Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and a beautiful scent depends on the sniffer. I agree that the strongest of fragrant roses are not necessarily the most beautiful. I find the ones that are often described as strong, have a tactile component to them, like sandalwood and vetiver feel prickly to me, ammonia and horseradish is sharp, and alcohol is astringent, naphthalene is prickly and burning. Likewise, the roses that are described as strongest often (not always) have some of these components. Sometimes these components make for a pleasant combination, like wasabi peas or spicy salsa, oaky notes in wine, or peat in whisky, but sometimes they do not. But I digress. I can’t resist smelling most roses. Even the ones that I don’t enjoy. But here are the ones that come to mind as the roses that I can’t keep sampling, if they are available. Some are only in my memory though. In no particular order.
Madame Isaac Pereire. No, I don’t think it is the strongest fragrance, but the fragrance is exquisitely balanced. Despite being a rich fragrance, it is all sweetness and softness. There is no sharpness, no harshness, not prickly at all.
Jude the Obscure. This is a rose that if there is a flower even close to being open, even if it is at ground level, I will make the effort, lie on the ground if I have to, to smell it, again and again. Straw described it as guava and ripe grapefruit. I’d say that was accurate, although the fruits that came to my mind were mango as you bite into it and the sticky sweet juice dribbles down your face, mixed with passionfruit. In any case, it is fruity, and tropical fruity. Not a traditional rose fragrance at all, but heavenly.
Alnwick Castle. I know that everyone does not agree with me on this one, as my friends visiting do not, but to me it is pure raspberry sorbet. Not the cheap store-brand, but to be specific, Italian sorbetto. If you get the Talenti sorbetto, and let it melt slowly on your tongue, that’s what it smells like to me. My raspberry obsessed spouse agrees. That must be why we get along.
Bolero. If a rose can smell like a dessert, this one is pastry. It is a marshmallow creme on a vanilla Napoleon, while floating on a pond among the night blooming waterlilies. Give me more.
Evelyn. My first experience when sniffing Evelyn immediately brought to mind sun ripened peaches. Not nectarines, but peaches, ripe and warm in the sun. It reminded me of going to a peach orchard while they were at peak ripeness, and the fruit falling into my hands, and of course the gorging on the still-warm fruit once we got back home.
Lady Hillingdon. I may have been swayed by the color, but my nose told me that this was cantaloupe, pure and simple. When I sniffed it at the San Jose rose garden, I made sure that this was the last one I sniffed as I left, my family waiting impatiently for me to get my fill.
Mister Lincoln/Chrysler Imperial. These two smell the same to me, and they are the pinnacle of traditional rose fragrance to my nose. Yes, there is the strong component of sandalwood, and also litchi. Just decadent, in the same way that chocolate truffles are decadent. I gave a cut flower from my mother’s garden to my grade school teacher, and I could smell it from were I sat half-way back in the room.
Gruss an Coburg. I’m not sure if this one was so impressive or not, since I only smelled it on one occasion. But that once left an indelible impression in my mind that this rose was one of those at the top of the fragrance list. I was heartbroken to leave this one at the nursery, many years ago, when I had no garden.
Iceberg. Although viewed as lowly, the distinctive honey fragrance is one that I fell in love with first. It isn’t the honeyed sweet baclava fragrance of Isfahan, but more of a wildflower honey. Common as it may be, it is one I must sniff repeatedly.
I’m sure there are more, but these are the first that come to mind.
Q
Fragrant Clematis
Q