PUPG again. You can really see the range of colors here. Really beautiful.

Yes, it is. Variation in color like this makes a beautiful rose even more beautiful.

Lindsey

Aaah, so many beautiful roses and I imagine their lovely old rose scent.

Regarding Camaieux, what are it's best growing conditions?

I have one growing in a pot a for over 6 years and it's never bloomed. I'm here in Southern California. I suspect it needs cold period for blooms that South Ca doesn't offer.

@aztcqn I think it’s safe to say that your Gallica isn’t blooming because, as you suspected, it doesn’t get enough chill hours in the winter. For many true Gallicas, it’s an absolute requirement.

A few Gallicas from DD's photo excursion with me this morning.

'De la Maitre-Ecole' in the jungle that passes for the back of the garden. Large, loose blooms that start dusky pink and pass through magenta to take on shades of lavender and gray; and then the petals fall cleanly. Taller and somewhat more erect than many Gallicas; suckers; gets a bit of mildew, which bothers neither the rose nor me. Here's a closeup, the color pretty correct:

Have I posted pics of this rose before? I notice I have photos of it from two years ago.

Here is a shot of 'Tuscany' with a peony, same jungle:

The rose may be redder than in this photo. I confess to not being able to distinguish between 'Tuscany', 'Tuscany Superb, and 'Haddington', all of which grow in the garden, or at least, plants that arrived bearing those names do. This is suckering all over: I need to dig out the suckers and find them a home somewhere on the property.

An outlier: 'Dupontii', which I excuse including because the most usual ancestry given for it is musk rose crossed with Gallica. (I believe the musk rose; not so sure about the Gallica.) A great beauty, not easily captured in a photo:

I'm there to give the scale. I looked at all the photos of it on HMF, and not one of them conveyed how lovely this rose is, with its downy gray green foliage, milk white flowers with golden centers and touched with pink, and the clusters of pinkish-orange hips that form in fall. Fragrant. I think that with support it would climb. Here is a closeup:

Below is 'Marie Louise', a most beautiful rose, not that it grows that well for me. It's not classed as a Gallica, but that's what it looks like in my opinion. Alas, my plant shows no disposition to sucker, and it's been in place many years.

Finally, a thicket of 'Gloire de France' and 'De la Maitre-Ecole' just coming into flower:

Not a good photo, I'm afraid. 'Gloire de France had a lead of several years on 'De la Maitre-Ecole', the darker of the two varieties seen here, which I inserted as a break from all the pale-to-mid-pinks of the roses in the area. Below is a close shot of the same area, with a white clematis growing through.

I think the Maitre can hold his own. These are growing on the most miserable ground imaginable, heavy dank clay one step removed from sedimentary rock, and in considerable shade. They don't care.

Thank you Melissa (and your daugther) for letting us see your lovely garden! The size of the place seems overwhelming even in photos. I wish I had space for great big thickets and shrubs like you have.

I really liked Dupontii and had a look on HMF. I will never grow it in my garden because of its size, but it looks very pretty. The leaves in particular.

I am looking more and more at leaves, overall shape of bush etc. than at flowers when I consider buying a new rose. I guess my tastes are evolving... But I still can't resist a purple or burgundy rose when I see one. I really hope to see flowers on my baby Tuscany in a few weeks.

I enjoyed your pictures, Melissa. What a lovely, restful garden you have. How do you control these thickets and keep them from becoming overrun with weeds? I cut and discarded many suckers in my garden yesterday to restore order and effect a separation between varieties. You seem to have achieved beauty and order as well as exuberance and abundance--what an admirable and enviable combination.

Lindsey

Thanks, Mette! Enjoy your roses as they come into bloom. The flowers of roses are of course essential, but much of their beauty and interest for me lies in the character of foliage, canes, hips, growth habit, all going far beyond blooms.

