Nice, very nice..you have a wonderful use of words....
My top 10...
Different OGR's here in my climate...I have tried albas and they burned up...what a shame, because I adore 'Amelia'.
So I have a lot of noisettes.
All of my roses make my heart sing..(some more than others)
Champney's Pink Cluster the fragrance is intoxicating...
Charles D. Mills for all that Celeste said about this rose. ditto for me.
Therese Bugnet the spicy scent of the flowers..I love this rose!
Perle des Jardins I have a love/hate thing, with this rose...if it is too damp, the blooms ball, and refuse to open..but every once in a while, all the planets are in alignment, and there will be a perfect flower...the color an egg yellow..and the scent, which often eludes me..this time the fragrance is strong and clear.
Variegata di Bologna..at the risk of being redundant I will say I love this rose!
Conrad Ferdinand Myer
Secret Garden Noisette
The Charlestonian
Bouquet tout Fait
Banshee another one that the flowers will not open if it is too damp/wet but when they do, the fragrance and the beautiful flower, is well worth the wait.

Oh, my Celeste -
That picture of Charles de Mills is absolutely sumptuous! I want it I want it I want it! I'm in Z10a sw. FL, and I don't think that Gallicas will grow here. I'm gonna find out, fer sure tho.

thanks for the lovely post,
Avalon

Wonderful post Celeste! Great pictures and poetic descriptions. I think you should be required to post one of these per week ;)

I especially love the picture of Felicite Parmentier. Mine is a baby and coming into it's 2nd year and I can't wait for it to get bigger. It gave me two perfect blossoms last year.

Eric

Celeste, thank you for such a wonderful post. Your words capture what I also feel about my roses. Many times I hear one calling me from across the yard. I so miss them.

Celeste,

Thanks for the lovely post! I enjoy how you write about your roses, and your fine photos: it's good of you to share your pleasure in your roses with us.

I can't rank my roses, my mind doesn't seem to work that way: they're all beautiful in some way and at some time, and that's what counts (it's also why I'd be doomed if I ever had to make choices for a small garden). I love them all.

Melissa

Thanks Celeste.

This time of year I really need some good rose pics.

Hi Celeste,

I will be ordering Charles de Mill - thanks to you. I hope it has a nice fragrance.

Beautiful pictures! Is there such a thing as Alba Envy? I suppose it's human nature to want what you can't have......there are many, many roses that will grow here (and I have bunches of them) but this year I really fell in love with OGR's, particularly Gallica's. Since I apparently have more money than sense, I decided to "zone push" and try a few: Rosa Mundi, Charles de Mill, Cardinal de Richelieu, Hippolyte and La Belle Sultane. More than likely, I've probably sentenced these poor plants to a lingering (hot) death but I can't help myself - I have to give them a try!

Celeste, I so enjoy your pictures, they are all inspiring. How I would love to see your roses in person, what an incredible collection of beauties you have.

Carla

Celeste, your post is inspiring...
Your pictures are breathtaking, yet it is your profound personification and descriptions of your beloved that I will remember. I will mull them over throughout the day.

Thank you.

I miss the roses in winter. Wonderful pics and reminiscences of the roses. Thanks for sharing.

This is a lovely post Celeste. I really appreciate that you took the time to share this with us.

So here I am, sipping my coffee, looking out my office window at the -30C day and reading about your roses. Thanks for the pictures Celeste. I will never have those roses here because of the cold winters but one of my favorites is Rose de L'Hay which flowers all year and has a wonderful fragrance. I'll be visiting friends in British Columbia this summer and they have hundreds of roses so am looking forward to seeing and smelling the garden. Stan

Dear Celeste---another gorgeous post----Your gardens are inspiring.
When are you going to write a book with your photos and descriptions---

I'm drooling over your roses--

Hope your Mom is OK and your daughter is coming to her senses--( I can sympathize with this problem.)

Take care and know how much your posts mean to all of us.
fondly, Florence

Hi Celeste,

Thank you for posting these photographs, they are lovely and have brought great joy to my day.

robert

Celeste, thank you so much for making the effort to write this wonderful post. It gave me a lot of pleasure!
Your love for roses shines through every line and photo and is quite inspiring and contagious! I admire your ability to write so poetic and lovely about them.

