I believe we have a winner. Thank you so much!

Christopher, you are a treasure. How I miss seeing your beautiful garden with all its wonderful roses here. Hope you are keeping well and staying safe.

Just letting ya'll know she is ecstatic to have a name to put with the rose.

So cool!

That's just what I love to see this group do!

(And I had NO clue, because it's not something I can grow, here in "La La Land.")

Houzz is doing something weird… okay… that is not so unusual… but, maybe you see the duplicate reply from Christopher. I deleted my duplicated response, and it as well as the original disappeared. Word of caution, especially if you take the time to write a long detailed response to a post right now.

A 1799/ 1802 Centifolia in Texas. Those old roses do get around! The oldest of the references says it was believed to be a cross between a Centifolia and a China. If so, it must be one of the earliest since the Chinas didn't arrive in Europe until the 1790s.

Lyn, I think it's this latest weird/annoying Houzz thing, in which they've started reposting a comment at the top of the thread, labelling it 'Best Comment'... Seems to be based on number of Likes, or maybe just the first to appear, if there are no Likes so far.

Since the comment still appears in the main thread, it reads as a double-posting.. But, if you delete the original comment, both will disappear.

Although I'm sure your comment was indeed a wonderful one, it annoys me Houzz is deciding to label anyone's contribution as 'best'. I often 'Like' comments just to thank the poster, eg, for going to the trouble of posting a photograph - not because their comment was any better or worse than anyone else's contribution. And because most people now (due to more of Houzz's many unwanted past 'improvements') seem to have trouble posting more than one or two photos at a time and therefore have to post the rest as subsequent 'Comments', we have the ridiculous situation of someone having part of their own intended original post (ie with the rest of their photos) labelled as 'Best Comment', and appearing twice...

I miss Christopher's regular presence here too... would love to hear what you're up to these days, Christopher, with your own gorgeous garden, and the cemetery project - and something else you're referring to, I think, as 'work', where you have roses too, if I'm understanding correctly?

Shailer's Provence is gorgeous, isn't it! - I wasn't familiar with it either, but WAS thinking wildly 'Centifolia? - but thornless - with pointy leaves?' - I even googled Centifolia blanda, just in case there was such a thing...! Thank you Bellegallica for the explanation... Mr Shailer must have got busy fast, or his bees did...

Hi, all! My own garden is winding down, as I'll be moving the old roses to the cemetery when places for them become available. My landlord had to have work done in the front "yards" of my house and next door -- we're on the same lot, both owned by him -- and that meant ripping everything out from there. Roses went to the cemetery in Autumn, and I've been waiting for him to replace the sidewalk before putting things back together there, but then all the COVID-19 stuff happened, so it's just sitting there looking barren. The back needs attention and simplification, because spending so much time and energy on three gardens is wearing me down. Again, because of the COVID-19 stuff going on, I haven't been able to get it mulched, and it's not "picture-worthy" at the moment. Eventually, as the last of the roses move to the cemetery, I'll be making it a simpler garden, probably filling the gaps left by the roses with edible things. Since I'd like to move in the next couple of years, I want to leave nothing behind that I can't easily replace, and also leave it simpler for the landlord to maintain.

The cemetery is moving along slowly now, being as I changed jobs and don't have overlapping time there with Mark, who would drop wood chips for me to spread in the garden areas. When I was starting this, I had off on Mondays and Tuesdays, so we were better able to coordinate things. But this will be changing, since Ellie has asked if I'd be interested in working there part-time, and leaving my one-day-a-week restaurant job. This would mean that I'd be listed on the cemetery's employee insurance, and that would allow me to use some of the equipment to get things done when I'm there on the weekends, while Mark is off. Once the paperwork and finances are finalized -- again, delayed because of COVID-19 concerns -- I'll be able to do things like use the Kubota cart to move mulch myself, or use the pick-up truck for moving other things.

Over Winter, I ordered many, many packets of seed for date-appropriate perennials and self-seeding annuals, but, again, COVID-19 has delayed me getting that started. It's not for lack of time -- it's more because I'm leery of venturing into stores, but I found someplace nearby that carries the seed-starting mix I want, and allows for requesting and paying for it over the phone and drop-off at my car in the parking lot. I will be doing that tomorrow. In the meantime, bulbs planted last Autumn have been blooming in the beds I made in 2018 -- if you're on Facebook, I posted pictures in the album for the cemetery, and took some videos which seem to all go into the same "videos" album regardless of subject. I haven't uploaded them to the cemetery thread on the "other forum" -- maybe I should get that done this week.

Last year I started working at a public park, taking care of the rose garden there. That's my "work garden" -- 1 acre fenced, in a formal layout, with HTs, Floribundas, and Grandifloras in central beds, and various species, OGRs, and shrubs in the outer beds. One of my tasks at the end of 2019 was updating and reorganizing the garden's inventory, which is linked as a PDF on the rose garden page. I also put everything onto the HelpMeFind listing for the garden as well. If you look carefully, there are a handful of discrepancies -- the PDF file contains everything actually there, whereas the HelpMeFind listing reflects a few things that will be replaced, and a few new things that were ordered for this year. Since the latter is easier to update, I use that as a reference for the annual update of the PDF on the park page.

Working at the park has been a joy, even if also a bit exhausting. There are about 3,000 roses in there, and because my position wasn't filled for a couple of years, some big old species, OGRs, and shrubs in "the back forty" were in need of some work. They looked fine from the public's perspective along the paths, but when I'd get up close and personal with them, I saw things I wanted to clean up. My boss is amazing, and she had my job before me, but after being promoted to supervisor, she simply wasn't able to be in there as much as before. She did a great job of keeping it beautiful, but one has to prioritize when one isn't able to spend eight hours a day in there because there's so much else that needs to be done as supervisor for the team. And so now that there's one person dedicated to the garden again, those lower-on-the-list things have been getting checked off, bit by bit.

I'm actually rather proud of several areas in there which I've attacked, but unfortunately COVID-19 has come into play again -- the park was closed to the public as of last weekend, and the annual Rose Day Festival for June was cancelled, along with all other programs. On the one hand, this means that I have more time to focus on the picky stuff that might otherwise be lower on the list because I have to do things like keeping the paths clear after a storm, planting and tending to the annuals that won't be coming now because the park commission lost revenue from the closed golf courses and cancelled programs, or other considerations I'd have when I know people will be walking through the garden every day. But on the other hand, it means that what I get done won't get seen by the public for the big first flush, since it's possible the garden will stay closed until well after that.

Right now at my "work garden", the first of the early roses have buds that will probably start opening when I return on Monday -- things like the Spinosissimas and 'Canary Bird'. All the bedding roses have been pruned, thanks to the rest of my team and our one dedicated volunteer helping me out. I, of course, still want to be my fussy self and touch things up as I have time, but in terms of being "ready", the garden is there. Since I finally updated my cell phone, I'm once again able to take pictures regularly -- and they're much better quality now. I'll make another album of my "work garden" on Facebook and post them there. Posting pictures here has still been a bit of a headache for me.

Sorry to hijack the thread with this post, but I just wanted to answer what was asked about me.

:-)

~Christopher

Thank you for posting, Christopher. I do wish you would still post pics. of roses when they start blooming, even closeups, if you think the background is unpresentable. I know you must have many treasures. Though I realize you are probably very busy with all your projects.

I'm amazed by this posting. I just found this rose growing at an abandoned homesite, and was so surprised to find out what it is. It's just now opening the first flowers here, not far from Abilene. I'm wondering where yours were growing in Texas. It's surviving here on just rainfall, which is saying something in this dry area.