How is the repeat on Comte?

Straw - you have such a good memory!! I don't know how you remembered that I have Jacques Cartier. LOL This is its 2nd year in my yard (I think)...so I'm excited to see how the fragrance goes. Right now it has about 10 buds. It wasn't bothered at all by my pH problems. Thankfully. LOL Your Comte roses are what roses should be like!! So beautiful!!! Ooh!!! So many blooms on your ZD!!! I love raspberry fragrance on roses!!

I would have to say it is a toss up between the Always tea rose and the at last or strike it rich rose. The Always tea rose I dedicated it to my late mother as she liked roses. I am sure she would love this one. Got mine from Lowes and after 4 or 5 years it is still going strong with beautiful big red roses on it. Found they are too big to be put in a rose bowl so end up putting them in a vase. Bit of trivia with this one it is a popular choice for Valentine's Day from the Florist as a cut rose. As for the orange rose I am not sure which one is in the main garden. I think it is the At last rose?? This one is Orangey. All I know is when I was seeing to the knockout one and the shield I could smell its perfumed scent from them without even having to bend down and smell them!!! I will know better which one is which when they bloom. This is the Always rose.

I can see why that would be popular for the Florists trade! You do it justice in your garden! I've always read that it is very hard to grow florists roses well because they are meant to be pampered in a greenhouse. I think you have the touch.

Karen F: Thanks for the info. on At Last and Always rose, what planting zone are you in? Thanks.

Vaporvac: Comte de Chambord repeats very well, 3 flushes in my short zone 5 summer.

Carol (rosecanadian): Which is your best rose that you can smell far away?

Nancy: When I planted Zeph. I removed all rocks down to 2 feet deep, I got too tired to fix my clay so I put THE ENTIRE bag of Menards' Master-Garden soil for flowers ($6 per huge bag) into the planting hole, then topped with my black clay.

Zeph was stingy in 1st spring, gave me 4 blooms. Then it bloomed a bit more in 2nd, more in 3rd, and more in 4th. Mine is 6th-year-own-root with 100+ blooms this year.

Karen - love that big red rose!

Straw - 100+ blooms!!! Oh wow!!! I don't have any roses that I can smell unless I put my nose close to the rose. Calgary is very dry...that could be why. :)

I would say the two best at that (in our experience here in SoCal) would be

'Mel's Heritage'

and

"Secret Garden Musk Climber"

Jeri - incredible!!!

When Eyes for You ramps up, it wafts splendidly. Blue for You and Autumn Damask both also spread far and wide.

Perfume Breeze and Life of the Party are high on my wafting list.

Roseseek!!! - GASP!!!! I loooove the colors of your Eyes for You!!!! GASP!!!

Straw, here in central MI Darlow's Enigma grows from 4' tall to 12' tall. It seems to depend on moisture -- the two that are planted in evenly moist areas (not wet, just always evenly moist) grow four to five canes that are very long and draped over small trees. The six others usually die down to about 6" or so every winter, and then make multiple (8-12) canes that reach about four feet tall every summer. I have multiples of this rose because it is a constant bloomer & wafter -- it has that sweet multiflora scent that carries and supports all other scents in the garden.

Right now I have it in a bouquet of Sarah Bernhardt peonies and valerian -- the whole house is redolent with the scent of early summer!

Thank you, rosesmi5a for the info. on Darlow's Enigma.

rosesmi5a - oh, I love your description of your house redolent with the scent of early summer!!! :) :)

@rosecanadian I wish you could SMELL IT! This and Blue for You have the same scent that I used to love from Carolyn Supinger's (from Sequoia Nursery) spiced Honey Crisp apples. She made all manner of fruit compotes, jellies and jams and won at the Fairs with them. She would send home a jar of those magnificent apples and these two smell just like them. I've tried holding the aging petals inside after collecting their pollen but they are TOO highly scented and drive us both out of the house. Even the drying anthers and pollen hit that just right "sweet spot" of temperature and humidity and suddenly it's as if a bottle of perfume has broken somewhere in the house. Fortunately, it subsides as soon as something changes so whatever compound it is causing the scent either blows out or stops volitilizing. When it hits, even a room away, it's STRONG.

How cool!!! I loved reading this! What do people who don't like gardening talk about. LOL

@roseseek does Blue for You last once it is cut for the vase. Thanks. Sharon

@sharon2079 I wish I could tell you. I don't cut flowers for the house at all.

sharon: To check for info. about any rose (shade tolerance, heat tolerance, vase life), click on the ratings-tab in HMF, see below for Blue for you (low rating on vase-life):

https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.40525.0&tab=34

I put in ratings in HMF for all the 134 own-root roses that I grew. Like most people, I'm generous with my rating, if it's BELOW AVERAGE, then I give a good-rating, and I don't give a FAIR-rating unless I have a really bad experience in that area.

@strawchicago z5 thank you I did not even know that page existed in helpmefind. I learned something new

Straw, thank you for the information.

Straw, i have several darlows enigmas and how big they get here in Elgin, Il is usually a direct result of how deep the snow cover was, and how cold the wi ter was. This year, we had some snow and nothing below -10 degrees, the bushes started off at about 4 feet tall. I am guessing they will get to around 7 or 8 feet tall and at least that wide

This one is in full sun, so it remains upright, picture was taken today, i expect it to grow another couple feet tall and wide. I am 5'8".

Thank you, Al .. that would be too big for me. I'm asking Roses Unlimited for Lyda Rose (partial shade). Years ago that died in poor drainage clay and I miss its sweet scent.

Definitely Memorial Day, it gets me every time

Kristine - that's wonderful!!! I love Memorial Day!! It must smell wonderful with all of those blooms!

Carol, I think you have grown memorial day? It's very fragrant. I don't grow it but noted it as 1 of the top fragrant roses at a regional rose garden. Kristine, what a gorgeous picture! I wish we could compare in terms of blackspot pressure. I am sure garden I visit sprays but it's tough to judge what really does well. @sharon2079, when looking at the ratings Be sure to notice how many people have contributed. It's based on contribution so someone may have a rose that does poorly in their area and they are the only person rating. However for you it made do really well. If I see a lot of ratings and they're all good Then that is a good indication. I'm sure you look at all of the comments also as well as the gardens they're grown in.

Years ago, I think it was the summer of. 2002 I was meandering around Oaklands public rose garden ( now named Morcom park amphitheater of roses) and I was drawn to the west side of The Florentine garden, which is planted with Old Roses. There in the corner growing in quite a bit of shade were two plants of R. moschata, a rose that fascinates me, because it's been grown in England since at least the mid-1500's and it was grown in Spain and Portugal before that. Although considered to be a wild rose species there are no extant plants in the wild anywhere.

Now I have a R, moschata in my "Moonlight White Garden". in the very center, winning pride of placement for its' gorgeous foliage, wafting scent, and darling little white roses. It blooms here from May through mid-November. The scent reminds me of a crushed vanilla pod blended with true musk. I wish I could make an essential oil out of the blooms.

Lux.

Lux - you make the fragrance sound wonderful, even though I hate the smell of vanilla (except in baking)...you make me want to smell it. :)

Vaporvac - yes, I have Memorial Day. I love this rose!!!

Memorial Day is a magnificent thing. It has impressed me from its introduction as the spiritual descendant of the old Sweet Surrender, only with strong peduncles (no hanging heads) and chronic disease. The incredible scent and gorgeous blooms are shared traits. https://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.6068

It's a rose I always want to have. :) :)

Al -- thank you for the photo of the whole bush and you for a height check. That is one healthy floriferous rose plant! What is the rose with pink flowers behind you? It looks healthy too!

Hi Rosesmi5a, the rose to my right is Therese Bugnet. It is fragrant, very winter hardy and one of my first to bloom. Its canes turn a pretty shade of red in the winter. I have a few of them and they seem to be susceptible to borers, or somethething that makes the older canes die back. This year, I am using

bayer systemic poured around the roots to see if that will help. This variety sends a lot of root runners as far as 10 feet away, it wants to take over.

Those pesky borers! They have killed more than their share of rugosas/rugosa hybrids here. I have used Bayer systemic for trees & shrubs on my magnolias when Magnolia scale attacked them. It provided a full year's protection!

Me too, Bayer systemic saved my royal star magnolias against scale a couple of years ago. I hope it works with my Therese Bugnet. I am also trying it on my Judd Viburnums which have some kind of weird malady where entire branches are dying.

