Gorgeous! Thanks for sharing. :) My little ALMcD is still too small to bloom -- I hope it is growing a bunch of roots right now!

Gorgeous, Carol! Of course disbudding is agonizing. Any delayed gratification is agonizing. But, it's worth it. You should smell it inside when you pull the flowers apart to harvest the pollen. My FINGERS smell like it! The trash can smells like the fermenting petals. Add some orange, grapefruit and tangerine peels from breakfast and it's the most wonderful smelling garbage can imaginable!

How long is the usual wait on Rogue Valley's waiting list? I'm trying to be patient, but the more I look at these photos, the less patient I am.

I'm not even sure they have it anymore, @flowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA. I honestly can't remember the last time they had it for sale.

I love these pictures. I was lucky enough to get one for me and one for my mom this year from Angel gardens. They are tiny but healthy and I am so excited. Flowers check with Pam at Angel gardens in case she still has any.

Thanks for the heads-up, Kim and Dianela. I will call tomorrow.

Own root here. This is a wonderful rose.

It always was for me, @Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR. It was slow to get going, but when all the "complaints" started rolling in about own root performance....

I am really sorry people do not have the ability to wait for a great rose to develop. This was not that hard for me because others had educated me about the antique Tea roses and the need to give them a little time. They are worth it too.

Kim, we are so happy to have ALM.

Thank you, Sheila! As am I!

Thank you Kim =) for such a wonderful rose. I have mine planted in a very large pot to be able to pamper her while she gets a bit larger.

Carol, so beautiful! one quick side note, is Maiden’s Blush the same as Great Maiden’s Blush?

Now, back to ALM, I have one coming this week from Angel Gardens. I am beyond excited!!! My plan is to see one bloom but then disbud the rest. I just gotta smell this rose for myself!

I've just heard back from Steve Singer at Wisconsin Roses. If you want an ALmD budded to seedling multiflora, please contact Steve at wiroses@gmail.com . Follow the instructions on his web site here. http://www.wiroses.com/order.html

He will discuss pricing, shipping, etc. with you. Once he's ready to bud and has all of the requests, he will let me know how many buds he requires and I will get them sent. He expects to bud in middle to late July, which means you need to have your requests in BEFORE mid July.

Thank you all for the beautiful ALM photos! Keep ’em coming!!

ALM is such a rare and special rose that I have removed my Madame Plantier to make room for her. Those of you who are familiar with my passionate obessession with OGRs—Albas in general and MP in particular— will know that my swapping MP for ALM is the highest praise I can heap on a rose! My MP went to a good home, though, a local gardener who is creating her first rose garden from scratch and filling it with OGRs and Austins grown from cuttings and pass alongs. Someday, I’ll make sure she is growing an ALM on her fence, too. 😊

Lynn, I am so glad you have an ALM arriving for your current garden. This rose is one of the loveliest I’ve ever grown, and I’ve grown some really magnificent cultivars! I can see why you’ve treasured ALM and Renae for so long. I am in love!

Strawberry, I feel your pain that the harsh winter-spring climate took down your original ALM. I used to garden in MN and always had crossed fingers when my roses began to emerge. I surely heard your cry of anguish all the way to OR! I am so happy that your replacement is growing well and hale in the soil you prepared for her! This is one, special rose!

Sheila and Diane, my own root is doing well, too. Yay! We should compare notes off and on. Sheila, yours is an inspiration! Diane, my baby ALM is about to upsize to 3 gallon pot. She is skipping a 2 gallon since she has really put on some size this spring. I may have to wait until fall for the repotting shock since the temps in Portland are rivaling AZ! How are temps down in the Rogue Valley area, Sheila?

FlowersMusic, I am wishing you all the best in acquiring an ALM!

Carol

Our Steelers,

Congratulations for your new ALM! 🎉 My own root is (knock wood) growing well and healthily in our climate. We’ll have to compare notes.

Maidens Blush: I think MB and GMB are basically the same, but GMB is a bit larger. I’ve grown both and planted both in others’ gardens. GMB seems to grow taller and makes a great arch rose. My current plant is a GMB and has more of an tree tree-like habit with semi stiff canes similar to R alba Semi Plena. The MBs I’ve grown were shorter and a bit bushier. My current GMB came from Palatine and is, like all my Palatine roses, VERY vigorous!

Carol

Kim, my 3 ALMs came from Steve at Wisconsin Roses, and both the grafted ones and my own root are wonderful! Steve is wonderful, too. 😊 The grafted ALMs are, of course, more vigorous, but all the ALMs are growing very well. Thank you so much for hooking me up with Wisconsin Roses! Your rose creation is giving me and two other local gardeners such joy!! Carol

Pam said to be sure to pot them up as soon as i get them (I also ordered Rosette Delizy) so I think I will keep them in containers until fall. Hopefully I have some good pictures to compare with yours next year!

