put them there. (I, too, am a HMF volunteer, but only work on the site when I have time and on projects which interest ME). When I proposed adding archive nursery listings to the Admins, there was a very real concern the archive listings might confuse HMF site users into thinking the lists represented viable, current sources for roses. The roses listed in the archives under the nursery's name still show up on the BUY FROM tab, but on the rose page, they are not listed as commercially available unless another nursery has included the rose in their inventory .... too much programming time was involved in excluding the nursery from the BUY FROM tab. Once we hashed out how to prevent that issue, I was thanked and told to run with it. I am always on the lookout for old catalogs and nursery listings to flush out the history of roses in America. The main concern was not having these archives show up in searches where they may confuse users that the archives represented available business with available stock. There is always the concern about not running up server space (which gets quite expensive), clogging the system and putting unnecessary demands on the programming. All of which gets quite expensive, particularly for a site which has to completely rely upon donations and the incredibly small number of premium members. It amazes me how so many people resent the $2 a month requested support for such a tremendous resource. I guess many believe that anything on line should be completely free because they are unaware of how quickly the costs of server space, programming, moderation and maintenance run up! Many would also be quite surprised if the on line "attacks" from all over the world were publicized. Spammers, thieves and trolls attempt to breach the programmed security very frequently and that takes time and skill to prevent. All of which adds to the already strained resources. I'm amazed how inexpensive HMF has remained when I learned about the skill, resources and cost required just to keep the site open, much less develop and add features and content. btw ... do you support HMF with a premium membership ? Do you have the list of roses Mike Lowe grew in his garden and nursery? If you do, I'll be happy to add an archive documenting his collection, when I have time. I am already working on several projects for the site. If you could/would please send me any such lists as either Word or Excel files, I'll be happy to create and upload them to archive pages. Catalog lists are great, but how much more could be archived from garden lists! A private collection can be many times larger and more interesting than just what was propagated in a given year. I haven't gotten around to adding the information from the Ashdown catalogs yet. It can be QUITE time consuming. I received some major eye-rolling and annoyance over the time it required to study that many ROYAT catalogs and compile the list of over 700 varieties they contained. Compiling and uploading these archives is exactly the same process that is required for a nursery (who already HAS the information, often in forms necessary to upload) to create, update and maintain their nursery listings. It's distressing to me AND the many volunteers who work on HMF how many nurseries can't/won't/aren't able to create and maintain their own nursery inventory lists. There really are many more varieties available than are shown, and from quite a few more sources. I know it requires effort and time, both of which are sorely lacking in many of the nurseries, but someone has to make the time and generate the energy to accomplish it. It behooves the businesses to put the information there and maintain it as it has been proven that an up-to-date inventory on HMF can/does result in increased sales and is very efficient, low cost advertising. We volunteers cannot maintain the nursery listings as much as we would like to do on HMF simply because there are too many listing nurseries, and too many other projects being worked on. HMF needs to have the nurseries participate in maintaining their inventories, both due to the time involved as well as to insure their accuracy. Some users want to help by posting this or that rose is available at a particular nursery, and that is appreciated, but it doesn't help. There is one European nursery who still doesn't maintain their list. From the many "available from" posts to the Q&A, in just a few seasons, this nursery's availability list exceeded 900 varieties! No one removed what WASN'T available, new ones just kept being added from the helpful "available from" posts. You can't maintain the accuracy of a database that way! Lyn G., RoseBlush1 on GW, has spent time fixing problems in content like no one would believe! It's taken her several years of evenings to correct misinformation and mis entries, adding references, not to mention her efforts to keep up with new introductions and registrations. Those are things we all expect to be accurate and simply to be there, but if it had been accomplished by a "paid employee", the cost of the site would be prohibitive. I will be happy to look in to whether the information remains on the server about the Ashdown and Lowe collections as well as Cliff's from Euro Desert. I agree with you the information is invaluable, particularly when attempting to determine whether a variety was ever commercially available here. That can make a tremendous difference when trying to identify a found rose. Archiving Paul's encyclopedia of roses on HMF, I believe, would require some