Lindsey, it comes at the price of a lot of work! In fact, I'm behind on everything and wondering if I can keep up even minimally. DH is eighty-six and still mowing every day during grass season, which is now. As to weeds, I come through now and then and pull them, not all, but enough so the roses don't get choked. We're on the cusp of summer, when the annual grass matures, the ugly and obstinate weeds of summer begin, fungal disease reaches its height, and the garden becomes, in short, a mess. The thicket of 'Gloire de France' and 'De la Maitre-Ecole' is in a cool shady spot and so is starting late, but I didn't post photos of another rampant planting because it had passed its peak and was looking quite untidy. 'Gloire de France' grows so densely it has fair weed-suppressing power, but that's unusual for a rose. As to separation, I can't always manage it. I rely to some extent on the roses being strong enough to compete with each other, but weaker varieties are at risk. I suppose that just contributes to the character of the garden.

I'm glad you like the shade garden. I too think it's beautiful, at least, when the grass is mowed.

Thank you, Melissa. I suspected that many hours lie behind your wonderful garden.

June 1st begins meteorological summer here in Virginia although people in the US commonly say that summer begins on the solstice. May set records for dry weather here which has suppressed growth of weeds and grass somewhat but not entirely. I am trying now to get the OGR section back in order before the onset of hot weather.

I appreciate your comments about roses taking care of themselves--that has been my view, too, but I am trying to restrain the unusually aggressive tendencies of Tuscany and La Belle Sultane, and it seems to me that Apothecary and maybe a couple of other varieties do their part in keeping the weeds down.

I love shade and have always tried to walk or stand in the shade as much possible when I am outside. I am grateful for any rose that can perform reasonably well in shaded parts of the garden.

Lindsey

Two different stages of Song of the Stars. This rose would be so much better if I let it live in the ground where it wants to be -- it clearly doesn't love being in a container, but it still produces astonishingly beautiful blooms.

My Grandma's "Old Shop Rose" -- an unidentified passalong rose handed down in my family for an undetermined amount of time. Carol if you still want a piece of this I'll try to get it to you when I get to Portland this summer... but it does sucker like mad so you might rethink that. ;)

K S 8b Seattle Some of those pictures (the last in particular) remind me a little of a rose I have--found by a friend growing along a county road. Mine has a mottled look and I think it is probably a variety of the old double, marbled Gallica. Sometimes the flower form is more reminiscent of a Centifolia, at other times it opens flat and shows a bright yellow center. Forms hips and suckers--a nice, sturdy rose. Could be there are clusters of closely-related look-alikes that have naturalized and spread from seed over the years.

Lindsey

My Song of the Stars is also blooming. Made even spottier by rain droplets.

My first bloom on Ellen Tofflemire does not disappoint.

More intense color from PUPG

Those 'Song of the Stars photos are beautiful! I love spotted roses!

Lindsey, good luck in getting your maintenance done. I love shade, which there is far too little of in the big garden. It started out as as lean meadow and every tree has come since we began working there, so there are few trees of any size. I have this obstinate belief, or perhaps, fantasy, that if we had a good population of fair-sized trees in the garden, they would help keep down the weeds and generally improve conditions for the roses. I certainly noticed this last week, during a period of warm weather, how quickly the roses crisped in the sun. ALL our roses do better with some shade. Not only shade, but the cooling effect of trees and the protection they offer from wind would be useful. Naturally I too appreciate shade in the summer, and that's one of the reasons we've planted so many trees. My aim is to have corridors of shade everywhere I go in the garden.

We're in the latter stage of bloom of the once-flowering old roses, in the cooler parts of the garden, and the ramblers are in their glory. Pretty good.

Melissa--I'm slowly restoring order.--still have a few suckers to sort in one area. I made the mistake of admiring the pretty confusion they presented while in bloom and failing to mark each variety to make decisions about what to remove later. I want to clear all of the very aggressive Violacea out of the space allotted to Duchesse de Montebello. I'm somewhat more tolerant of the marbled Gallica and Apothecary which is one of the last left blooming at the end of the season.

In this latitude any temperature above 70 or 75 seems to cause roses to fry at midday. From mid to late June until early August, a combination of heat and Japanese beetles will usually prevent repeat bloomers from doing anything worthy of note. The first signs of fall are visible here to careful observers by the end of July, and summer dormancy ends about mid August as the angle of the sun declines and the nights become generally cooler.