Wonderful! Thank you, Carol. Yes ma'am, isn't Steve great? I'm delighted to be able to help support his rose business by making ALmD available through him.

Kim, what do you recommend? Own root or grafted? Most of my roses are own root, but I have a fair number of grafted on Dr. H and Multiflora. My soil is unhealthy looking grey, hard as cement, more rocks than soil, alkaline clay under an inch or so of grey dry talc, so I only mix a small amount of it with compost for planting.

HOUZZ is finally letting me attach photos! ALM opening bud. Beautiful, scalloped petals and watercolor shades of pink, lilac and blush! Excuse the dirt-covered rose gloves. Carol

I am hoping to attach more photos of ALM’s gorgeous flowers! For some reason, images on the forum have become heck for me to post.

I missed removing an ALM bud and our exceptionally hot temps caused it to open overnight. So, two fragrant flowers in my vase. Originally, this crazy, tiny baby plant was trying to flower with 9 buds! NINE!! ALM really wants to put on a show. I’d call her ”eager to please.”

Carol

@flowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA IF own root roses generally grow and perform well for you, and IF you have the intestinal fortitude to nurse a small plant into a vigorous one, and IF you think your climate and conditions support the slow-to-develop types, try own root. But, you're going to have to pay it MUCH more attention than a budded plant simply because of the extra vigor the stronger roots provide right off the start. Starting ALmD own root is like starting the yellow Tea Noisettes own root. GLACIALLY SLOW compared to 99% of the other own root moderns you'll encounter. It WILL root and it WILL grow, but it WILL be significantly slower and require MUCH more of your attention to keep it disbudded and properly attended to than a budded plant will. It's similar to adopting an infant or a very young puppy or kitten as opposed to a more developed child or animal. If you enjoy the "nursery" part of it, go own root. If time, energy and patience are at a premium (or non existent) go budded. Your description of your soil is concerning. How have multiflora budded plants performed for you?

The bottom photo shows off the delicate shallow vessel shape of the bloom and the slightly fuzzy stipules as well the lovely, elongated foliage.

Yes ma'am, THAT is the issue! She will bloom at the expense of growing, much like so many of the yellow Tea Noisettes and Climbing Teas insist upon doing.

I’ll be on top of disbudding all summer-fall, Kim! I can tell that ALM is going be relentless in her enthusiam. She’d gladly bloom herself to death like a tragic opera heroine ( I’m thinking Antonia from Tales of Hoffman). I have placed ALM’s pot just outside my kitchen door for daily bud checks and removals. Carol

"Antonia", marvelous! Yes ma'am, that's about it. Not AS much so as Grey Pearl or Fantan, but enough to keep her from GROWING.

At one point, I had three own-root ALM, all from Burlington, in my former desert garden. Two were received as bands and I believe one was a 1-gallon. Alm was the epitome of the sleep, creep, leap... and boy does it leap during its third year!! ALM was also very dry heat tolerant, which was a plus.

I know we are supposed to remove buds on bands... TBH, I NEVER do... but I try to adhere to the feeding weakly, weekly... so maybe that helps...

Great to know about creep and leap, Lynn!

Carol, 105 F here yesterday so of course our air conditioning went out last night. Tech coming over to fix we hope as we type.

I never did disbud and my plants are doing great. They are so adorable large and small. They look a lot more graceful than baby Tea roses.

Kim, multiflora does ok the first year, then its downhill. My soil is too dense and heavy for the small roots. Straw said planting in Miracle Grow Potting Soil should solve the problem. I added a significant amount of vermiculite to some roses on Multiflora and they are doing good. The other two I will dig up and replant as she suggested - after this heat wave passes. I wonder if ALM would do well in those conditions. I'm surprising myself by leaning toward grafted to Multiflora and starting her off in a pot of Miracle Grow Potting Soil, then transferring to her permanent home in the ground, also in Miracle Grow Potting Soil. Does that sound reasonable to you?

@flowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA "dense and heavy soil" sounds like clay to me. Vermiculite breaks down into clay as both are aluminum silicates. It seems to make more sense to me to add perlite to increase drainage, but if it worked, who am I to "fix it"? I can understand the idea of planting a plant in a bagged soil in the ground as that was how I grew Camellias and Gardenias in the Santa Clarita Valley. The soil and water were SO alkaline, excavating a huge hole and lining it with saturated peat, encapsulating the root ball, then covering everything with native soil worked for quite a few years, until the peat completely broke down. All bagged soils are more "organic" meaning they will eventually digest and disappear, leaving a hole where they were, causing the plants to settle and sink. Or, so they have when I've experimented trying such things. It's a large reason I stopped amending planting holes. The organics eventually digested away and the plants settled lower than I wanted them to be.

