I bought a house last year (yay!) and it came with some poor abused roses in the back walkway (not large enough to count as a whole yard). One is a tall Red Hybrid Tea with Mister Lincoln-ish blooms, but no scent. I believe the lack of scent was because the poor plant got almost no direct sun. It struggled on and performed magnificently given its situation and then, around late July, my Mister Lincoln threw off a beautiful, full, four-quatered rose, like a Noisette.

Does anyone know what on earth happened?
Thank you all for all the wonderful advice you've posted all over these forums- I've found something someone said two or even three years ago can still be really, really helpful!

Jackie

"Quartered" rose blooms are divided into several sections with a lot of petals. I'll link to a photo of one below:

Gene Boerner used to check for fragrance in his seedlings by placing flowers under his hat where the heat and humidity from his head were higher, releasing the oils and alcohols from the blooms so he could smell them. Cutting your roses in bud, early in the day as they are beginning to open then allowing them to open in the house should permit you to check whether they possess and express scent and to what degree that scent can be detected by your nose. To mine, Mr. Lincoln is one of a handful of modern roses which always has a good nose full of smell, being very strong and lasting, where many others evaporate fairly quickly. It could well be where you are is too cool and/or wet for Lincoln's combination of oils and alcohols to be fully expressed on the "normal" days. He might require more heat to fully smell.

The only way to determine if others are going to smell strongly in your conditions is to smell them in similar situations. There have been several I'm used to either smelling well or not finding scent from, which have been fully the reverse when encountered in a friend's colder, wetter Torrance garden. The nose remained the same, but the conditions varied greatly. Kim