Jeri, I can *almost* smell SGM in those close ups, lol. I'm sure the bees are having a heyday.

John

Beautiful!

What a beautiful plant of "Secret Garden Musk Climber", Jeri! I'm growing mine as a free-standing shrub within the "sphere of influence" (roots, some shade) of an old olive tree, which, being tough, it puts up with admirably (really good bloom this year, oddly, considering what a lousy dry winter it was), but yours is downright glorious.

Well, this is two plants . . . And they must be a good 25 years old, now, so perhaps it's not a fair comparison? But I do love this rose, and anyone who grows it doesn't need to be told about the fragrance.

Thank you for those fantastic pics of bush-shots and close-up blooms. Your garden is very nice.

Ooooh, la la! Really nice photos, and SGMC in particular is magnificent.

Beautiful!

strawchicago z5 -- That's selective photography. You're not seeing the weeds, and the mostly-dead grass.

Regardless jeri, this is what a garden should look like!

Lovely to have these glimpses of your garden

Wow! These look wonderful! What a show they're putting on! I just wish we could smell them too.

Wondering how SGMC would do the northern end of 7b, eg here in NYC, Long Island? Anyone growing it here?

aerbk7b -- SGMC was found growing in the Sierra Foothills, so It seems certain to me to be able to tolerate some winter chill. This is the old plant at a home in the Sierra Foothills, blooming in late October.

I think if I were you, I'd give it a try.

Jeri - Thanks! I was wondering more about the different light levels here vs further south, or CA...?

AH! Well, that I wouldn't know. But this rose HAS to be at least part R. moschata. I'd give it a try.

Now I just have to find the space...Wish I could get rid of the neighbors’ weed Norway Maples and have enough sun for Mel’s Heritage

Thank you for sharing these pics Jeri! I remember you recommending SGMC when i was asking on this forum for recs for a fragrant climber (I ended up going with Renae...) but I still have SGMC on my one-day wish list! Your description of the fragrance alone has me sure I will grow it one day when I have the right spot....love!

aerbk7b -- Now . . . 'Mel's Heritage' . . . That's a different kettle of fish.

One of its parents is 'Crepuscule' . . . A friend lives in Sparks, NV, where she is 7a or 7b, and she has lost it twice. So while I think you could grow SGMC, likely not Mel's Heritage.

Hope that's not the case Jeri! Mine made it through with flying colors this past winter although it was just a very small cutting. It is now sending up some long canes. Our low this year was 8 degrees so not a normal 6A winter. Perhaps it is the rain we get that helps it survive. It also survived the prior winter in a pot with an Open Door when practically everything else died from the cold snap. That year the low was 12 degrees but it came after 90° days.

An additional aspect of "Secret Garden Musk Climber" is that it produces a lot of volunteer seedlings in my garden. Every hip seems to have at least one to several fat, viable seeds. I don't plant them, though -- they plant themselves, willy-nilly. So far, most of the offspring look like some variation (single-flowered, white, with maybe a hint of pink or yellow) of SGMC and with that scent. At least one has shown itself to be very drought tolerant, vigorous, and probably a climber (6' canes at several years old):

WAY COOL CATSPA!

What a difference location makes! In all the YEARS of messing with SGMC, it never self seeded anywhere. No pollen ever worked on it and its pollen was incredibly stingy on the MANY pollen seed mates I used it with. Peter Harris, a rose breeder friend back in West Virginia observed pollen I sent him and stated it "contained very few cells". He found it incredibly surprising it created any results at all.

Well, that's really interesting, Kim, that there should be such a difference and wondering what the influences are. I don't know as a pollen parent, but as a seed parent it's certainly prolific here. I just picked some hips and one had three viable-looking seeds in it and the other two and that's pretty typical.

Here's a very recent baby that's about 4" tall and had his first open bloom today (there are 6 petals, by the way):

Nearby roses as potential pollen donors include Grandmother's Hat, Jacques Cartier, Lyda Rose, Narrow Water, La Marne, Darlow's Enigma, Marie Pavie, Nastarana, Perle d'Or, and a mossy Centifolia-or-something found rose from MA (basically resembles Old Pink Moss). Oh, and Alba Odorata, which, while it HAS anthers, they do not look like they produce pollen. The first seedling I showed, above, has a pale glow of yellow in the center, especially when it first opens.

COOL!

