Flowers, that's great collection of hybrid perpetuals! It looks like you have a way with them, so you definitely need to add Enfant de France!

OK, all of you are making me wish I would win the Lotto (of course, I would need to play to win--a minor point) so I could tear down the house next door to me so I could turn the garage into a dance floor and have more room to garden and have a hybrid perpetual bed of roses. Everyone's roses are so pretty! I can imagine dancing out in the evening with the scent of roses around me. So, so nice!

Thanks for the encouragement, John. I am definitely going to do that.

I will have to share photos from past years as none of my HPs are currently blooming (though some are about to). It has been a very strange year. Reine des Violettes was blooming in January this year (but I didn't think to snap any pics). Others that would be blooming now are just leafing out. Weird.

Oh, that Comtesse O'Gorman is just delicious! Beautiful rose. I hope you are able to get it into production.

I really.loved everyones Rose's but especially loved Mustbenuts Vicks Caprice! Absolutely beautiful!

Gorgeous HPs, everyone! All beautiful but Souvenir du Dr Jamain particularly caught my eye. “blooming in the shade” and “only 3-4 hours of sun”...Perhaps I can fit this one in somewhere...

Great post, John!

Reine des Violettes. From Miriam Wilkins garden. It is grafted.

Marchesa Boccella growing in 4 hours of sun. From Vintage.

Grandmother’s Hat. Grown from a 3 inch sucker from Rosefolly’s gorgeous plant. 3 years old now.

Jo

Such gorgeous photos! It's easy to see that the breeders of the hybrid perpetual roses were trying to create stunning blooms - just amazing colors and bloom forms. Thanks for sharing your photos!

Below are photos of the rose Burlington Roses sells as Rose du Roi. It's clearly a hybrid perpetual of some sort - not the real Portland rose - but really looks great in the garden, keeps on the small side for a hybrid perpetual, has been fairly healthy (just losing the odd leaf to blackspot but not defoliating), and will not stop blooming! I love the way the blooms open black-red and fade through several shades to a deep purple...and the bees and I both enjoy the exposed stamens.

Wow! Beautiful!

Burling is only about 60 miles from me. Someday I will have to do a field trip down there. Gorgeous!

Wow! What a great thread, John! It's sending us off into Magic Garden Fantasy Land--winning the lottery, dancing until dawn under the stars and rose boughs,.... Thank you, everyone, for the great photo shares. Keep 'em coming! :-)

John, Rose de Roi's ID/parentage/etc. certainly is a bit of a tangle. Whatever it is, it is beautiful! How's the fragrance today? Carol

Here are some shots of my mystery (HP?) rose from Heirloom. It looks so much like Jacques Cartier, but it only blooms once. It shoots straight up 10 feet or more in a V-shape. If it's hard pruned, it doesn't bloom until it shoots up another several feet the next year. Oh, well. Whatever it is, I love it. Yes, it's VERY fragrant! Does anyone recognize my description and photos? Carol

Carol, that really is a beautiful rose, and it's amazing how much it resembles Jacques Cartier! The Burlington Rose du Roi only has a light scent - a bit sweet, a bit damask, with a hint of...pine? Today everything in the garden is having trouble competing with the mock orange, Blush Noisette, Penelope and Marie Pavié. But what this mystery Rose du Roi lacks in scent, it makes up for in color and diminutive charm!

It's so dark red when it opens... I just took these photos at 1 PM, probably the worst time to photograph roses, especially in the red/purple color range! But it will give an idea of the strong color and the size of the shrub compared to the other plants. To be fair, this is only its second summer (in the ground), so maybe it will decide to be large one of these days.

Marie Pavié is the white rose, and Amanda Patenotte is the pink (who is also starting her second year in the ground, by way of comparison! She didn't even spend an extra year in a pot, because she was so large when Roses Unlimited sent her last year, I planted her right away).

The pink rose on the far right is Jacques Cartier:

Swamprose, did you put dog treats in your SdDJ? :-)

Mustbenuts, where did your VC come from? It's truly one of the most beautiful clones I've ever seen. It must be grown by a consummate gardener! Perhaps the nurseries should package your skills with every rose purchase. I'd be first in line! Carol

Carol, your mystery rose looks similar to Ispahan, a once blooming damask. Yes, very fragrant.

OMG, John! Your garden is so incredibly beautiful!! You really have an eye for composition. Your RdR's color is wonderfully rich! As you know, I'm a big fan of combining dark red-purple roses like RdR with pinks, blushes, whites and blues. I grow several roses which offer only slight fragrances, including my all time favorite, Tuscany Superb. In gardens that are filled with aromatic plants, it hardly matters if a few have light or undetectable scents. With those plants, it's all about color, habit, foliage shape and texture, evergreen tendencies, etc. RdR has so much going for it, but I'd fall for it from sheer wow of color! I'm sure Marie, Amanda and Jacques feel the same. :-) Carol

Carol, you are too kind! My Vick's Caprice is on its own root. I think (I have had it for about 5--6 years) that I purchased it from Rogue Valley in Oregon. It is a rose that will take its time to come into its own. He was threatened several times with the shovel and then he would slyly give me a bloom to forgive him. This year, he has really been prolific with the blooms only to have them fry with heat or the weather turn cold. It has been a crazy weather year. He is a playboy charmer who has me wrapped around his finger. I think he would love your weather up there in Oregon and do very well. I wish more folks would grow him. I saw a picture of him from someone on the rose boards here and fell in love at first sight. He was my first stripey rose and I still love him to death.

