Andreajp, these are lovely photos and a beautiful look to aspire to. It's a good idea to choose from the roses at the cemetery - pretty much an opportunity to find guaranteed winners for your garden. The photos really excited me because my front garden is finally getting mature enough that Souv de la Malmaison and Mme Lombard are looking like one bush because ML is reaching out wide. I don't mind (yet), because I've long been an admirer of the thicket look. I tried to plant 6' on center (but sometimes not) which pretty much guarantees that teas will be overlapping some, so plan accordingly and be patient with the blank spaces for a few years. Like Jeri said, fill in with annuals. One word of advise if you use Purple Coneflowers (which I recommend). They are thugs root-wise so don't plant them under or even near the canopy of the rose. Since my roses are fairly disease resistant, I don't worry about air circulation, but being able to get to the roses for maintenance is important. Give yourself room to get to each rose from the front and the back. Make an alley behind the roses if you're planting against a fence. Then squeezing in to reach the sides, if they touch at maturity, isn't too bad unless you have a bad back and can't reach awkwardly. There are definite consequences to planting too close. And remember in Zone 9 they will get big and probably even huge. If those photos were taken in the spring flush, those bushes will be a mess by the end of the season. Can't wait to hear which ones you choose. Sherry Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

More pictures are needed in different stage of opening. In focus. And if the camera isn't capturing accurately describe the color. Also any history. It's a lovely dark pink, almost fluorescent on my monitor.

Thank you, Leo. I am thrilled that you have joined the forum. We actually met a couple of years ago and you graciously gave my friend and me a tour of this fantastic rose garden. You are not only a knowledgable and dedicated curator but also a gracious person. I mentioned you in my comment up on this thread. I posted the photo of this gorgeous rose on helpmefind.com and a couple of rosarians, as it were from Australia, contested that it's Mme de Watteville. I eventually had to remove the photo I posted there because I didn't want to cause any controversy and one HMF member felt very strongly that it was not Mme de Watteville. Either way it's gorgeous. I was so excited about the incredible roses you grow there that I enthusiastically posted on my visit to this garden twice on this forum: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4807667/visit-to-armstrong-park-rose-garden-nola https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4965219/new-orleans-rose-gardens-update-generals-noisettes-fairies BTW, I initiated that Louis Armstrong Rose Garden is included among the public gardens on helpmefind.com and provided them with the list as I saw them on tags during my visits in 2017 and 2018. If and when you have time, please take a look at that list and correct if any need be added or removed. The link is here: https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.25191&tab=32 Based on that list, a dedicated administrator provided the links for each rose in the garden: https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.25191&tab=2 General information with your name as the curator is here: https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=3.25191&tab=1 I will be in New Orleans later this summer and hope we'll have a chance to meet again. Thank you for the wonderful work you are doing preserving the roses.

Sheila, I studied this rose again, and several of the stalks definitely have the S shape that you mention as being characteristic of General S. In looking at your photos (thank you for these, by the way) I do really like General S, which seems to have a much more graceful form in addition to a prettier flower. For now, at least, I'll think of this rose as being General Schablikine. I'm glad that yours is not unusually large, although of course the teas just keep on growing for many years, and I'll try to keep it within bounds with gentle trimming when needed. I'll give myself plenty of time to grow fond of this rose. They so often change in character from what they look like when young, and it will be interesting to see it develop. The color is a bit more strident than I'd like, but I notice that yours is a much nicer color so there may be hope yet.