Heirloom Roses recently rescued Rose Rhapsody from oblivion; maybe they would do the same for this one, if they could be persuaded that a sufficient market exists for it. I imagine there are significant costs associated with securing right to propagate and sell from the current owner of the variety.

I first saw this rose in Bob Bauers garden in Salt Lake City in 2008 - and it was remarkable - I see that he on HMF writes in the comments:

"I have grown this rose for three years now and I love it. The blooms are always strikingly beautiful and fragrant. Dark reddish purple blooms with loads of petals appear in clusters on this upright bush which can easly attain 6 or 7 feet tall in a season after having been pruned down to 3 feet.

This is a rose that needs larger distribution! It is truly a great one, and I don't say that lightly.

I am here rooting for this rose. I am curious as to its ancestry and who hybridized it.

Bob Bauer"

In a press release from 2004 Jean Marion describe the rose:

The 777 Rose�s ancestry is well known to rose collectors as having some of the finest purple genes in the rose world. As expected, the 777 Rose color is rich and striking. Buds open from a velvety purple to a soft medium purple-red with a bright golden eye. It has deep green foliage, few thorns and is more pest and disease resistant than other roses.

As a Grandiflora, this strong vigorous plant supports up to ten stunning flowers on each long stem. It is an excellent long lasting cut flower with magnificent fragrance likened to the deep citrus like fragrance of a southern Magnolia.

And another HMF guest comments:

I have been growing 777 for two years now. The plant is vigorous and blooms throughout the season. The blooms were initially deep purple velvet, but are now just a disappointing crimson. The blooms are also more of a cupped rosette shape than the anticipated classic hybrid tea urn shape. However, the fragrance is as advertised - an exquisite, rich, old rose perfume.

(He he - hard to be dissapointed that a rose look too little like HT - but granted - the Rose on HMF is classified as a HT - this user too agree on the fragrance though!

I wish we could get a clear definition of the class "Grandiflora" - I also think of them as bigger, floribundas :-) and yes Queen Elizabeth is a grandiflora (Even though I much prefer Poulsens Astrid Lindgren - A truly great, healthy rose that becomes quite large (4-6 feet even in colder zones).

Hi Suzy (Campanula): Grandiflora are MUST-HAVES in zone 5a, since they are tall enough to sniff - while some Hybrid teas and floribundas are REALLY SHORT from winter-die back. Queen Elizabeth is perfect here - she's 3 feet tall in the spring, while others look like mini-roses.

You are looking at QE through modern eyes. At it's time, it was a break-through rose. It is rudely healthy in many climates and I think that is why it is still very popular.

Looking at the descendants list on HMF in the linage reports, there are over 1200 roses listed where Queen Elizabeth played a role in their parentage. If you see flaws in QE today, you can see that breeders have worked to improve the rose and bring forward its good qualities. Many of those roses have stood the test of time, too.

The term 'grandiflora' was invented for QE and accepted in the US because it's habit was nothing like a hybrid tea or a floribunda. (Of course, many roses don't fit any particular class perfectly.) In England and, I believe, the rest of the world, this term was not adopted as the roses were cluster blooming and therefore, floribundas. No need to create a special class. Just one of those things.

If a rose is classified as a 'grandiflora' in the US, it tells me a lot about the habit of the rose and how to site it. I don't have room for many roses of that particular class and I don't like the really tall roses because they are horrid to disbud in the spring to deter the rose curculios, but I do think I would like to find a source other than the one listed on HMF to grow '777'. I'd like to give the rose a try.

Smiles,
Lyn

The term has served only to muddle things up. Some hybridizers of good roses that meet the criteria for a Grandiflora classification have opted not to register the roses as such because that designation tends to have an adverse impact on sales. Case in point: Tom Carruth's 'Crystalline'. In my garden that HT out-Grandifloras QE by a mile!

Speaking of QE, here's a bit of rose trivia . . . Contrary to almost every published source of rose info, QE was NOT named for Elizabeth II, but for Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The rose was in pre-production for several years. The introducers lucked-out on 2 scores: (1) Elizabeth II ascended to the throne just before the rose was marketed, and (2) it was something of a fluke that the new queen and her mother shared the same name.