pretty heavy programming incorporate into HMF. That is not only time consuming, but potentially quite expensive. If it was simple and cheap, it would already be archived and accessible elsewhere. Someone has to pay for keeping it available and useable. Based upon how difficult it has been to get people to support HMF, I can imagine what it would probably be like to get support for his encyclopedia. If you know of someone with the disposable resources and who would be willing to support such a project, please get them with HMF to see if it may be something possible to accomplish. Also, the current volunteers all have their own long "to-do" lists, so if you can also find someone who understands the working of a complex database to do the work, that would make it more feasible. HMF is open to anything which may make the site more valuable and useful as a resource. There is a tremendous level of pride for the site, but it genuinely boils down to costs. Someone has to pay for the costs required to accomplish and maintain the requested additions. If they can be accommodated within the current budget and it can be shown to be a beneficial change, the people at HMF are completely agreeable to accommodating the improvements. I'm not aware of any suggestions which have been refused out right. I do know of many which have been put on the "to do" lists and will very likely appear once there are sufficient resources available to put them in place. I'm extremely pleased the only "agenda" I have found is to make the site as complete, useful, accurate and interesting a resource as can be created while keeping it as efficient and cost effective as it must remain. I, for one, am proud that I have had the opportunity to view HMF as it has evolved from its early days to what we see today and have loved participating as a volunteer on the site. I honestly believe that the part I have played over the years has enriched my own rose life and I can now interact with rose lovers from around the world. Kim

Good question to ask here on the Antique Rose Forum, Aimee! I enjoyed reading the answers of other ORG lovers and discovered some really exciting roses this way for myself! Here is my input: Hybrid Teas: Anna Pavlova. This one is a real gem in my opinion that found its way into my garden by accident. I do believe it is a rarely grown HT even though it was just released in 1981, that deserves more attention. Very beautifully formed, pale pink, full bloom and a surprisingly strong damask fragrance to die for. Frederic Mistral. A winner in my garden, light warm pink color and strong fragrance. Vigorous grower. Memorial Day. Deep pink color, huge blooms with a very intense perfume. Moonstone. Huge and I mean really huge classic white HT blooms with a pink edge. Very good cut flower. Unfortunately I only can smell a very faint scent. Mr. Lincoln. Dark red, that fades to blue-ish red, which I love, with a super strong fragrance. If you are looking for a red rose to give to the very special person in your life, this is the one. Pope John Paul II. My favorite white modern HT. The flowers are humongous and the fragrance knocks your socks of and is wafting. Vigorous rose in my garden that has been never without flowers since the first flush this year. Floribundas: Iceberg and Iceberg, climbing. I love them because they are so floriferous here in SoCa. Always give you a reliable punch of white color, where you need it. Only flaw in my garden susceptible to mildew at certain times of the year, but the advantages outweigh this drawback. Nimbus. Very unusual flower color. Brownish-mauve at times. It is a very special interesting rose, that I am sure will not be loved by everyone, but if you are into unusual colors it might be the one for you. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Silvery shine on cool pink flowers that open in a very elegant way. Grandifloras: Sweetness. Relatively new introduction. Produces very beautiful lavender colored blooms with a strong fragrance. What stands out for me is that this rose is completely healthy in my garden. That is very rare for a lavender colored rose, which are known to be disease prone. Shrub Roses: Belindas Dream. Very awesome, full pink flowers. Strong fragrance. Cymbeline. Older David Austin rose with a very unusual elegant almost pink-grayish color, that is hard to describe. Eden Rose 88/Pierre de Ronsard. To me one of the most beautiful modern roses with an old-fashioned look. Flowers are large, cupped and very full. Color is a creamy white with pink in the center. Even though many people claim that this rose has no scent, I can clearly detect a pleasant, mild, fruity, fragrance. Pretty Jessica. Small bush with exquisite, clear pink, very cupped, flowers. I like that this rose doesn't get the monster size of many other David Austin roses. Scepter'd Isle. Very elegant, pale pink, cupped shaped, flowers with a strong myrrh fragrance. It shows it yellow stamens in a very charming way, when the flower gets older. My plant is still very young but so far I love it. The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild. Also new to me, but already won my heart over with its strong citrus fragrance and beautiful, pink (darker in the center), cupped shaped, blooms. The Prince. Another new arrival in my garden, but boy the very dark crimson flowers fading to a wonderful dark purple color of this rose are just outstanding. It looks almost like velvet and the intense fragrance is another nice addition to the already very impressive blooms. Christina