I grow roses for the lovely blooms. I don't have a count of how many are fragrant or not. When I'm looking to buy I look at the pictures and decided which ones take my fancy. If they're fragrant that's a plus but I don't make my decisions based on that. For example, Double Delight would still be a gorgeous rose even without the wonderful fragrance. And in sitting here thinking about it I realize that I do not a single rose in my garden strictly because it smells good. It has to look good first and foremost! An ugly rose is an ugly rose no matter how good it smells.

I am a person who honestly forgets to smell the roses and am often surprised to find out that a rose I have grown for years is fragrant.

I look for a prolific good plant with blooms that don't crisp in the high summer temps in my garden. I don't have to worry too much about disease because once the heat hits, that becomes a non-issue.

Since roses with thick petal substance can handle the heat in my garden best and I've been told they are less likely to have scent, I've given fragrance a lower priority to having a healthy plant.

I was very surprised to find that Fabulous! had a very strong scent when I cut some blooms for the house.

The photo in the link below was taken at twilight in July of last year. Temps had been in the triple digits for weeks and the rose did not go dormant during the summer and performed well through the whole season. That's the kind of rose I want in this garden.

Smiles,
Lyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Fabulous !

Lol, I don't grow ANY ugly roses, Seil. Perhaps I could have been clearer in what I am looking for in this thread. I would like to hear from folks, who mainly grow scented roses, about the unscented roses that are so outstanding in another way that they really enjoy growing them, as well. How many unscented roses do they allow in their mostly fragrant roses rose garden? And which ones are they making exceptions for? That is what I am very curious about. :)

Wow, Lyn, your photo of Fabulous! looks...well it looks just Fabulous! And the rose Fabulous! sounds super as well. Hmmm, this is turning into a different type of thread than what I had originally intended, but I am really enjoying it. Yes, this fun too! Guess I love seeing and hearing everything about the roses folks are growing.

Thanks! :)

I'm another one who grows for the beauty of the blooms and I also really like the "odd" roses. Many times people will ask me what a particular rose smells like, and I can honestly tell them I have no idea! LOL The only ones I know the scent of, are the ones that come of out the boxes they were shipped in blooming. For example...this week I received Scepter'd Isle (myrrh scent) and Grandmother's Hat (old rose scent)...both had blooms when I opened the boxes, and I can tell you exactly what they smell like! Other than that...it really doesn't matter to me :)

Tammy

Love it! Thanks, for sharing this with us, Tammy! :)

I love scent; it's high on my list of priorities. I don't grow roses much for cut flowers. My criteria is that I will have a scentless rose in my garden if it has qualities I value that no fragrant rose has. 'Mutabilis' gets in on this basis, and some gardeners claim that even it has a bit of fragrance. But I would never in this world have a scentless red Hybrid Tea in my garden, when there are so many fragrant varieties available.
De gustibus non disputandum.
Melissa

Couldn't agree with "An ugly rose is an ugly rose no matter how good it smells" more!! To be honest, roses only really have scent, bar a few exceptions, if you stick your nose right in the flower. For me, fragrance is not a massively important factor. More of an issue is, is it a swine to grow, and does it look good.

Dove Song, I'm on the same page as you - I also have a BIG thing about fragrance. But do have a handful of roses where I do not discern any fragrance, but am completely in awe of the blooms:

. Broadway - Orange, yellow, pink blend - constantly changing, great big gorgeous blooms. Super morpher - one day mostly orange/yellow, the next day mostly pink.
. Color Magic - I can't seem to capture the beauty of these blooms on camera. Huge, different shades of orange, visually one of my favorites, ever
. Cherry Parfait - What an awesome surprise, red and white floribunda
. Ingrid Bergman - One would think with all the gorgeous and intensely scented red roses, why would one have an unscented. Well, simply because she is PERFECT.
. Dream Come True - new for me last year, only had one bloom. But one of the prettiest I've ever seen.

Cherry Parfait:
{{gwi:258631}}

Broadway in her Pinker stage:
{{gwi:258632}}

Forgot about Miss All American Beauty. My photo doesn't do her justice, and this bloom is about a week old. I had put my hand in for size perspective - she has really big blooms (but you can't tell since I clearly have really big hands!)

{{gwi:258633}}

Fragrance is a huge criteria for my garden. The only roses I will allow w no fragrance have to have amazing blooms or a unique color. Non fragrant roses definitely get the less desirable locations too. I would say less than 10% of my roses have limited or no scent.

I suppose the question is directed to those who value scent very highly. In my garden, the only reason I would consider scent is if I'm trying to decide between 2 roses and all other factors are equal. Otherwise, I sit in the house and look out, or sit on the deck and look at them, and I'm indifferent as to whether a rose 40 feet away has a scent.

That said, I'd recommend La Marne and honestly I can't say whether it has a scent or not. But it does have one unique quality, which is the fact that it is always the last blooming plant in the garden. Well after all the other roses and all the other plants are gone in December, it's still blooming until we get a freeze. A little frost doesn't seem to bother it - just intensifies the color, which can be washed out in the summer heat. So for the duration of it's bloom period, I'd highly recommend it.

Black magic is beautiful - I have even seen it make nice garden plants too.

But I do choose highly fragrant roses - a garden with over 100 highly scented roses is wonderful - for 5-6 weeks when my front and back yard peak blooms - in june and july the air is filled with heavy sweet rose fragrance. I have one neighbour that says - it is too much! He claims that he sometimes hold his breath when walking past my house - in order not to suffocate ...

I also grow a lot of scented plants - some that releases their scent in the evening - scented plant are a must to me - it makes me so happy.

I do grow somce roses that are highly unsual and very beautiful - like eden climber - there is no substitute - for the big, heavy cabbage round roses - but they do not have much scent - but make a great garden plants. Other roses are not very fragrant up close - nor have very pretty individual blooms - but none the less are great garden plants produces a huge number of smaller flowers that also scents the air - like some musk roses like Ghislaine de Feligonde - Guirlande d'Amour. So scent is high on my priority list when choosing roses - I only grow Hybrid teas that are extremely scented and find that many are ugly, garden plants - but I grow them in my cutting garden so do not care as much for the growhabit - I want to cut heavenly scented hybrid teas - and enough of them in the right stages of blooom for cutting. Beauty is in the eyo of the beholder though ...

Wow, this thread is really going well! Harmony, your photos are great! I can really see why you enjoy growing these roses. Thanks everyone for your valuable input. It's been lots of fun reading your responses on this cloudy day! :~)

I, too, am more visually oriented. Even before I lost my sense of smell, I would always pick a rose by how it looked. That said, I do miss smelling them.
But, not every person smells them the same. I adored the scent of Mon Cheri but could not smell Double Delight (neither could DH.) On this forum, I was told Mon Cheri had little or no scent. Not true for me, when I could smell the roses!

I usually won't add a rose unless it is fragrant and reported to be VDR (very disease resistant). I allow no exceptions to the VDR requirement because I don't and I won't spray. I have very few that aren't at least lightly fragrant. In addition to the ones I posted in the thread below, there's a Buck and the single flowered rose I got last year. I'm not naming them because I can't judge either at all for a while. The single is not reported to be fragrant so I'm assuming that it isn't - hasn't bloomed yet; it is still too young. I got it for its color and the accounts of its floriferousness as well as because I'm hoping that it will convince me that it is the exception to my prejudice for full doubles. (Although I must admit that I love the photos of Jacqueline du Pre and Angel Gardens lists a single that is supposed to smell like tangerine that I wish I could whiff).

Here is a link that might be useful: verdict: excellent

Kathy, I am sorry that you miss smelling the roses, but I'm happy that you are visually oriented as over the years I have sooo enjoyed your photos on the Rose Gallery. I look forward to them every year! And I totally get what you're saying about many folks saying a certain rose has no scent, but to you it did. That has happened to me, too. :)

I think scent is very subjective. Some of the roses that I have purchased that are supposed to be very fragrant are just so so for me and others that are not supposed to be fragrant I can really smell. I wonder if zones have anything to do with it also?

Dream Come True is not supposed to have scent (as Harmnony said) but to me, it has the most wonderful fragrance! It smells like apricots-and it is always in bloom. I love this rose (despite its killer thorns).

I grow two roses that are not supposed to have scent-Bonica (light pink ever blooming little shrub) and Fame! (I think its a HT) a cerise rose that holds its color in our 100 degree heat.

