Sonbie -- This was in the A.C. Postel Garden, across the street from the Mission? Up near the eucalyptus, by the stone wall? If so, it SHOULD be 'Etoile de Lyon.' I planted those roses, and though it was a long time ago, I don't recall SdPN being there. But I AM positive that EdL was there. Here is a very poor photo of Etoile. It's only beginning to open, but you can see the color of the rose -- NOT the coppery color of SdPN -- and the look of the leaves. The leaves are an important clue, because they're quite distinctive, or so I think. Jeri

Niels, I've been growing this lovely rose for slightly less than 10 years and I'm afraid that might disqualify me, but I hope you'll overlook this minor defect. She's reputed to be a sport from Mlle. Hedda Kledderstump, although this has been hotly (and in my estimation) wrongly disputed from a usually knowledgeable rosarian from Blsk. I think the coloration is somewhat misleading in his frigid climate zone. I don't belong to a royal rose society (the only royalty we have here is Her Serene Highness Courtney Love and Princess-in-Waiting Lindsey Lohan). However, I do boast of a Ph of 20,000 and am eagerly waiting to hear from the Guiness Book of Soil Records. I believe I've got that category sewed up. I do want to point out that michaelg's little article in Trailer Trash has been shamelessly borrowed from my work "The Alliterative Insinuations of Spurious Allegations Regarding Splash O'Sunshine's Purported Transmorgification of SdmDQ. It's a feeble effort on his part but I'm afraid some less astute rosarions may be taken in by his cleverly worded ruse. I hope I've cleared up any little misconceptions that may have crept into the TRUE origns of said rose. I don't quite have the aphid population in the desired range but believe me when I say I'm working at this non-stop. The grasshopper population is veering nicely toward prescribed levels and I believe I will soon meet most if not all your criteria. Sincerely, Ingrid (published author of many, many articles in many journals other than Trailer Trash)

I sort of had a Rose de Rescht a couple of years ago. I lived in an apartment and so did not have a garden (in fact, I am now retired and gardening for the first time in my life). But I had a friend there who had an arrangement with the apartment house management whereby she designed and did the work on various garden spaces around the place. I have had a love of OGRs for years - that is, I went to the places where they grew and read books and sighed over pictures of them - so I asked my friend if she would like to grow one. I said I would buy it if she would grow it. She was all for it, so we picked one out from a book I had - I basically deferred to her in the choosing, as I figured that she knew what the problems were, i.e., space, growing conditions, etc. So in the end, we got Rose de Rescht. We got it from an "own-root" mail order nursery, and I must say it grew really well. It did the suckering others have mentioned the second year in the ground. I loved the blossoms, but was less happy with the shape - it was rather rigidly vertical, and most of the old roses I had seen had a more spreading, graceful shape. I see, by the way, that some of the other posters do have a more graceful look to their bushes. It also didn't seem to have much fragrance, and it's supposed to have quite a bit - although I didn't mind about that, because the allure of these old roses for me is really visual. It never seemed to get BS, or much of anything else, but of course we are in inland California, where the climate in the summer is dry and hot. I have a fond recollection of RdR, because it was such a Dream Realized for me. But if I were to get a rose now, I would not get that one. I lean more toward something like Souvenir de la Malmaison (actually, I LOVE Gloire de Dijon, but will never in my life have the scope for it).

I got SdBB last yr from Pickering. It was in a big pot for a yr, and I recently planted it in the ground in one of my DA beds to replace one that died. As I recall from last yr, it got thrips reeeeeeally bad! This season it didn't get them quite as bad tho, but it only bloomed once before I put it in the ground. It kinda went into dormancy after that. Not sure why. The blooms are lovely and large, but they blow pretty fast. I have really warm temps, so maybe it would be better in the cooler climates. I dunno. We'll see how it does next season, after it's been in the ground for a yr. This is the one bloom I got this yr: