Some do look better than others, but the only ones really pushing growth and flower are (as expected) those which receive a bit more shade and extra water. There are those which I am pushing to generate more growth and become more established because I want them larger for propagation and breeding.

Carlin's Rhythm as a plant, laughs at the heat. It continues flowering but the blooms do fry (also expected). Health is excellent.
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Lynnie is completely healthy and holding her own. There are no new flowers, but the two plants also hold over a hundred pollinated hips in preparation for next year's seedlings. I wouldn't expect her to try flowering.

Swantje is receiving extra water and shows it.
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April Mooncrest benefits from partial shade until very late in the day. It's receiving more water in hopes of saving the many hips it's agreed to develop. The combination is helping it push new basals and flower spikes.
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Dawn Crest is cooperating, even though it grows in a seven gallon can. But it also receives early shade and extra water. The flowers come reliably, but, being soft petaled and intensely fragrant, they fry pretty quickly in the extremes.
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But, also as expected, the only things producing color all by themselves are the Caesalpinia, well established bougainvillea, lantana, salvias and lantana. Kim

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For my 16 new roses this year, Marie Daly is my favorite, I haven't watered her this year, quite heat tolerant. She's smaller than Marie Pavie.

Hi Ingrid: when I had membership at HMF, I traced the lineage of the lavender and purple roses .... most of them have multiflora parentage, which requires acidic soil for best color, root growth, and flowering. Young Lycidas and Lavender Mist might improve with a bit of acid.

See the link below regarding soil pH, it stated that phosphorus release is best at pH 6.5 ... phosphorus is needed for root growth. Another excerpt: "formation of strong organic and inorganic acids, such as nitric and sulfuric acid, from decaying organic matter and oxidation of ammonium and sulfur fertilizers."

Which explains why Bailey's or Prickles' Young Lycidas so loaded in the pot ... he had over 150 blooms for spring flush. He put shrimp shell (for calcium and phosphorus), and fresh salmon bits ... once decayed releases both Omega-3 acids, and other acids to bring down soil pH. Salmon is also high in potassium at 20%, magnesium at 13%, vitamin B2 at 65%, vitamin B12 at 106%. and 3% iron.

Vitamin B-complex, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, iron are growth-promoters. I solved Eglantyne's failure to bloom: I put sulfur (also contains gypsum, or calcium sulfate), plus acidic cocoa mulch NPK 3-1-4 with all trace elements on top.

I think Burlington sent me Baby Faurax rather than Kim's Lauren by mistake. You can see Baby Faurax next to Marie Daly. Baby Faurax is tiny, and has constant chlorosis problems, but it has a great musk scent.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil pH and plant growth

This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Wed, Jul 10, 13 at 12:25

What you smell from Baby Faurax, Strawberry, is multiflora scent. There is no "musk" in it. Musk scent in roses is more sweet-soapy and carries well on warm, moist air. Secret Garden has a "musk" scent. The scent many proclaim as "musk", particularly when considering the scent of a "hybrid musk", is actually multiflora, a distinctly different scent.

The confusion has been an easy one to make and perpetuate for the past century. Virtually all "hybrid musk" roses are literally multiflora hybrids. The only "musk" link is a theorized one, a generation or more before the genisis of the genetic line resulting in "hybrid musks". Even IF that "musk" link is true, it was at most one-quarter of the original seedling, which was then crossed with multiflora to create the "hybrid musks". So, the "Adam" or "Eve" hybrid musk is known to be one half multiflora, and a maximum one quarter (probably significantly less) "musk". Each successive generation further reducing any musk influence.

For those which are obviously pure multiflora, that musk connection has never existed. Ballerina and Baby Faurax are two prime examples. They are, by virtue of their traits expression, only multiflora based. Early Polyanthas, Lambertianas, "hybrid musks", hybrid multifloras.. are all virtually identical genetically. It's only their demonstrated, expressed habits which permit us to differentiate between them. But, most of them do share the same scent, that of multiflora or at least, expressing characteristic elements of multiflora.

I, too, read G.S. Thomas waxing poetically about "rich musk scents" in many of these roses, until I smelled multiflora and musk. They are completely distinct from one another. Very few roses described as "musk scented" actually express the scent of "musk rose". VERY many of them DO express the characteristic scent of multiflora. Kim

Kim,

When is your book on roses coming out?

I learn so much from your posts and others. I hope you take the time to record that information.

Thanks, Kippy. It did already, sixteen years ago. I require the questions to stimulate the information to "flow like poop through a goose" as I've been told. Kim

Hmm you know I have owned geese right.....

Maybe it is time for an updated edition?

Kim,

How would you characterize the scent of Little White Pet? My young plant has only one flower currently open, but I smelled it as soon as I stepped out the door this morning, several feet away. It was unmistakable. Is that musk?