I have a Zepherine climber, second year for me. I was expecting more fragrance...maybe she is just warming up.

I try to give my roses a shot, then they get "the warning" and then they get the axe. Its funny how some poor performing roses (on any level, bloom, scent, foliage) just worms their way into your heart and they become "the exception". And yes, Happy Child, I am speaking about you...

Quite a few. I grow the old HP Frau Karl Druschki mainly because I have an antique sign for it. It's supposed to be quite scentless and I can detect no scent but my son can. He has a terrific sense of smell. Many of my floribundas don't have much scent, including Bonica mentioned already. I grow them mostly for mass effect and edge the beds with scented perennials like lavender or throw a packet of annual seeds among them, such as Night-scented stock or night phlox, Zaluzianskya.

I used to have about 300 roses. Not I'm down to about 80. Every year I remove the roses that are diseased, take too much maintenance, blow fast, doesn't age well, etc...

Now I'm thinking about starting to purchase duplicates of the ones that I especially like.

As far as fragrance, about 1/3 of the roses have some sort of fragrance. I try to sprinkle them around so it isn't so obvious which ones do and don't smell.

So like I have the highly fragrant Fragrant Cloud in the middle between Fame! and Ingrid Bergman, both of which have zero fragrance.

Another thing I do is put the fragrant roses near the doors and windows. So Neptune is near the bedroom window etc...

But with 2/3 of the roses having minimal fragrance I sprinkle other plants here and there that do have fragrance so that there is always something nice to smell.

Favorites are lavender, alyssum, thyme, fragrant daylilies and iris, etc...

Honestly, I don't grow a single unfragranced one. Fragrance and health are the two main things I care about and I have limited sunny space so giving a spot to an unfragranced rose is just not something I would do. During the blooming season, I actually drink my morning tea in my yard and sniff almost all my roses while walking about. It's my favorite part of the day!

The only roses that might tempt me into growing them would be super unusual ones but again, I haven't met a rose I cared for enough to overlook its lack of scent. All the other plants I grow are also selected keeping scent in mind (magnolia, iris, daffodil, hyacinth, sweet pea, dianthus, phlox, lilies & sweet alyssum).

There is 1 rose I would grow in a heartbeat, fragrance or no fragrance, and that is the Green Rose - I LOVE IT!!! My granny grew it and I have always found it gorgeous. Sadly, it would never survive a single winter here.

1: Black Baccara rose.
Some nurseries classify it as unscented, though I've read on a nursery site that it has a mild, nutty scent; mine has no scent to it.

Please accept my apologies. If anyone was curious about the rose with the reputed tangerine fragrance, I apologize because I relied upon my memory from last year - bad! First it isn't a single, it's a semi-double and it's called Tropical Fragrance. If anyone grows it and can confirm the tangerine fragrance, I'd love to hear.

It would have be true "delphinium" blue.

Hmmmm, after some thought, no I don't even think a scentless blue rose would make the cut. I only grow roses possessed of strong, pleasing perfumes. Period.

Visually oriented here--but I do have a perfume path where I deliberately sought out some highly perfumed roses like Double Delight, Elle, Berolina, Chrysler Imperial, Valencia , etc.

Here you can see part of the perfumed path:
{{gwi:258634}}

There are probably some highly perfumed roses elsewhere in the gardens, but if so, it was accidental. I can honestly say they were picked initially for two qualities: beauty and disease resistance. Second rank considerations are how fast they re-bloom and can they stand the heat of a Kansas summer. After that, any other good features are a bonus, but not required.

Kate

I am scent obsessed in the garden (roses, mock orange, korean spice bush, lilacs etc.) so far, I allow zero unscented roses.
In fact, I showed Sheila's perfume the door (gave her to mom) because I thought she had just average smell. And Michaelangelo- is a blooming machine, but he isn't very smelly, so he stayed in his pot and will find a nice home elsewhere.
I think there are 3 qualities most of us look for in a rose: scent, vigor/health and bloom robustness. Everyone has their own ranking. Some won't take divas. Or once bloomers. etc.

but I think I prefer grasses, heathers, perennials and things with more texture foliage to roses if there is no scent.
I even pick my Iris and daylillies, and peonies for scent. Though I do keep the unscented Buckeye Belle peony and another Itoh that have no scent because they are too cool.