Lindsey

Hi again, Gallica lovers! Apologies for my delayed replies. I had to step away from the forum to finish up my daughter’s school year and get her online summer school set up.

Mettebee, I took some photos of more of my TS hedge. I’ll post what I have. The last couple of years have been crazy around my place, so TS hasn’t been pruned. My usual routine is to do a post bloom tidy up and shortening. I trim the longer canes by 1/4 and deadhead the others because my TS doesn’t set hips. TS is planted against our sunroom wall, and I like to keep the front toward the yard shorter and the back toward the house taller.

Alana, thank you for the update. You are a trooper! I’ll email soon.

Chris, your PUPG and E Tofflemire are delicious! I love seeing and comparing PB roses with you, across the contiguous US. Your garden inspires me, and I am adding a few more irises because of your lovely photos. I missed photographing my SotS this year. Yours is wonderful! The raindrops are a delightful addition to the spots.

Melissa, please thank your DD again for taking pics! It is so much fun to see the roses you have so eloquently desribed. Your collection is amazing!

Carol

KS,

Thank you so much for remembering! I’d love a snip of your Old Shop Rose to grow in a big pot alongside my pots of Charles de Mills and other world domination Gallicas. Do you still have my email?

Your SotS is exquisite! I am so glad you posted photos. I missed photographing mine before our unprecedented heat wave blew up the blooms. Whew! The PNW is definitely getting hotter.

Carol

Mettebee, these are not the best photos of the TS hedge, but maybe they’ll at least give you some idea of what TS looks like when grown this way. Carol

TS hedge:

TS hedge:

Just click on TS hedge photos to enlarge them.

My very last bloom for the season.

Carol--What a beautiful hedge. What are approximate dimensions? Is Tuscany Superb upright by nature or do you do something to keep it upright? Do you have trouble with weeds? What about suckers?

Lindsey

Hi, Lindsey. Thank you so much! My small hedge covers the area in front of a bay window. The bed is about 8’ long and 4’ deep. Everything in my yard is tiny, even my hedges. Ha, ha. My TS is fairly upright, and I keep it to around 4‘-4.5’ tall in back and 3.5’ in front. I have steel fencing around the front of all the beds in our back garden to keep our large rough collie out of the plants. My roses can lean a bit on the fencing if needed, but TS isn’t super floppy; it does arch with the weight of the flowers. I support all my Gallicas and most other small-medium OGR shrubs with either tall U-shaped plant stakes or fencing. The big ones have tripods, trellises and arches supporting them. Most weeds don’t grow through the dense canes, only through the areas where TS is filling in. I just pull or trowel the others. I shovel prune the suckers, pot them up and either fill in the empty patches in the hedge or pass along the starts. Carol

Rosa Mundi. Gosh, I adore this candy striped rose! So many RM admirers have asked for starts that my mother ship has become a bit skimpy. I need to give her a rest and let her build up again.

A young Gloire de France from a very kind and generous forum member. Indescribably exquisite!

Belle sans Flatterie

And a heart-shaped bloom. It’s so nice when our roses say, ”I love you!”

The Apothecary‘s Rose

Baby Tricolore de Flandre also given to me by a very generous and thoughtful forum friend.

I am very tardy posting these. My first two blooms of the season from Ellen Tofflemire, the only ones I managed to photograph this year. I missed photographing her fuller, later blooms, and I didn’t even catch her artistic self turning deep plum in a photo. Fortunately, others on this thread have shared their lovely blooms of ET! HMF states her fragrance is moderate. I think ET is VERY fragrant! Carol

For Alana: Orpheline de Juillet

Because I know OdJ is a favorite of yours, I wanted to include it even though mine is still young and growing in a pot in my baby rose nursery. OdJ is about to size up to a 5 gallon, though, and after she grows into that, I will introduce this purple beauty to garden soil. Yay!

Carol

@portlandmysteryrose Oh, Carol, thank you so much for the photos of your TS hedge! And the other roses too - you have so many beauties.

I only have one Gallica to share at the moment, as my Charles de Mills and Tuscany (not Superb) are young plants still in bud.