In the HMF record for LWP, there is a link to a genetic study of china roses that sampled some polys, LWP one of them. It looks like White Pet is closer to the chinas

White Pet is supposed to be the dwarf sport of Felicite Perpetue, the result of a cross between R. sempervirens and a "noisette/china." I thought White Pet's flowers look a bit like Aimee Vibert and AV is supposed to be a cross between R sempervirens and Champney's Pink Cluster.

Interesting stuff, and White Pet is an interesting little rose.

Heritage - This plant is just plowing along, not even blinking at the sun and heat.

Charlotte - After sleeping for a few months, she is blooming away and growing awesomely!

Sharifa Asma - Not only recovered from nearly bare stems, but has continued to throw basals while laughing at the triple digit heat index.

It's been quite a while since I have smelled White Pet. It grows at a client's house where I usually blow it out with a hose to dead head it. Wet flowers don't smell much, particularly on triple digit days. At least genetically, it has the potential for having traces of "musk", but I can't conjure up the scent memory to categorize it. I'll have to see if it smells when I'm there next. Kim

Our weather here is the opposite of California -- unusual amount of rain and high humidity. Rampant growth and weeds are going wild too! Blackspot is most favorable, and I have a no-spray garden. I look for roses that still have at least half their leaves and keep blooming in spite of it all.

So my list includes Portland roses which repeat well -- Marchessa Bocella/Jacques Cartier, Rose de Resht, and Amanda Patternaude, some hybrid musks such as Ballerina, Darlow's Enigma, and Buff Beauty, and several Austins that never miss a beat -- Sharifa Asma, Teasing Georgia, William Shakespeare 2000, and Heritage.

After the brief but brutal heatwave and then having to survive without water for 3 days in their pots (because I went camping for the long July 4th weekend), my list of stellar performers are: Yves Piaget (loaded with buds and a few blossoms toasted by the sun), Eden (in second flush), and Lady Emma Hamilton.

Little White Pet smells like Felicite et Perpetue to me, which is why I bought it (not having space for the latter). Neither smells like Secret Garden Musk Climber to my nose (which really is "musky"), but seem, rather, to have more in common with Glamis Castle (sweet, myrrh).

In agreement with Kim, the ones with the most water/some shade/best spots are pushing new growth/buds more than the others, but none are doing too badly, considering a week of temperatures over 100 last week and temps spiking again after only a day or two of relief. Nearly every plant has some new growth, buds, or blooms, or is finishing a cycle. I did have everything watered to a fare-thee-well in anticipation of the heat. The blooms that held up best, as usual, were the lighter-colored teas (Etoile de Lyon and Souv. de Pierre Notting), and some of the HTs (I only have old ones): Gruss an Coburg, Fred Howard, Mrs. Oakley Fisher, Zalud House, and Hoag House Cream). Oh, and Mme. Alfred Carriere, indomitable, of course.

It makes sense, catspa, there should be the myrrh fragrance from White Pet. Early in his English Rose promotion, Austin claimed myrrh only comes from Sempervirens breeding, as proof of his drawing from Old Rose genes. Never mind Swim's 1956 Moonsprite, with no demonstrable connection to anything Sempervirens, also possesses the myrrh scent. I still have to remember to try sniffing it to refresh my scent memory. Thank you. Kim

The most obvious myrrh scent, in my garden, arises from the lovely Ayreshire rose 'Splendens', aka The Myrrh Scented rose.

But then, Mr.Austin has made a lot of claims regarding rose breeding, several of which appear more subjective than factual.

Thank you, campanula! Reflecting on Kim's comment about Moonsprite, I knew I had been surprised by the myrrh-like scent of a non-sempervirens, non-Austin rose recently, too, but could not recall which rose it was. It was the R. arvensis at the botanical garden, of course.

Mrs. Dudley Cross took a few years to develop but now she is big and blooms all the time (a little too big for the space, as usual).

All my roses are in survival mode at this time of year.

Your comment reminds me, jasper, that I meant to mention that maturity would be a factor in how well a rose weathers the heat. More root structure, resources, and shading canopy can only be good and younger plants seem less tolerant and less likely to "carry on" in the heat, in general.

The PM on Mrs. Dudley Cross went over the "acceptable" line here (might have done better on that if I had had an alternate site for her), but she grew well otherwise -- beautiful blooms.

Little White Pet is a trouper. Hardly finishes with one flush before commencing on another.

What a marvelously diplomatic way of stating that, Camp! LOL! Kim

Re your comment, catspa, that maturity would foster resistance to the heat, strangely enough in my garden I haven't found that to be universally true. In my list of intrepid roses only two are "mature" (5 years), and some of the rest are quite young bands (White Pet and Mlle. de Sombreuil). They're all watered equally and often, so I'm at a loss to explain it. Some like Young Jessica and Mlle. de Sombreuil are in a hot area, so heat also does not seem to be a factor. Ah, the mysteries of the rose....