Different strokes for different folks. I grow roses for their visual beauty. If it has a good scent , that's an extra for me.

I reserve the morning sun spots for the best perfumed roses and then the rest of the spots can have the low or no scent roses. It makes a big difference in the quality of the fragrance. I like to bring the flowers in and some of the ones with thick petals last even though they don't have great fragrance. Roses like Our Lady of Guadalupe and Johann Strauss and Pink Rosette don't have much if any scent to me but the plants are champions at producing roses and the shape of the plants is very pretty. I love the color and shape of White Licorice but hate the scent. Also, I like the shapes of many DA roses and dislike the myrrh scent if it is the dominant fragrance. I like it as a mild supporting scent to fruit or other fragrances.

But I won't grow roses in colors I don't like for the scent. My neighbor wanted a good smelling rose so I bought him a Fragrant Cloud and planted it in the perfect location and soil. Every now and then I go over and smell the perfume. I can see that rose blooming from across the street. It glows like a stop light in the afternoon sun against a dark green juniper. He loves everything about it.

Scent in the garden is very therapeutic and romantic. When I first started growinig roses in 2006 - I used to have Heritage, Sharifa Asma, Gertude Jekyll, Jude the Obscure and Souer Emmanuelle. It was a great leisure to step outside because of the wafting scent coming from those roses.

Sadly, I don't have those roses anymore. My current roses don't smell as good as the ones I used to grow since most of them are poor repeaters ie. Laguna and St Swithun and two once-bloomers.

I grow a scentless climber (Nancy Hayward) as the backdrop to my other roses, all of which I bought because they were highly perfumed. I just treat the climber as wallpaper. It's strong and I'm waiting for it to settle in and turn into COLOURFUL wallpaper.

I have several minis that don't have a scent, but the rests of them do. I want scented roses, but appearance and size are the most important criteria.

I think I would allow the double chestnut rose, if I had the space, because of its unique texture, color, stance, and foliage.

I got rid of Eden (Pierre de Ronsard) because it had rose rosette, not because it was scentless. But it's scentlessness was beginning to grate on my nerves, I must say, and I do not miss it. It can be so beautiful, though, with its greenish buds, in the right situation.

:) I just posted wondering about the relative merits of Black Magic, etc!

I'm crazy about scent, and I love the way my strongly-scented rosebushes smell, but I figured...what would be the harm in having one that doesn't smell amazing if I already have so many that do?

I look for substantial petals because of the heat here. That leads me to more Kordes roses that don't have much scent. Also scented roses close up make me sneeze. I have some strong ones though-Oklahoma, Firefighter, Mr. Lincoln, Singin' the Blues, Rouge Royale, and Papa Meilland are probably the strongest. I got my first bloom a couple of days ago on my one year old Archduke Charles. Very nice light scent. As I add more OGR's I may be sneezing a lot more. Mary

marian--I really like the lush pic of your roses. I'd hate to lose that effect due to a "fragrant only" rule--: )

Your solution is wonderful--plant the lavender at their feet. Voila! fragrance! Love it.

Kate

Zero spots for roses with no scent.

All my roses are fragrant. It's not hard to find countless varieties of roses that both look amazing and smell good. Just do your research.

Sometimes it doesn't have to be very fragrant but it at least needs to have medium fragrance.

The one exception is Persian Yellow, because that was the original yellow rose from which all the others descended, and thus has a rich yellow hue hard to imitate. It does have a smell, it just smells more like linseed oil, but at least that's something.

Strangely enough, the only low/non-fragrant rose I have is SWEET FRAGRANCE! I bought it because it was promoted as being fragrant. HA!

On a scent scale of 1 to 10 it gets a 4.5, a little cantaloupe-like scent by my nose.

Something I have learned about rose scent is that if you are a man, do not rely on the description of the STRENGTH of the scent of a specific rose variety being evaluated by a woman. Generally, it has been my experience that ladies have much keener noses than gentlemen. What I may find scentless could in fact be well scented.

SWEET FRAGRANCE may in fact be very fragrant, but not by my male nose.

Otherwise, it did not get shovel pruned because the flower is so beautiful, and it's a blooming fool!

I've got "0" tolerance for scentless roses, but for the workhorse, SWEET FRAGRANCE.