My favorite old roses are Zepherine Drouhin and Rose de Rescht.
To me the flowers of Zepherine Drouhin have a simple, clear, and toughing beauty and I love her fresh, fruity sent. Rose de Rescht on the other hand is much more playful and cute with her pompom like flowers, which tease you sometimes with a button eye, but in contrast to that her scent is powerful, warm, and heavy to me.

Your photo of Yolande D'Aragon makes me really want to try her. Do you think this rose would grow well for me here in zone 10, CA?

I, too, enjoyed your wonderful post. Thank you.

Very nice descriptions and your pics are always beautiful. Makes me glad I have a Charles de MIlls and that it is getting some size to it ANd that I'll see my first bloom of it this spring I hope. Nestor really looks very lovely.

I especially like how you compare a teenage daughter to a rose with it's thorns. Daughters can certainly wound us though we appreciate them more than almost anyone.

Thank you for your list too , Melva. I am most interested in which OGR's do well for you in the heat. Especially Var. di Bologna.
Linda

Celeste, your top 10 roses are cream of the crop ... beautiful classics!

Since you asked, my top 10 are:
Reine des Violettes
Mrs Dudley Cross
Nur Mahal
Marie Daly / Marie Pavie
Pink Gruss an Aachen
Gruss an Aachen
Basye's Blueberry
Heritage
Pretty Jessica
Valentine

Randy

Celeste, Thanks for the post. How big does FELICITE PARMENTIER
get? If I had to pick a once bloomer is she worth her reign in a small garden? I have a HP called Larry Daniels that I was thinking of replacing, hmm... Her blooms from pictures I have seen, really epitomize a decadent once bloomer must have?
Great pictures!

How wonderful to have an alba, the queen of roses, your own namesake, in bloom on your birthday!

I sense a wonderful story behind the rose called "Pompom."

Pictures of the old European once-bloomers were what pulled me over to the OGR's as well--particularly Rose de Rescht and Belle Isis. Then I found out I couldn't grow these.

Your pictures sure do give me zone envy all over again.

Lately I've been reading the articles at Paul Barden's about the history of the Hybrid Perpetuals and other work done by the hybridizers of the 19th century. Brent Dickerson suggests there were three reasons they were anxious to cross the Asian roses with the European:
1. Curiosity
2. To give hardiness to the Teas and Chinas
3. To bring repeat bloom to the European ones.

Your pictures make me think the last was their main goal. Who wouldn't want roses like these blooming year round?

Every rose is beautiful in its own way, there are no bad roses or ugly ones, all are special and should be appreciated for the emotions and the senses they bring to us with their fragrance, and their look and the memories...You have picked a difficult task to classify your favourite roses - I do not list the roses into favourite and unfavourite ones but to really answer your question - the rose I treasure most is the rose, one single rose given to me by a man who loved me. I kept it until it turned to dust...very sad indeed, but I remember it in my heart and treasure it and there it will never die. One single rose means more than the biggest material treasure. The rose I got 5 years ago was the one I miss the most.

Beautiful roses and great photography. It gives me chill weather envy. Which roses I miss....all of them, but not the work. The page has turned for me in the winter of my life and roses are a sweet memory.

Hi everyone!
I wanted to tell all of you THANK YOU for reading my post and letting me know that you enjoyed it. My passion and appreciation of roses is enhanced by sharing it with others. It always brings me great pleasure to hear all of your thoughts as well. I always love your feedback and even though it would take too long to respond individually to each of you, I read each & every one and enjoyed your input.

I am going to post more of the other roses I love & miss, since I felt bad leaving some of the others out...and Eric kind of encouraged me...lol. I hope you all enjoy that post as well.

To answer a few questions posed to me:

jumbojimmy....Reports of Charles de Mills fragrance vary.
I have read that it has no fragrance, mild fragrance, and lots of fragrance....I have no fewer than 50 rose books and none of them can agree on whether Charles is fragrant or not! When I visited the Montreal Botanical Garden I could not detect fragrance on their Charles de Mills. However, my Charles is VERY fragrant. I guess all noses pick up scents differently and maybe it even varies according to soil, temps., etc... I guess you will have to find out for yourself if he is or isn't!

organicgardendreams....I can't vouch for whether Yolande would do well in CA....hopefully the many posters from there will help you out w/ your question. She certainly doesn't need the cold to bloom, like the Albas & Gallicas so I would think she would do splendid in warmer climates unless certain diseases might be an issue.

