I want to try Rose de Rescht again. I keep telling myself all the negatives:

lots of thorns
damask crud
color goes fuschia in the heat
blooms only last a day or two

Wrong, wrong, wrong for my climate.

But it was the first OGR I ever tried, and I remember what it was like to smell the first flower, and I want it again.

Talk me out of it!!!

I'm using aversion therapy right now. I found a nice close-up shot of all the thorns. And damask crud.

I think it's helping.

It really can be quite lovely at its peak. The scent is superb. I can recall that early in my rose growing career it was, for a brief while, my favorite old garden rose. I think I even posted that opinion here on this very forum back in the 1990's. But it suckers like a gallica, rusts like a shovel left out over the winter, and the blooms last about half an hour. All right, 45 minutes.

Both times that I grew RdR, I kept moving it to different places in the garden trying to find the right spot, then moving it again. That is a clue that a rose is simply not working out, even when we are trying.

Plant it if your heart yearns for it, but there is a good chance that you will find yourself removing it after a while.

Just as I did.

Rosefolly

Crud by Tammy in TN

Of course, that was probably back when we sprayed. It was a lovely thing.

Sorry, I can't vote it off the Island. I loved it.

Jeri

Boncrow, if you've never tried it, then I'd say YOU really have nothing to lose. You may have just the right climate for it.

I don't know if the damask scent varies between different cultivars, but I feel like I've never smelled anything that was exactly like Rose de Rescht. If anyone has, let me know!

:o(

I do love that fragrance though so it has managed to stay.

Cath

Cath

Do you live in an area prone to blackspot?

It is also in partial shade for me but none of the roses around it seem to have the same problem. I do live in an area that is blackspot prone although it hasn't been quite as bad this summer as it was in the past.

It's really a mysterious thing. It seems to happen to people growing in a variety of zones, even the colder ones. And some people will say that their damasks get the crud even when other plants are fine.

That's been my experience, too. I've tried several damask perpetuals that have all gone cruddy while the roses next to them are spot free.

Some people say that even spraying doesn't prevent it.

There is definitely something strange going on.

That Jeri said hers was clean totally amazes me.

Jeri, would you be willing to try it again in your no spray garden as an experiment?

Let's us know if you do get it and how it performs for you.

I can truly understand wanting a rose enough to keep trying. I tried Lady Hillingdon three different times before I found the right spot and got her to grow well -- now she's great.

I wonder about the other two RdRs as possible alternatives: Rose du Roi, of commerce and the original. I find them hard to tell apart, but the rose marked as the original Rose du Roi blessed me with a 4 and 1/2 inch blossom earlier this week. (The vase life is pretty good, too.) So far, the foliage is quite clean, much cleaner that my Rose de Rescht, by the way, in the same bed. (My climate is somewhat coastal with morning fog.) Depending on your sources, either one of Roses du Roi might be easier to obtain than the admittedly stunning Arthur de Sansal mentioned above.

Maybe others could chime in on the merits of these two.

Best,

Larry

Are there other damasks (or maybe damask-scented HP's?) that have the fragrance 'chops' of RdR without the crud issues? Anyone? I'm no use here, but how about those of you who have some experience with damasks?

Good luck,
Virginia

I've considered Rose du Roi and the Duchess of Portland, but never tried them. After trying Rose de Rescht, Blanc de Vibert, Pickering Four Seasons, Duchesse de Rohan, Autumn Damask, and getting crud on all of them, I think this is just something that this class does here. (But, then again, you never know.)

I do have Pretty Jessica which has a damask scent. It's nice, just not quite the same.

Luckily, I think the urge has passed, so this actually helped! My plan is to someday have Rose de Rescht again, but I will wait until I buy a house with more gardening space. Then I can stick RdR in an out of the way place where I don't have to see the unsightly foliage while I'm waiting for more flowers.

In the meantime I'm going to content myself with my new Leonie Lamesch and Souvenir de St. Anne's.

Enjoy them!
Virginia

PS. I also hated people saying how it looked like a living boquett of flowers

SCG

LOL, SCG! Someone should have steered you away from such an awful rose.

Thanks Virginia. My Leonie is only a band, and has just started to make some new growth but hasn't bloomed yet. I'm hoping there will be a bud or two soon. The colors look so beautiful in pictures. I think I am addicted to getting new roses and watching them bloom for the first time.

I'm also really looking forward to SdSA arriving next week. It's been so long since I had it, and it was for such a short time, that it will seem really new to me.

All of those roses are where they get some shade from a picket fence on a hot hillside.

BUT having just returned from San Jose Heritage Rose Garden...WE need a spring weekend in the garden for the SoCal garden webbers. It would be fun to meet and drive up, spend a Saturday in the garden, a Sunday rechecking what we discovered and head back. I looked at a lot of the Damasks just because of this thread and noticed that some looked good, some okay and others really good. It would be worth looking and seeing them. Some did have some crud, but it was on the older leaves. I guess crud on older leaves does not bother me since they are old leaves anyway.

I loved their Portland from Glendora and look forward to putting mine in the ground, it is still in a 3g pot.

Kippy, that's interesting about the damasks at the SJHRG. Maybe it comes down to different genetics and varying resistance to the the different strains of fungal diseases? Someone in one of the other threads on this topic also suggested it could be related to sunburn since more than one person said that RdR looked better when grown in partial shade.

I really need to start a gardening binder with information on everything I try to remind myself of why I decided to remove something or give it away.

I'm still wavering. Like you, I better wait until I have a space where unsightly foliage won't matter.

I keep forgetting, too, that these are roses that want to sleep for the winter, and my winters are either too short, warm, or both to keep them happy for very long.