It has been a strange spring and summer so far, cold and rainy in April-May, hot and humid for 2 weeks in June - and now it's raining again. Plants are growing like crazy and I have given up on most of the weeding ;-)

This is (possibly) Aimiable Amie, growing well this year with lots of buds. It's in for a move when I figure out where to put it - it needs to be kept in bounds as it is own root.

Last one is to show you how everything is growing like mad - salvia officinalis, oregano and ground elder in flower are all competing for space :)

MetteBee, you are so welcome! I wish I had gotten better shots for you. Life suddenly became a little hectic at the start of the month.

Your A Amie is absolutely delicious! How is the scent? I read a member comment on the Belle sans Flatterie section of HMF that suggests ’Aimable Amie', 'Belle Sans Flatterie' and 'Louis van Tyll' may be the same rose in commerce. (Citing JJS in Denmark.) I wish we could compare our 2 roses. When our plants mature, maybe we can create a comparison post. Did you collect your Amie from a cutting or receive it as a labeled nursery rose? My Belle sans F is cutting grown from a very experienced rosarian here in the Pacific NW, but I’ll have to ask her about positive IDs of the 3 potentially identical Gallicas in commerce and whether she has seen evidence of 3 distinct cultivars or great similarity and possibly 3 labels for one rose. The fact you are in Sweden and I am in the US would make a comparison even more interesting.

Your herb garden is wonderful! It looks so charming, like something from a favorite cottage garden book. I think I spend about a tenth of my gardening maintenance hours slicing Gallica sprouts to keep my roses more or less in bounds. Sigh. But honestly, I can’t think of anything I’d rather suffer for than a magnificent Gallica. Ha, ha!

I look forward to seeing your TS and Charles de Mills! My TS is done for the year and my Charles is but an infant and not blooming yet.

Carol

portlandmysteryrose... Did you get your BsF from Claire? She very kindly gave me one about 3 years ago and it's really coming into its' own this year.I have it in a pot as my garden is small and I'm concerned re the suckering.If I had a large property I'd definitely let it run free. She also gave me a Capitaine John Ingram whose suckers have reached the pot perimeter, another beauty, the colour is breathtaking.

Yes, Smithdale. How great we are both growing Claire’s BsF and CJI! She is so kind! Mine are still potted, too, but I am boldly letting a few running OGRs loose after getting back up to speed in my current garden. Tuscany Superb has been loose for 10-15 years. I just whack away at the runners. I am thinking BsF might be anither OGR that I am going to set free. She is a gorgeous thing in the garden! I am boldly setting Cardinal de Richelieu loose to duke it out with Botzaris and company. But I am debating myself over CJI. I need a dark OGR in front of what will be a fence covered with Annie Laurie McDowell. Maybe CJI, maybe Nightmoss, or…. Any suggestions? Carol

All of these pictures are so very wonderful! Carol your ODJ id positively scrumptious! I loved seeing all the photos. Tricolore de Flandre was one of my favorites! I've been trying so long to get it. RVR never has it instock. If you have already emailed, I missed it, otgerwise let me know , so I can be on the lookout and don't overlook it! Thanks everyone for all the lovely photos of my most favorite class of roses :)

Hey, Alana.

I haven’t had a chance to write and catch up yet, but I will! 😊

I am so glad you popped into the Gallica thread again. I am thinking of putting my Orpheline in some shade and wondering how much shade yours is growing in. I read that she’ll take some shade and that her blooms benefit from a bit of protection from the sun.

I have a teeny, tiny, baby Tricolore, and if you are still looking when mine grows up and becomes rootable, I can propagate a plant for you. Carol

I grow three gallicas (Tuscany Superb, Rosa Mundi, La Belle Sultane) one damask (Ispahan), and one alba (Alba Maxima). They are all finished blooming. We had a decent bloom this year but the recent heat wave finished off the last lingering roses. Just today (Friday) I did the annual summer pruning of the once-blooming OGRs. Actually I had already pruned Rambling Rector. It took quite a heavy hit when the tree fell on the fence, but now it is pruned for the year as well.

Carol my ODJ is in a partially sun/shaded area. It receives filtered sun through trees and is glorious every year.

