'Shailer's Provence' is a Centefolia, not a Damask rose. It does not repeat bloom & it is a fairly big shrub with arching canes so will require a good sized area. If you want repeat Damasks, look for Portland Damasks. I have 2 in my garden, 'Comte de Chambord' & 'Rose de Rescht'. Can get some BS but a little spraying seems to go a long way in my area. My biggest problem with them is spider mites, but if I can keep the spider mites under control, both are very nice roses, with good repeat & hardiness in my z4 area.

Leda was one of the best Damasks in the garden, plus a long bloom period. It depends on the cultivar how heavy or dark the edge of the petals get.

Autumn Damask. It's beautiful, ancient, smells wonderful and reblooms.

Yes, forgive me for my mistake. Shailer's is likely to be my one Centifolia and I'd like to do one Alba and one Damask.
Leda is gorgeous and I've heard great things about Autumn Damask....Autumn Damask does well in Zone 9 then?
Susan

Celsiana is considered one of the most beautiful and distinctive damasks and so fragrant it is used for perfumes. Its semi-double flowers are rather large for an old rose -- four inches. The buds are darker and on the bush look two-toned. Everyone who grows Celsiana seems to love it, which is undoubtedly why has lasted in gardens for this long, despite being a semi-double. (I have one, waiting to go in. It hasn't bloomed yet.)

Will Tillotsen's catalog which started so many on the road to rose mania had this to say:

Celsiana. Damask. (Prior to 1750) 4-5 feet. One annual flowering. Zones 4-9. (sell-see-AH-nah)

"The subject of one of RedouteâÂÂs most beautiful rose portraits, and a rose to inspire any artist. Leigh Barr Stamler, St. Louis, MO, says, âÂÂCelsiana is incredibly beautiful - arching canes loaded with soft, lovely roses in the most perfect shade of pink! I sit on the grass in front of her for long minutes every spring, drinking in her beauty.
A graceful plant with smooth, grey-green foliage and clusters of 4 inch warm pink flowers . . . which open wide with a special crisp twirl of crinkled petals showing tall yellow stamens. True damask fragrance . . . if you plan to make potpourri, this rose should be included in your order."

Here is a link that might be useful: a picture of Celsiana from Peter Karlson

Autumn Damask does well in Zone 9 then?

Not exactly. It's been years since I've had it, but it got damask crud. It's too humid here, and winters are too warm and short to keep damasks happy.

It should be happy in your zone 7, though?

If I had more space I would still grow it and ignore the crud.

Autumn Damask is also historically important. It's believed to be a parent of the Portland, Bourbon, and Hybrid Perpetual classes.

It is very prickly, though!

A lot of damasks and damask perpetuals get damask crud. That's how it got its name. Ispahan seems to be very health, which moves it to the top of the list.

Yes, I get LOTS of crud here on the roses that Mad grows so well. I just don't have the winter chill and the heat and humidity along with the strong sun just cruds them out badly.
Celsiana and Ispahan are both gorgeous! They all sound gorgeous. I just need one for the South...
I should see what ARE offers. ARE and RU offer roses that seem to do well here.
Thanks!
Susan

I have Autumn Damask, Celsiana, and Ispahan growing in containers; and now that my neighbors have cut down their huge black locust there will be a place to put them. (I had planned to give them away to friends with country places, but I realized they won't be there to see them). I have Rose de Rescht, too, and it does get crud but I love it anyway. Now that the tree is gone, perhaps it will do better.

Celsiana is not happy in full sun as this is a rose with very thin petals. It also bleaches white in a couple of days in hot sun. The canes are tall and lanky which make an upright bush. This when just opened.

A picture of the same Celsiana three days later in the sun.

Lynette,
Thanks for your lovely photos of Celsiana. Do you find it balls in damp weather because of the thin petals? Thank you, Gean

Though not classed as a Damask, 'Baronne Prevost' is a very Damask-leaning Hybrid Perpetual which may do better in your climate than true Damasks. Another of a similar mold would be 'Yolande d'Aragon'.

If you're considering just one true Damask, another possibility could be 'Quatre Saisons Blanc Mousseaux'. From what I've read, it will often (after a few years, perhaps) have a branch which partially or wholly reverts to 'Quatre Saisons', and thus you can have two roses in one plant. I got mine for that reason, and hope to see it happen here -- pink and white flowers together on the same bush.

:-)

~Christopher

I'm afraid it will ball in heavy rain. It was one of those OGRs that was lovely if all conditions suited it. If not then I classed it as a "bad hair day" rose.

Thanks, Lynette; I've read other places that it balls in wet weather and I am glad to hear it confirmed by you. Gean

In days gone by Celsiana's fading was not considered a fault but rather an attractive feature.

Leonie Bell and Helen van Pelt Wilson tell us that in Celsiana, the "handsome center bud opens pure pink, 2 1/2 inches wide, with petals so ruffled that the corona of stamens is often hidden; after a day or two, the color fades to white and the size swells to almost four inches. This color change led to many names -- Rose Varin, Belle de Cels, Pallidor, La Coquette, Damascena Mutabili - and ours came to us as the Snuffbox rose." (The Fragrant Year, 1967)

I like 'Celsiana' too, a good-looking plant in my garden and very tough. It's less thorny than 'Quatre Saisons', also handsome. I know 'Ispahan' is popular, but it looks too modern to me. 'Leda' is good; I don't think it grows as tall as 'Celsiana', though I'd like to hear others on that subject. It also has a sport, or is a sport of, 'Pink Leda', identical except for the color, though still with the deeper hue at the edges, and a vigorous rose.

From the opening paragraphs of "Amaryllis at the Fair", by Richard Jeffries (1904):

There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe Oaks. . . . There are many grand roses, but no fragrance -- the fragrance is gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found. The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels -- cemeteries they should be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste -- are innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top, which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses -- wouldn't pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."

I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try. But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place, because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden" -- it is about as wide as the border round a patch, old style -- is quite vacant, bare, and contains nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.

Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in a town can never be "home."

Farms that were practically taken on a hundred and twenty, or fifty, or perhaps two hundred years' leases were "homes." Consequently they had damask roses, bees, and birds about them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Richard Jeffries on Gutenberg

This post was edited by monarda on Sat, Dec 28, 13 at 12:54