Lovely! A bush of Safrano of that size would have been the envy of every gardener in 19th century England.

Beautiful combo, Jackie! Okay, I know this is a rose forum, but I have to ask about your house. (I'm an antique house fan, too.) I so want to know when your home was built and if that is a turret that I see in your HP/Bourbon ID posting. Carol

Carol - House is a late Queen Anne, built in 1905. Yes, that is a turret. My DH's great grandfather bought our house new in 1905. He gardened, his son and DIL both gardened, my FIL gardened, so I am the lucky recipient of 3 prior generations of gardeners who lived in our house.

Jackie

Carol - I meant to show you a pic of our house - here it is:

I love your house and the history behind it too!

Jackie, your home is fantastic! I love that the house and garden have been in the family all that time and I want your turret! I've packed up and moved small portions of various family members' gardens and furnishings, but you inherited something extra special! The 1905 house and original garden is a wonderful place to continue planting antique roses and heirloom perennials. Thank you for indulging my old house curiosity. Carol

Your Safrano looks like it is very happy at your house! Thanks for showing the photo of your home! It is lovely and has been lovingly cared for (obviously.) Forgive me for off topic talk, but... Like Carol, I saw the photo on your post inquiring about the Bourbon/ Hybrid Perpetual that is looking a lot like a Pierre Notting? I was entranced by the wall and the house across the street, so naturally, I knew your house would be great! I am envious of the amount of land you have for your garden in what is an urban setting?. I am a historic preservation architect in central Florida and my husband and I have gained a reputation for being old house rescuers. We save historic district houses in danger of becoming landfill when the city or a non-profit is in need of that land for another purpose, I.e. most recently a school for homeless children needs to be located on the lots where there are three houses. Those homes are in very poor repair and the non-profit will give them to us and move them if we will repair them. We bring them back to life, filled with character, and rent them (hopefully for a profit.) You have the perfect setting for your roses. I am trying to talk my husband into letting me landscape our (saved) rental houses with roses, like Safrano or really any of the OGRs that do well here (back on topic) :), b/c I am running out of room at our house, which is also a rescue!

Leighsroses - what fabulous preservation work you are doing! I hope you are able to talk your DH into planting roses at the saved houses - large tea roses take a few years to get going, but after that they require very little care.

We only have 1/3rd of an acre, and our house is only about 4 blocks from the downtown of our town. Our lot is very wide at the street and very narrow at the back, so we are lucky to have about 100 feet of street frontage. We are surrounded by all sorts of Victorian and Craftsman houses. The area was going downhill, and was mostly rentals, but in the last 25 years property values have gone up so much (avg value for a house on our street is $750k - $1.5M now) that new owners have purchased and restored all of the old houses, which are now owner occupied. Not one was torn down.

After we moved in and started planting and gardening on our entire street frontage (most of which had been gravel sprayed with weed killer every year), our neighbors started to plant more flowers (or their landscape gardeners did) too. I think it is catching.

To keep this on topic, here is another picture of Safrano:

Jackie

Jackie and Leighsroses, it warms my heart to hear your preservation stories! Tea roses are lovely and antique rose gardens create such a romantic setting for antique architecture. Safrano is perfect for this purpose. Carol

Jackie,
What a happy Safrano! Your home has such a great history! 100' of frontage would be a dream for me. We are on a 60' x 130' lot (around 1/5 an acre!-however we have a corner lot which helps with sunshine) and my roses are all in the back garden which is about 45' x 50'. Which is why I envy all of the people on this forum with land enough to give their roses a good home.
Our neighborhood sounds similar in history to yours.The neighborhood was the nicest in the city around 1912, then went downhill in the 1960s and has come back to be very valuable if not the most valuable houses in the city. Being located in the middle of town is great but presents challenges in growing these roses. I have to pack them in and plan them well. They don't seem to mind, they are prolific blooming OGRs that love heat. They elbow each other for room and are about double the size they should be, but I can't help myself and grow cuttings and seedlings, etc. as if I have room. Pruning and weed management is like crawling through a rabbit tunnel with thorns pushing at me from every direction. Alas, I have the idea of interspersing thornless varieties with the thorned ones, to give me entry and exit points. I only wish I had thorn-proof clothing!
a side note: Our house, built in 1908, was in such poor disrepair that the neighbors were petitioning for a demolition! I am working on DH to let me spread some of my roses around. I think the roses would help give the rentals an established look about them. They can also be a theft deterrent if a thorny variety is planted beneath a window. :) There is something about old houses and old roses; they go together very well!