I would like to see more pictures of 'Tuscany', which seems harder to track down to 'Tuscany Superb'. I have 'Superb', one of my all-time favorites, which I treasure for its fabulous jewel-like color and not too vigorous growth (a plus in my small garden).

In an ideal world, however, I would have liked to have been able to obtain 'Tuscany,' since it is my impression that 'Tuscany' has somewhat smaller leaves and more visible golden stamens, giving it an even more Medieval look.

'Tuscany' on Helpmefind: https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.293836

This is supposedly "Tuscany" but I don't grow Tuscany Superb, so I cannot compare them. Very satisfied with the flowers and foliage so far, I hope the leaves stay healthy since the flowering period is so short.

It is hard to tell. Hard to photograph, also. https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=21.120999

I have both 'Tuscany Superb' and 'Tuscany'. If you observe both side-by-side, you can see a difference: 'Tuscany Superb' is larger in all its parts: leaves, flowers. And it has fewer petals by nearly half. Generally, the flowers on 'Tuscany' do not exceed 2 or maybe 2.5 inches.

'Tuscany':

@MetteBee_Copenhagen8b Your rose looks more like 'Tuscany Superb' to me. Are the blooms at least 3 inches across, maybe 4? If so, that's more likely Tuscany Superb'.

Paul's picture looks just like my Tuscany. I don't have Tuscany Superb for a comparison.

Lindsey

@User thank you for clarifying the difference between the two Tuscanys! I guess that my specimen is Tuscany Superb as the flowers are more than 3 inches across.

It was bought as a bareroot Tuscany from a (cheap) nursery in Holland that I have not used before. My usual, local rose nursery would probably not have sent the wrong rose. It just goes to show...

I'm still thinking about the right rose for my low front yard hedge even though the roses that are already there (Schneewitchen) look great this year. They just don't speak to me the way most antiques do. Good suggestions for 2-4 foot rose hedge (reflowering or once-flowering) are very welcome!

@MetteBee_Copenhagen8b I suspect your rose is 'Tuscany Superb', yes. The petal count and rather full arrangement of petals is typical of 'TS'.

I think its likely fairly common for nurseries who don't know any better, to distribute 'Tuscany Superb' as simply 'Tuscany', treating it like an abbreviation of the full name, not realizing there is a distinct variety named 'Tuscany'. I have rarely seen plants of 'Tuscany' offered for sale that were not actually 'TS'.

Both my 'Tuscany Superb' and 'Tuscany' came from Pickering Nurseries 20 years ago.

Sigh. I wish 'Tuscany' were easier to come by. Edit: Greenmantle supposedly has it.

Thank you all for the interesting questions and discussion involving T and TS!

Paul, thank you for your photo and description. I 100% agree that MetteBee has TS. And Monarda your TS is lovely! TS is my absolute favorite rose. Ever. T is difficult to get and seems to be really mixed up with TS in commerce.

Paul’s photo is a great reference! From a distance, T’s flowers resemble a yellow stamen-exposed variety like La Belle Sultane. Up close the blooms are usually a few petals fuller than La Belle. TS, on the other hand, is quite fluffy, even when exposing its stamens and even taking into account petal count variation and the age of individual blooms. Carol

I have La Belle Sultane which to a casual observer could easily be mistaken for Tuscany. I did not know Tuscany and Tuscany Superb were so often confused in commerce. I suppose I was fortunate to get Tuscany when I ordered it.

Lindsey

'La Belle Sultane' is much taller than 'Tuscany Superb' and, I presume, than 'Tuscany'. This discussion and the accompanying photos have just about convinced me that my 'Tuscany' is in fact 'Tuscany Superb', as I've long suspected. Also my 'Haddington' looks like TS. Well, it's a good rose in any case. I've been collecting and potting up straying suckers of TS and have a notion of planting them out this fall in a spot where they can roam and offer competition to the weeds currently colonizing the space. It should make for a happier world.

La Belle Sultane is taller than Tuscany, partly perhaps because it is more upright--at least mine seems so. Both spread aggressively and cannot be confined in pots. I have two pots I plan to move in fall.

Lindsey