Thank you John! Yes the little guy is funny! He was actually looking for his ball, but the pose was just irresistible! My SdDrJ is nearly thornless! There are a few prickles on the more mature canes - you can see at far right. Great thread!!! I love seeing the variety of this class of roses!

Thank you for the info, Mustbenuts. I do love stripes! I have a young Ferdinand Pichard in my baby rose nursery, and I suspect VC would make another nice striped HP companion for my solid color roses (if you can call mad Gallicas solid). I agree that VC should be more widely grown. Carol

Oh sorry forgot to post picture of DrJ’s thorns, such as they are!

Humm - not posting for some reason. Let’s try again.

Swamp Rose, I was looking at the canes on my SdDJ (which I now suspect is some other rose!), and I couldn't find any canes with as few prickles as your have on yours. Since it's described as being thornless, I suspect you have the real deal, and I have a clever imposter. I'm sure there were hundreds of dark red hybrid perpetuals produced, so I guess it's not a surprise if there is a mislabeled SdDJ in commerce.

Does yours get fungal diseases? Mine gets a little blackspot on the most shaded leaves, but it's largely pretty healthy. I don't spray it...I just let the lower canes go bare and let a viticella clematis cover them! :)

John, that's about how my SdDr.J behaves, too, assuming my plant ID is correct. I think my canes match Swamprose's, but I'm going to double check tomorrow. My rose is young, but even so, I think the blooms on yours are fuller and slightly more cerise. I think I may prefer yours.... Carol

Carol, where did you get yours? Mine is from RVR...one of the first orders I made from them years ago. That's also the order where I received General Gallieni (I had ordered G. Nabonnand). Ah, well - luckily I love both of these roses!

John, I believe that my SdJ is RVR, too.

Flowersaremusic, I somehow lost my reply to you and just realized that it never posted. Ispahan is a really great guess and a definite two great minds moment! That was Sheila's guess, too. But I've grown Ispahan, and this isn't quite a match. I suspect that it's a HP of some kind. It really, really looks like a tall, awkward once blooming Jacques Cartier. If. it weren't for the stiff, shoot upright for the stars habit and the total lack of remontancy, I'd be certain my mystery truly is JC! Carol

Portlandmysteryrose, these mystery roses do keep us guessing and can be a tad frustrating, but the search for their identity is part of the fun. I agree with you that the blooms look exactly like Jacques Cartier, but with different growth habits.

'Gloire de Ducher' opened this morning... one of the few I have... I welcome this colour...

Egad! What amazing colors and form! Is it a large plant, Marlorena?

Thanks John... no, not at the moment, but it will be in time...well, as a short climber. I had to move it last year from a too shady spot to a sunnier one and it's doing really well, couldn't be more pleased with how it's taken... but it means I'm starting out again with it... I have about 20 buds to open for the first flush, which I'm delighted about..

Excellent! I hope you'll continue to post photos of it, Marlorena! It's a remarkable rose. I'm not sure why I haven't noticed it before - it appears to be available here, too.

Since most of the roses in this class would not do well here, they've been a bit in left field for me, but this thread reminded me of how utterly beautiful many roses in this group are. You hear complaints of scant rebloom, giant bushes with a few flowers stuck on top, disease problems and general ungainliness which makes them unfit for the modern garden, but these pictures show their beautiful side, the huge blooms and gorgeous colors. I'm so glad that some of you are still growing them. I've always lusted after Enfant de France but somehow never had the courage to try it. I wish now that I had, in a spot with afternoon shade.

Ingrid, when I read "scant rebloom, giant bushes with a few flowers stuck on top, disease problems and general ungainliness which makes them unfit for the modern garden", I thought, I've heard the same said of the David Austin roses, especially many of his early attempts. I suppose like most classes of roses, the HP's are a mixed bag of good and bad characters.

Baron Girod de l'Ain will likely be moving to a compost bin this year. In my garden - after many years and various attempts at culture, position (probably none of them ideal) and pruning - he has always fit your description. He was only really happy when I let him be a climber, but even then, the rebloom was sparse, small and at the tips of canes. I suspect if I planted him as the Victorians might have - in a formal bed in the middle of a lawn surrounded by bedding annuals - and pegged and pampered him, I'd get a good display...but my garden just isn't big enough, and I prefer a more natural shrub shape and planting scheme.