Jean....Felicite will get fairly big, but not usually as huge as her Alba sisters. Albas do need space; they are not small bushes. But you can prune her a little to keep her in bounds. Somewhere in the 4-5 foot tall range. Some Albas can top 7 feet and my Belle Amours have shot up to over 8 feet! Here in zone 4 there really aren't any roses that are as impressive in size as the Albas. Next to our puny hybrid teas that die back every year, the Albas look like Jolly Green Giants! Thats another reason why I love them.
She really IS worth it to have in your garden even if she is your only once-bloomer. She will be done blooming by the time the Japanese Beetles start up and she stays quite healthy the rest of the summer so you won't have to fuss with her. And that fragrance will win you over. She is such a beautiful, feminine rose that I couldn't imagine not enjoying the pleasure of her, even if only once a year.
Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter.... only come once a year, but we still look forward to them, right?

Thanks again, rose friends!

Celeste

Charles de Mills, my blooming machine....

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Celeste, what a beautiful piece you have posted for us all. I enjoyed not only your marvelous photography (which made me resolve to do better at capturing the spirit of each and every one of my spring bloomers this year!) but your paragraph on each rose was delightful - and true enabling at its best. Fortunately for my pocketbook, I have many of your selected roses already, LOL!
I am usually sad in early autumn that the roses in their peak of growth are going to sleep, but I don't really miss them through most of the winter - until now. Right before spring arrives my longing for them awakes and I think, dream and plan roses. As so many posters above have said, rating my roses into some type of top 10 seems an impossible task, but let me say that if the rose is highly fragrant, it has a higher place in line for me. Right now I am inhaling the scent from two blooms cut from my potted Francis Dubreuil which has wintered under lights in my basement. It makes the wait until I can be out in the garden again enjoying the company of Alain Blanchard, Leda, Belle de Crecy, Comte de Chambord, Gertrude Jekyll and so many others a bit easier to bear...as do GW posts like yours. Thank you!

Anne

Celeste, thank you for answering my question regarding Yolande d'Aragon. If you say she doesn't need the cold to bloom that gives me hope, that I can grow her here, too. But you are right it makes sense to ask people from CA. I will do an extra post to ask that question.

I just want to let you know that with a previous post you have already enabled me to get Pretty Jessica. I got her as a band this year and can't wait to see her blooming! It looks like you did again with Yolande! If enabler is a job, you do a pretty good one!

Looking forward to your next posts!

Anne....That's pretty impressive that you are growing roses under the lights.....I have a miniature Kordana rose that my son & his wife gave me for Valentine's Day in my window (I separated it and got 5 plants out of it!) and its fun to nuture a rose in the winter, even if its just a mini. Last winter I raised a lot of roses from seeds under the lights and that was a fun project. It must be wonderful to be able to enjoy the aroma of a real rose in the winter!

organic.....Oh yes....Pretty Jessica. I have been accused of enabling several forum members into that beauty! Before long, you will see for yourself why.

Celeste

Organicgardendreams, you are not alone. She got me with 'Pretty Jessica' too. Now, I will soon have two of them.

Randy

Randy, somehow I feel that you can not really complain, because besides Celeste you are one of the worst enablers running around in this forum!
I am only saying Souvernir de la Malmaison...

Oh Celeste I can appreciate how you miss your roses.

I had 235 in my old garden, in this one I have 75 so far. I have replaced at least 30 of my old ones, my most favorite ones that I have room for. This yard is not the 3 acres I had to play with, only 100 feet in all directions but fill it I will, LOL. I do wish I had room for more of the gallicas, but they get really big here, I adore them, the colors are so vibrant. I have a couple. Of the 18 new ones I have coming in April, 4 of them are replacements.

this is what my roses looked like last week. Ugh.

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I've always wanted to try an Alba. Now I know I must have one. Thanks for the beautiful pictures and descriptions!