Among the ones from your list I have experienced, I would say that Roseraie de l’Hay, Autumn Damask, Gertrude Jekyll and Lady Emma Hamilton are reliably strong and wonderful in the fragrance department. Madame Isaac Pereire and Louise Odier are also very pleasant.

Every nose is different and mine has trouble detecting fragrance from most gallica roses. I have always loved the huge, sumptuous and luxuriant blooms produced by Charles de Mills, but I could only ever detect a very slight perfume. Others find it very fragrant.

I have never grown or seen the others on your list, so hopefully others will chime in with their input.

I never got any fragrance from Just Joey and I grew it for about 5 years. St. Ethelburga has a wonderful fragrance to its blooms. Very old rose fragrance.

@rosecanadian I saw on another site that the joey wasnt strongly fragrant so thanks for confirming that. @Chris Martins Zone6a Chicago I appreciate all the great info! If you had to narrow down to the top 3 from those you mentioned in your comment, as far as the strength of the fragrance, which would you say? I am looking for ones that could be smelled from a distance...

JK, roses with a strong scent and roses that will waft their scent are two special categories that don’t always overlap. Many roses will waft when the correct conditions are met (dozens/hundreds of blooms open at once, high humidity, etc) but very few will do it consistently under a wide variety of conditions. Of your current list, I suspect only the rugosa hybrid Roseraie de l‘Hay is a frequent wafter.

These are roses that, in my experience, will have a fragrance that will carry:

Bolero

Blush Noisette

Marie Pavie

Rosa moschata

Life of the Party

Souvenir de St Anne’s

Sweet Chariot

Madame Plantier

Quite a few rugosa hybrids

Not all of these are suitable for all conditions or all climates. Where do you garden? What is your zone?

@Chris Martins Zone6a Chicago good point, thank you. I am in western new york zone 6A. I usually cut a lot of them and bring them inside so I guess I should be asking which have the strongest fragrance to smell up a room as a cut flower. Although I love ones strong enough to waft that you can smell as you walk by. Id take suggestions on either!

I suspect Gertrude Jekyll and Generous Gardener don’t last long in vase but I only grew them for one year. Both had light to moderate fragrance to my nose.

We were at a nursery today and all agreed that the Easy Spirit rose smelled delicious so I ended up buying one. Flower stems seem strong and the petals not as delicate as some of the David Austin roses.

sbrklyn brings up a good point. If you are primarily growing roses to cut and bring indoors, you'll want roses that are good for cutting. Madame Isaac Pereire for example, usually doesn't have long cutting stems, blooming mostly on short laterals. Charles de Mills is a once bloomer, so if you are planning on cutting flowers all summer, you may want to pass on this one. Gertrude Jekyll is VERY thorny, so if you are cutting for indoor use, make sure you have good gloves and a thorn stripper (although gloves help, the thorns still catch and shred leaves and petals and make for difficult arranging).

@noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque) thanks for all that helpful information- i suspect by your comments that your user name is very suitable for you haha....I have never smelled a rose i havent liked the scent of, and theres no way for me to smell these rose varieties before buying unfortunately...thanks for telling me which make the best cut flowers- very helpful! I dont care much if the stems are good for cutting but certainly care if they dont last long as a cut flower or only have a short blooming time and dont repeat. do you have any opinions on mccartney rose? or grande dame?