John, I think "mixed bag" is a good way to describe the HP's and, depending on their heritage, some can be smaller and more floriferious and others larger and more stingy. In that way they are like the Austins. For instance, you can't compare Gertrude Jekyll with Bishop's Castle, and I'll take the latter any time (actually, I have two). Careful selection would seem to be important, but all the roses I've seen here are absolutely gorgeous.

Exactly, Ingrid- that's why this forum is so helpful: we can compare notes and recommend what works for us. I was so surprised when Gertrude Jekyll was voted the most popular rose in the UK a couple of years ago. That's a rose that only stayed in my garden a few years. But there are Austin roses I would highly recommend (e.g. Tradescant or Charity 97) that are rarely heard of and difficult to find in commerce. WH Auden said, "Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered." I think the same holds true for old roses, and this is one of those places where we can remind each other of the roses that deserve to be remembered.

I come to this thread late -- HPs are not, after all, my best roses -- but of course, I could not live without "Grandmother's Hat" :

And I do love 'Tina Marie' :

And I would not be without "Old Town Novato" :

I only have one HP (or classified as Portland by some folks), Jacques Cartier. He came from Heirloom back in spring of 2016. He has grown so big (5'X5' at least) that he's going to eat the poor moss rose Kim Rupert in front of him. I will have to move Kim Rupert soon.

Carol, your mystery rose from Heirloom looks just like my Jacques Cartier (also from Heirloom), to my not very educated eyes. Mine has been reliably giving me fall rebloom though. However, since the weather for you in OR is so different from NJ, the plant may be responding quite differently.

-Lin

Grandmother's Hat is one of those roses that is so aptly named. I love roses that look like the millinery roses that embellished women's hats during the early part of the last century. From small or wide brims of wool felt to straw boaters, many were adorned with large flouncy, blousy roses. Appropriately called garden hats. Grandmother's Hat is just such a rose. Jeri, yours is a wonderful example.

They're all really gorgeous. Thanks for sharing!

Jeri I just love that you have Old Town Novato next to California poppy! My home state flower. Great color combo to boot.

John - so sorry for the delay to answer you; yes I’ve been getting black spot every year for this rose. It was purchased in 2014 from Hortico. I do not spray / I just pick off the infected leaves as I am able. So far none have appeared yet, but it’s still early yet.

My Jacques Cartier(or MB) is blooming! From Heirloom.

What an improvement over last years two blooms. This year it’s in even more shade, than before.

I had forgotten what an incredible scent this rose has. Amazing! Lisa

I just sat down here to rest my weary bones for a minute before going back outside where it's way too hot, and this absolutely beautiful photo of Jacques Cartier comes up first.

Lisa, is it the shade that gives your JC that mottled (in a good way!) appearance? It has more depth than mine that are just one shade of pink throughout. I am partial to roses that have that almost two toned look. Maybe I ought to move mine to a shady spot. Buying another one or two for the shade would be easier.

Woo-hoo! Your JC is gorgeous, Lisa. I just love this rose. It's about as perfect as pink OGRs get. I think JC has move a few notches ahead of Comte de Chambord on my Olympic Rose Chart. Carol

Copperopolis bar

Grandmas hat

Irene ford

Wow, garden nut! Amazing photo - I've never seen Grandmother's Hat looking so dark pink. It really is a fascinating rose. I have to find room for it in my garden!

Oh, I love Irene Ford and Grandmother’s Hat! They’re so beautiful! I’m not sure if all the shade caused my blooms to look this way. Mine is getting zero direct sun. Lisa

Baronne Prevost has been blooming consistently for the past 2? months or so. I find it difficult to get good pictures of her, especially in the bright sun. She’s been blooming mostly in clusters of about 5. They usually open at different times, so I can never bring myself to cut them, until the last buds of the cluster begin opening. By then, the first blooms are finished blooming. Today, I cut a few blooms left from such clusters, and put them in a small vase. I discovered that my phone captures Baronne Prevost’s color much better indoors! There’s non of that harsh neon color, I get in the sunlight. Here’s a few of her blooms from this morning.

Although this bloom looks more red here, (it’s not really). I like seeing her stamens. They remind me of some of my beloved Bourbon roses. Lisa

Beautiful photos, Lisa!! How tall & wide is Baronne Prevost in your garden?

John, my BP was about 4’ wide by 6’ tall in February, when I cut her back to have a drip system installed. She’d only been in the ground about a year, at that point, after spending her first year potted. I purchased BP as a band size. She’s back to 4 x 4 already, so I think she’d like to grow large here, just like everything else! :). Lisa

She’s in there somewhere! Lisa

I've just got back from a trip and was amazed to see Reine des Violettes greeting me with her blooms. I planted her just last year. The nursery (ARE) offered me a replacement in case it didn't make it through winter because it was too tiny and much younger than the roses they usually send. But look at her now! For some reason I often mistakenly think of RdV as a bourbon, but then have to remind myself that it's actually quite an amazing HP.