OMG, Sheila! 105 and AC out?! All 🤞 that it is getting fixed right now. This second. June 2021 is way too hot! PDX is going to hit 105 this weekend. I am scared of July and August.…

ALM more graceful than baby Teas—you can say that again! Teas are the original gawky ducklings into swans.

Carol

AC fixed now, Carol. It needed a capacitor. Good luck this weekend for you. No wonder Ingrid in So California went into hiding,

Whew! Thank goodness, Sheila.

Ingrid in hiding: No kidding, right? I hope she’s doing okay. Her region has a crazy new global warming kind of hot and dry.

Stay cool in the heat of the day! Cut some Tea roses for a vase and have some iced tea in a frosty glass.

Carol

Thank goodness it ONLY hit 72 here today! But, that's why we moved here.

Kim, yes, it's clay. I didn't know vermiculite turns into clay. I will definitely switch to perlite. I'm just experimenting and trying things I read about here. The areas where I have put down a layer of compost, then a layer of arborist wood chip mulch, is an entirely different kind of soil. Earthworms and dark crumbly tilth. The problem is, I haven't improved enough of my soil for the roses I buy.

Everyone I know in CA just digs a hole and plants the rose. My daughter in Pasadena thinks all the amending I do is excessive. When I lived in Northridge, I could plant in my soil successfully, but not here.

Your Camellias and Gardenias must have been a thing of beauty. I regret that I can't grow those here.

You can often just dig a hole and plant, but not in new developments. The state mandated seismically engineered soil prevents it. Those older lots are great for gardening but houses split up and fall down from the excessive shaking during quakes. Been there, TWICE! Now, we're on engineered soil where the only "gardening" consists of about 5" of "top soil" over physically compacted soil which has NO drainage, NO air space between the soil particles and is so hard, you can't dig in it. But, when the earth moves, the shock waves will pass quickly with little (if any) shaking because the soil is compacted to bed rock hardness. So, even though most of the area is sand, this is sand stone, which is why everything is canned. I do miss the soil at my parents' house near Chatsworth and Reseda in Northridge. Where did you live there?

Even if you do improve your soil, does it result in enough drainage? That's a difficulty of clay. You can excavate all you want (or are able to) but you often end up with a "bucket" of good stuff surrounded by hard stuff which doesn't permit the water to drain from it.

I am frequently surprised here to encounter azaleas, gardenias, camellias and hydrangeas planted in all day sun and they FLOURISH, flowering nearly all year! Remarkable how "Zone 9b" can vary so greatly!

Yeah, I find the whole "zone" stuff pretty lame. I don't know whether in this area of Tuscany we'd be a zone 8 or a 9, but I am sure that whichever it is, it's a totally different thing from the same zone in the southern east coast of the USA!

My ALMcD is own-root. I got it , potted , as a grafted rose from Bierkreek-as far as I know only they and the Polish nursery Rosaplant offer this treasure. I'd already killed off 2 Annies, so this time I was determined to be uber-careful.

My potted Annie , as all Annies do, wanted to bloom constantly instead of grow,and rootstock kept on trying to take over. I thought to try putting it out in my garden a few years ago, but luckily stopped myself; I guess I saw rootstock trying to sprout in the root-ball,and own-roots starting to come from the scion, so I re-potted. and grew it on. Two years ago I finally put the plant out, and-fingers crossed-so far, so good. I am coddling it -well, what counts as coddling in my garden, lol-continuing to water it. Yesterday,when I went to dis-bud I saw what looked like a strong new shoot! but it was a bit wilty, so I put up a shade cover. I feel it's worth it to go to extra trouble. Roses that want to bloom constantly just are going to be slow, perforce, but unlike some of the noisettes, Annie is completely healthy. I trust that in time it really will take off,as long as I'm willing to keep after it. I also wonder if perhaps the fact that the Annies in Europe might be slower for the simple reason that they started life in Holland and Poland, in climates way, way different from California...

@roseseek Thank you! I sent in my order to Steve at wisconsin roses. My own root from rose petals, may not make it. I am babying it, am afraid to move to a bigger pot as it is barely making any leaves or sending new shoots. It's in semi shade area where it gets only morning sun, and gets some fish fertilizer bi weekly. The good news is, it's still alive.

Fingers crossed for both of you!

Thank you :) @roseseek

You're welcome, @111plisa su!

Kim, I've never heard of seismically engineered soil. We left Northridge immediately after the quake and I don't think it exsited prior to that. We lived in the Porter Ranch portion of Northridge in the foothills of the Santa Susanas, above Chatsworth, between Tampa and Wilbur. Your parents house was not far from us. We were planning to move up here, and that just pushed our move sooner. Our mostly intact house - one of very few in our neighborhood that didn't have to be rebuilt from the studs out, sold fast. We had the coveted green form on our front door that indicated it was "safe to enter". Since there were tens of thousands rendered homeless, people were literally lined up to buy any available homes while theirs were being rebuilt.