I definitely prefer a scented rose. The only one I can't live without that is scentless is Powerhouse. I have a couple others just for form/color, but if they died I wouldn't cry. I try to keep about 2/3 total scented. I want my boquets to smell yummy! I've shared this picture before, here's Powerhouse

I am in the "buy the good looking rose, fragrance is a bonus" club. This may sound strange but I rarely smell roses in the garden. Firstly, I have bad allergies in the summer and secondly, I have this fear of inhaling hidden bugs into my nose. However, having said that I do love the tea or jasmine fragrance I smell of my austin roses in the spring. I haven't figured out whether it is Teasing Georgia or Evelyn yet but it is divine.

If roses didn't have a scent, I probably wouldn't be growing them at all, or maybe just a few. Fragrance is the main reason I grow most of them. Only one rose do I grow without much scent, and that is Eden. I've removed a few roses because of no fragrance and I grow a few only because of their fragrance.

I started growing roses for my husband because he likes the smell. So I don't grow any roses with no fragrance. They are not allowed. Otherwise, I'd grow a more trouble free plant.

Absolutely few.

Roses are renowned for scent, and I have plenty of other unscented blooms from annuals and such.

Mutabilis and William Baffin are really my only "un-scented" roses, and even they, when blooms are super fresh (just opened), hold a slight whiff of fragrance.

Steven

None for me either, fragrance is too important! I agree with Moses that people can receive scents very differently as DH is definitely not smelling the same things that I am.

But I had to laugh at jjpeace's worry about inhaling bugs! I think about that a lot as I have a tendency to smell first, and look later, LOL!

Scent does not matter to me also...

But Jim, when you hand a bouquet to your lovely wife, does she not sniff them first? My DH doesn't seem as entranced by fragrance as I am either though, I must admit.

I definitely prefer scented roses. Scented flowers of any kind, actually! Ever since the first time my Casablanca lilies filled my yard with their ridiculously great fragrance I have been hooked! If they don't have scent then they need to have other factors in their favour, such as being floriferous, hardy, low-maintenance, nice foliage. For example: I like my hydrangeas and daylilies for their long-flowering and my weigelas and dogwood for their low-maintenance. But if they have scent then I'm in heaven, and so I have a butterfly bush, some scented Viburnums, Peonies, Oriental lilies, Bearded Iris, Lilacs, Summer Phlox, and others! And, of course, Roses.

As for roses, if I had my way they would all be extremely fragrant! But also repeat-flowering, hardy, and disease-free (I don't spray). So with this combo in mind I have a mix of fragrant and non (or low) fragrance roses, while also keeping a keen eye on what Kordes and others are doing every year. Flower form and colour have less interest to me than the other characteristics I mentioned, though I will say that I do like nice flower forms. Wedding Bells is my favourite flower form, I think.

The first roses I grew were flower carpets and knockouts. I still have a row of three double knockouts that actually give a wafting, light tea fragrance detectable within about 10 feet of the roses. My big Rugosa experiment was a failure (I could barely detect any fragrance, but the Japanese Beetles did and swarmed them), and I have gotten mixed results from some floribundas (scent is usually good, but disease resistance is hit and miss in this black spot magnet area). Last year was my first year with tea roses (some Kordes varieties) so hopefully this year I get a better sense of what they can do.

So I would say my fragrant/non-fragrant is about half and half, with hopefully moving towards more fragrant as I find more varieties that work for me. So among the non-fragrant I have roses like the Double Knockouts, Bonica, Campfire, Morden Blush, and some tiny Oso Easy shrub roses. I may add a Fairy rose. My best scented roses have been Honey Perfume, Julia Child, and Dark Desire, and every year I'm going to find a new spot or two for a new, scented rose.

NONE! I've actually liked roses before, was going to order them and stopped when I saw they had no scent.

I have a few or more light scented roses, so light scent, I can handle, and sometimes find I love it, but no scent, bye-bye. There is nothing more disappointing than sticking your nose in a beautiful bloom and come away with nothing. Also my scented rose are all great healthy garden roses, I do not grow weaklings, only the best and only the most scented best. I do have a few pot pets, but nothing that requires too much work. After I baby you for a year or two in a pot, you better be strong enough on your own after that besides mulch, manure and a tone, whichever I get the cheapest. Or whatever I have time to do.