@catspa_zone9sunset14 climate variation isn't unusual. In the hot interior areas of SoCal, Iceberg won't set hips, Neither will Mermaid and you will be hard pressed to find any sexual parts to Rosarium Uetersen in the inland valley heat. I had been growing and selling Uetersen for some time when I encountered it in a coastal garden. It looked so familiar but I couldn't quite identify it. Jeri told me I SHOULD recognize it as she new I had it. Inland, it was a powder puff (like Colonial White/Sombreuil-NOT) only in Peter Max dayglo poster paint coral pink. At the coast, it was a deeply cupped, open flower in soft coral pink FULL of golden stamen and pollen. Grow Iceberg and Mermaid at the cold, damp coast and Iceberg is a fruit source. Every flower forms an orange hip. Mermaid sets them all over the plant. Of course, none of Mermaid's seeds germinate, but they form and a number of them contain seeds. I obtained many self set hips from SGMC, even here in chilly, damp Santa Maria, and they contained from 0 to 3 seed per hip. VERY few of them germinated and the resulting seedlings were weak and incredibly prone to mildew. That was in both Zone 10a Sunset 23 and Zone 9b Sunset 15. Here, if I want to plant Iceberg seeds, all I need to do is walk around the neighborhood. If they aren't dead headed, the bushes are FULL of self set hips. In the Valleys? Nope. It's too hot and the flowers simply dry up and fry.

Always great to hear what you know and have observed, Kim! The seedling in the first photo was heavily, heavily mildewed this spring (to the point of me thinking, "so much for you"), but has since snapped out of it (the 100+F days we had a couple of weeks ago probably put paid to that, especially as it is on a south-facing slope next to the reflected heat of the street, driveway and sidewalk). So far, it is the only seedling that has attained any size at all; none of the rest have gotten past a few inches tall (for whatever reason -- I see them when they bloom, but don't much keep track of them after that and most disappear), though all the flowers have looked much like SGMC's. So, what you say sounds consistent.

Phenotype plasticity certainly adds to plant puzzles and your examples in rose varieties are informative. As an ecologist, I once did a complete floristic survey of a 2,000-acre training area on an Army base, including an area of existing vegetation that had been mowed for decade upon decade to make a helicopter landing area. I found all the usual species of the surrounding grasslands within that area, except that each one was miniaturized and fully mature, blooming, and setting seed at about 1" tall -- many, many years of mowing had selected for itty-bitty individuals, such that every dimension specified in the floral keys and manual were all but irrelevant.

I will have to try deliberately planting a tranche of SGMC's self-set seedlings this fall and see what happens.

Thank you, catspa! Don't you wonder what the seedlings might do in better conditions with more reliable water? The best results I obtained from SGMC pollen was using Miss Lowe as seed parent. The offspring are all white to dark pink and single. I gave two of them to Jeri and have three (I think) still here. I love your "unnatural selection" observations on the Army base helicopter pad! Very interesting! Too bad some weren't collected and introduced. Imagine being able to grow natives which are better sized to smaller gardens.

One of those seedlings of Kim's . . .

I think I would be more excited to try growing them all on, Kim, if the seedlings' flowers weren't all single, white spittin' images of SGMC -- now, a nice pink one, like your Miss Lowe cross that you gave to Jeri, that would be something...

On the other hand, my vigorous SGMC seedling is interesting (but for the hopefully transient PM) because, despite the shrub itself being very, very similar to SGMC (leaves, prickles, overall structure) and the flowers single and white, the truss is much larger than SGMC's (it's only had one so far, but 50 flowers -- remains to be seen if it repeats!) while the flowers themselves are just a little smaller than those of SGMC and have that pale yellow/ivory tinge in the center, the SGMC scent, and nice stamens. What most amazes me is that I only found it late last year when I removed a group of Salvia clevelandii it was growing among to plant something else, so it got to a good size with extremely little dry season irrigation and entirely on its own -- a real survivor. Handy for droughts and such. It gets a little water once a week now and it's like it's on steroids. Never fertilized. Rosa minutifolia is in the same bed and they seem to tolerate the same conditions.

The adjective that most often came to mind as I observed and worked through the helicopter landing pad vegetation was "lilliputian" -- a complete landscape but existing at an entirely different scale than the world outside it, like in Gulliver's Travels -- a bit weird. There would be potential there, too, for model train and fairy house native landscaping ;-).

Jeri - oh well i can but dream. But curious why HMF lists Mel’s as 6a or warmer if it’s really more tender?

A larger truss of smaller flowers, particularly with some other tones involved, presuming the scent is there, sounds marvelous! I can imagine the lilliputian natives for a fairy landscape and train. That would be FUN! @aerbk7b the HMF database uses 6a as the default setting. Until someone provides the information it is more or less tender and it's changed, it will continue showing 6a.

aerbk7b -- I suppose these things aren't cast in concrete, and maybe your conditions are different. But my friend is a pretty experienced rosarian, and she's tried twice. I just felt I'd be remiss not to share that.

Jeri — I wasn’t doubting you (and friend’s report) at all - just the opposite! Happy to be here learning from you and others.

No problem. I was just trying to forestall disappointment.

aerbk7b -- I went and asked. My friend's garden is 6a/6b. So you may be OK after all.

I must be on the cusp or we didn't have as cold of winter this past year as other times. We'll see what happens in the future.

Jeri - wow - thank you! Now I just have to convince my neighbor to take down their weed Norway Maples so we’d have enough sun.