This crazy awful soil here also has a layer of caliche a couple to 3' down, so we dig very big planting holes. My husband uses a heavy gauge 6' length of rebar, with a pointed end and a pick axe to break it up and also to leverage out the big river rocks. We always test the drainage before we plant, and where it drains very slowly, we know there is a layer of caliche he didn't dig down to. Yes, it is like planting in a bucket. That's one reason I'd rather hand water; so I can monitor the needs of each rose.

I just ordered Annie Laurie McDowell from Steve at Wisconsin Roses this afternoon. If anyone grows her in conditions like mine - dry climate, cold winters, hot summers, short season, poor alkaline soil, please advise me how your Annie is doing so I can know what to expect. I won't be disappointed that she'll be smaller than her potential, I know that from any climber I grow.

I know the area well, flowers! You might want to investigate if there is any kind of azalea/camellia mix you can easily obtain to help acidify the alkaline clay where you'll plant ALmD. Oak leaf mold, peat, that kind of good stuff, things you'd use to plant blueberries, too. If that kind of material can be incorporated in the top few inches so it breaks down and flushes through the alkaline soil, it will help make multiflora happier. You can keep mulching with whatever acidic material available to maintain those conditions. You wouldn't need as much as if you were trying to grow camellias, but just enough to help mellow out the alkaline clay.

This area is mainly sand. The whole valley is pretty much sand. After the quakes and all the damage, the State instituted engineered soil to mimic bed rock. When we added the patio cover, Santa Barbara County required 25" cube concrete footers on each post to secure the thing against the constant winds. I warned the installers about the engineered soil, but they still sent two, young men with pick axes and shovels. There are three posts, each with a 25" cube of concrete and those three holes took those two young men nearly EIGHT HOURS to manually dig. Literally. Oddly, water began collecting in the bottoms of the holes almost as quickly as they finished digging them, but roots don't penetrate into the soil. I used to deal with the Santa Clarita Urban Forest for street trees. They would purchase 24" boxed trees, excavate matching holes in the engineered soil and plug the holes with the root balls. Often, the trees are replaced after three or four years because the holes filled with water and the trees drowned. The soil is manually, physically compacted to be bed rock. Anything built in the state after about 1980 is on some sort of engineered soil, unless it was built on bed rock. The older builds which didn't suffer extreme damage were all due to being built on sold surfaces. The Encino house suffered nearly no damage because the ridge was stone and it was seated squarely on that stone. The newer things around it lost chimneys, walls, garages but not that old house. Other than being seismically stable, the other main advantage to not being able to dig holes is gophers HATE it. They are everywhere there is loose soil, but not in engineered areas. The city uses its parks as rainwater collection and percolation pools so more rainfall is recaptured than runs off into the ocean nine miles away. Those areas aren't engineered so the water absorbs quickly. The gophers LOVE them.

How frustrating that the bureaucrats won't listen to someone who knows what they're talking about and opt to hire inexperienced fellas who obviously don't know what they're doing. They could have at least checked out what you told them. And, those boxed trees are a sad story. Destined to die from the get go.

One reason our Northridge house didn't suffer like the neighbors is that our piece of land was not altered where most of the development was built on fill which became something like jello in the earthquake. You were fortunate to live on that solid stone ridge in Encino.

Poor gophers. Even if they could chew they're way through the engineered soil, there would be few roots to sustain them anyway, forcing them to vacate the area for leaner pastures in the parks.

Roses in pots works beautifully in southern California where they can stay out year round. I only have a few to move to the garage for winter, but it's a chore. And, worse is knowing when it's safe to bring them out again in spring.

I do use Rhododendron, Evergreen and Azalea Food on almost all my plants to help balance out my alkaline soil. We dump our fall harvest of shredded oak leaves around the garden. There is leaf mold in the pine bark mulch made from our own trees. Pine is isn't the best, but it's ours and the price is right. It's a bigger relief than you can imagine to know I'm on the right track.

I actually love Annie Laurie for all the excellent reasons mentioned here, except scent. I detect no scent whatsoever from it except a kind of green-plantiness. And I was not aware that anyone was getting perfume from it, unlike Teas which are variable as to who can smell tham and who cannot.

It is the featured rose at our entryway. I've auditioned several roses for the position over the years, and this is The One.

Thank you, Rosefolly! I'm delighted she enjoys your pride of position! How sad you don't perceive her scent. The neat foliage and lack of prickles were the first attractions for me, then she FLOWERED! Yes, a really pretty "face" but that SCENT. Wow!