Ingrid

Well, I think another factor is that some roses really are just as tough as old boots, Ingrid, making maturity a secondary factor. My Little White Pet is only a few years old, but I have a hunch she falls into that category. Even ones with dainty names, like "Little White Pet" and "Pretty Jessica" : )

Golden Wings is another example -- indestructible from the get-go. The found roses of the western U.S., as a class, probably have lots of good candidates for coping well with heat and drought.

Hmmm, well many look shockingly well, despite the horrid weather.

Guess the #1 standout would be Mme Antoine Mari. Planted her as a sturdy new ARE bush this spring & she has never had any disease, has kept a thick bush of green leaves & still has more blooms than I can be bothered to deadhead. The flowers are small but have good color & form despite the heat. Really, she doesn't look like a plant from my garden--more like one photographed in one of the rose gardens from the blessed land of CA.

Iceberg, Champney's, Mme Laurette Messime, Peach Belle, keep churning out blooms but they're a bit chlorotic & I don't feel like amending the problem right now--too dang hot to mess around outside.

Caldwell Pink aka Pink Pet--well, she always does so beautifully I neglect to even think about her. Have it in several spots, from big shrubs to little cuttings & they are all covered with blooms & healthy foliage. If only she were fragrant.

R. Moschata & Eglantine have very healthy foliage. Moschata keeps throwing flowers.

Several new plants stand out: bands that I planted in the ground early in the year. I'm keeping most in pots until fall & disbudding, as recommended, but several young plants in the ground have been real stand-outs:

William R. Smith--he's near 3' now, bushing out & wants to throw lots of blooms. I'm keeping most pinched, but the flowers I miss are large & very pretty.

Sunsprite--as good as I remembered it. BIG deep-yellow flowers, shiny leaves.

Pax--doing nicely under the Mexican Persimmon tree I want it to climb up. Very large flowers from such a young plant. Very white, like Iceberg's

Baronne Prevost--amazingly healthy leaves for a HP. He keeps throwing those over-stuffed fragrant flowers. I'm amazed they look so good in this heat. He is "reaching for the sky"--about 4' tall, but the canes are arching now & throwing some side branches.

Mousseaux du Japon--poor rose is so happy now. I dragged it up from the old place. Now that it's planted deep in full sun it has bushed out nicely.

Rene D'Anjou--had it long ago & reordered. Like Mousseaux, it does so much better in the full hot sun than it did when I had it in a pot in partial sun in the muggy south.

Comtesse de Rocquigney--never heard of it until Marissa at Greenmantle recommended it to me. Planted last year as a big Greenmantle plant. Nothing exciting about it until this year. It has bushed up & thrown lots of bouquets of sweet-scented flowers, regardless of the heat. Very healthy foliage.

Little White Pet from a spring band, now in a big pot, has been excellent here, too. Also Marie Pavie, Anne Marie de Montravaal.

Rosette Delizy, Souv. de la Malmaison, Mrs. Dudley--bought as chopped-roots, planted in wood-shavings from the grocery store this spring---doing very nicely in the ground. Good new canes, healthy foliage. The blooms I miss dis-budding have good size & color. Surprised how well these plants have done considering their condition as sold. These are all HEB plants, for those of you that have the store locally.

The recommendations I picked up here have worked very well. The roses I've put in the ground are planted deeper--at least a couple of inches deeper than they were in their pots & it seems to be very beneficial. Also, dis-budding, feeding "weakly, weekly" & amending with pine-fines--Thanks!

Verdun is going gangbusters! Flacon d Neige just blooms and repeats. Lilac ? is going strong. Lilac Charm has finally slowed down. Prairie Sunrise is still going but slowed down. Lady of the Mist is working up a third flush. Smith's Parish, Green Ice, Spiced Coffee, Gen. Schlablikine, Safrano, Mutabalis, Heritage...
These are the ones blooming. All of mine seem to be thriving but I have been heavy handed with the hose, I admit.
Not feeding though I should be---weakly, weekly.
Susan

roseseek, Ahhh, I wonder if your Musk description/history is why Excellenz von Schubert is listed or purported to be a Polyanthus by some, and a Hybrid Musk by others? When I was listing the roses recently purchased by category, I did not know where to place EVS, as I kept reading different things.

Lynn

Lynn

Precisely, Lynn. Below is the link for an article I wrote about this subject for the Ventura County Rose Society. The ARS awarded it an Award of Merit and reprinted it on their site. Of course you will read varying opinions. They're all basically the same type of rose, expressing varying growth habits. As I wrote, "if it quacks like a duck...". Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Hybrid Musks, Climbing Polyanthas, and Polyanthas.

roseseek,

Interesting article!! So I will have to see how it performs and looks in "my garden" and decide if I have a Hybrid Musk or a Polyanthus. It is kind of exciting!

Thanks Lynn. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Taking that thread further, both Iceberg and Sally Holmes are "hybrid multiflora" types. Those are the genes which provide the shade tolerance. Sally is more closely related to the species, being half floribunda and half Ballerina. Iceberg is half HT and half "hybrid musk", though everything provable about Robin Hood is multiflora. Kim