If not limited by roses, southern magnolia, sweet olive, winter sweet, brugmansia, gardenia. these have great fragrance to me and definitely wafts.

roseswise: fun in the sun has very nice and strong fragrance. one of its parents are life of party, that haven been praised a lot in this thread. Julia Child after 2 years finally smells good and it wafts also in a rainy day!

I agree that Life of the Party wafts quite a bit. Another one that has taken me by surprise is Sophie’s Perpetual. Up close it smells of anise, lemon and old rose but it wafts a pure old rose scent several feet around the shrub.

Reading my above post from last year was quite informative because I thought we were having such an awful growing season with extreme heat. This spring has been worse--freak snowstorm in May, which broke a record set in 1964 (the only other year it has snowed here in May). Lots of damage to mainly trees. Today is set for the coldest Memorial Day on record--it's predicted a high of 49F. Previous record was 50F in 1980. Right now, at noon, it's 44F. Horrible damage to several roses due to winds and heavy rain. I had to remove about 1/4 of my giant Julia Child's canes, covered in buds, yesterday, due to center splitting. I was covered in cold water in the process. We couldn't use our front sidewalk. OK. Off topic. Obviously, nothing is wafting. Nothing is blooming. Most horrible spring I can remember. Last year was wonderful in comparison. Diane

I'm so sorry to hear that! We are very hot after 10" of rain for the month of may.

So sorry to hear about your weather, Diane. It's been crazy, and getting crazier. You are getting cold temperatures, and we've been getting mid 90's since early May, and it isn't usually that hot until June. We also haven't had a decent rain in more than 6 months. There have been a few little sprinkles, but nothing significant. Even the native plants in my yard have shriveled, and the wild spaces are mostly barren, with not even grass or the native plants growing but just staying dormant, not to mention blooming. I saw one cactus blooming with one flower and the prickly pear are blooming. The air is smoky with the fires here, fortunately the fires are contained for now. Marie Pavie (irrigated, of course), put out some wafting flowers, about a third of last year's show, and Bishop's Castle put out a wafting show that got fried by the 95 degree temperatures, 50 MPH winds, and single digit humidity. I suppose I could irrigate more, but I'm trying to conserve water.

Thank you, both for your kind thoughts. Nose, that sounds like the very worst. The winds alone would be bad enough, but with a drought and those temps--argh. I think we should move. Or at the very least, swear off taking photos to remind us of this weather.

Vapor, I can't imagine 10 inches of rain in a month. That's our good year's quota. It must be a jungle around your place. Diane

That is exactly what it is! I'm still trying to mow my lower level. I'm down there with the strimmer and scythe before I can get the mower down.helped I thought I would have help, but they didn't show so I'm on my own. I put it off too late. I've already mowed the rest of my lawn multiple times so you can imagine. Haven't even started weeding. The roses are in sane, however!

With respect to the question about roses that waft their fragrance, I've noticed that my Purple Pavement does this. And it's a wonderful scent.

Also- Moje Hammarburg, which is another Rugosa Hybrid wafts. Smells like Glade Air Freshener

Happy to announce that in our climate which is bone dry, terrible for carrying fragrance, Mme. Plantier does waft for me. Maybe not across the garden, but I can smell it from several feet away and it's a lovely fragrance.

Magpie - that lower bloom with the green pip in the middle is calling to me...you want to buy me...you want to buy me. LOL

@rosecanadian Yes, I love the green! Two close ups of Mme. Plantier, the creamy centered bloom is a fresh one from when the weather was a bit cooler, the all while is a bit of an older bloom.

Magpie, your Madame P is gorgeous. She sounds like a wonderful rose. Reminds me so much of my Madame Hardy, who is a favorite of mine. I'm so glad that yours is doing so well!

Magpie - it's strange, isn't it, for a rose to fade from cream to a bright white? It's heavenly!! I looked it up and it's from 1835. Love!!

@rosecanadian Is that weird? Lol I don't have a lot of white roses so I'm not sure if that's unusual. My Sally Holmes also starts out cream/peach and ends up white.

Okay...I thought it was weird. LOL Usually cream stays cream and white stays white as far as I know.

Thunderstorms today/tonight...slight chance of tornado...probably south of us. Tornado in June?? That's more like August if there's ever a possibility.

I watered today with my rainwater hose. I love seeing how it's helping my roses. :) :)