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strawchicago

Best roses of the year - please post your pics.

strawchicago z5
12 years ago

We have a thread of Nastiest Roses with Paul Neyron leading the pack as the wretched dog of the PP rose family, or Perpetual Puck. Hence I start a new thread on the Perpetual Bliss, or PB family of roses.

My best roses of the year are: Golden Celebration, Radio Times, and Mary Magdalene. I was so drunken with Golden Cel. scent and majesty that I forgot to take pictures. My kid thinks Golden Celebration smells like cupcakes. A few Golden Cel. can make your house smell festive like a cross between a florist shop and a bakery.

I like Radio Times for its strong Damask scent. I keep sticking my nose into it for my escape to heaven. Radio Times foliage is really pretty, 100% healthy. I like Mary Magdalene for its compact and graceful swirls of branches. The scent is addictive, it's like the myrrh incense in the Catholic Church, or the cozy smell of a burning fireplace. I miss her scent the most in the winter.

Radio Times and Mary together, I'm sorry I didn't rotate the picture.

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Mary Magdalene during Thanksgiving. Someone else rated her scent as better than Tamora, Scepter d' Isle, and Ambridge. I agree wholeheartedly - it's a very pleasant myrrh mixed with tea.

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Radio Times during Thanksgiving. It gave me another bouquet in December despite the frost.

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Radio Times bush in late November. The foliage is still pretty in the winter. The white stuff is corn meal dusting against blackspots for our rainy weather.

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What are your best roses of the year? Any pictures posted would be greatly appreciated. If not, please describe the scent so I can enjoy - thank you for my shopping list for the future.

Comments (13)

  • Campanula UK Z8
    12 years ago

    rubbish photographer. I'm afraid but, FWIW, my best roses this season have been hughly variable. Most unusual is a small hulthemia with a horrid name - Eyes for You - a lovely lilac with the violet hulthemia dark centre - looks so like a tree paeony I could probably run a betting book. In pots, a little Meilland rose called Sweet Pretty, aka The Charlatan, has been my choice single. Nothing much to write home about in many ways but nonetheless, it is a small, delicate, even ethereal rose with a lemony apple scent. Climbers are represented by Ghjislaine de Feligonde and also, a really lovely hybrid musk, Moonlight. One of Pembertons earliest and imo, still one of the best and still blooming away right now. Finally, my lovely moyesii never fails to excite me - in its 9th year, its gaunt legs hidden by a small red filbert, nothing makes my heart beat faster in early June than the crimson flowers with golden stamens. No scent as such but as a specimen rose, for 6 weeks, the end of my allotment glows as if through a ruby glass as the sun dips over the fence and shines through the petals. Nothing makes me feel like summer is here than a moyesii in full bloom - although a good Nevada comes close.

  • strawchicago z5
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thank you, Campunula, for the info. on those rare roses. Someone posted a picture of "Eyes for You" in the Rose Gallery. It looks better than those over $100 per tree peony. Why should we waste time and water on losers - when these beauties deserve our lavishment?

  • v_barnett
    12 years ago

    My two best are Alberic Barbier and Hansa. I got the Alberic from the side of the road where it had been growing for years and the Hansa from my husband's grandmother. Alberic smells like apples, the Hansa is the strongest scented rose I grow. Both are fantastically healthy. (Alberic would swallow the house it I let it)

    Here is a link that might be useful: alberic barbier

  • v_barnett
    12 years ago

    And here is the Hansa, along with a Thomas Affleck from the Antique Rose Emporium.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Hansa

  • v_barnett
    12 years ago

    Let me try the Hansa Link again...

    Here is a link that might be useful: Hansa

  • eahamel
    12 years ago

    After a long, hot dry drought this summer, everything burst into bloom when it cooled down and we got some rain. My absolute best one this year was Carefree Beauty. Covered with blooms! It's one I grew from a cutting, and was an easy one to grow. Second best has been Old Blush (which I also grew from a cutting), followed by Blush Noisette.

  • strawchicago z5
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thank you, Victoria and Eahamel for more beauties. I have been fantasizing about apple scent in yellow, and Victoria gave the answer, Alberic Barbier. Hansa is great in deep pink.

    Eahamel, I always love Carefree Beauty here in Chicagoland - it's more stunning than the boring Knock-outs. I'll check out Old Blush and Blush Noisette.

    My sister in her 60's, who is never married said to me, "I want to give you this advance ... because when I die, I want to leave something beautiful behind." That speaks well for gardeners: the least we can do is to leave behind something beautiful that grace the planet earth after we die.

    The house at the corner is in foreclosure, abandoned for years. There's a mighty ugly climbing rose that went wild. It's a real eye-sore for the neighborhood. I will NEVER plant climbing rose in my zone 5a, and neither does the rose park nearby. In contrast, I remember the house with a big garden of hybrid teas in front. It was the highlight of my long walk home during my junior high years in Michigan.

    Someone mentioned Rose de Rescht thrived while abandoned in Illinois. Another mentioned Louis Odier thrived with beauty when no one watered him. That's the type of beauty I'm after. Something that grace the earth, rather than being an eyesore.

  • seil zone 6b MI
    12 years ago

    I hesitate to mention mine here because 1) it's a modern HT, and 2) it was new this spring so I have no idea how it will preform in the long run but Dick Clark did some really spectacular things this season for me.
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    Part of the reason I'm so happy with this rose is that it's one of the very few that actually seemed to live up to it's pre-release hype!

  • tomva
    12 years ago

    Here is one of mine that I took a picture of in the spring,right after a rain.Tom
    .{{gwi:328117}}

  • jerijen
    12 years ago

    One of this year's surprise Garden Stars (here, at least) has been "De la Vina Mystery."

    Found in Santa Barbara, CA, in front of a California Cottage style home of some age, she was growing up through an 8-ft-tall Eugenia hedge, reaching for light and air.
    In my garden, she has remained quite compact and upright to parhaps 3.5 ft., well-clothed with mid-green leaves.

    For the HP she appears to be, "De la Vina Mystery" is surprisingly disease-resistant, rarely spotted with mildew, and resisting rust until late fall -- all the while repeating bloom from spring, right on through summer and fall -- if deadheaded.

    {{gwi:288063}}

    Jeri in Coastal Ventura County, SoCal

  • jacqueline9CA
    12 years ago

    One of my very favorite old roses in my garden was a mystery until this year - we think it is Dawson's Apple Blossom (once blooming rambler, 1890).

    {{gwi:328119}}

    Jackie

  • strawchicago z5
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thank you, aimekitty for your generosity - your pics are the highlights of my day. They are absolutely delightful and stunning. I'm so desperate for beauty in the gloomy Chicagoland that I told my hubby: "Isn't amazing that the Knock-outs canes are still green?" We are lucky that we don't get snow yet, then it's another lame miracle, "Isn't amazing that there's a tiny green grass peaking through?"

    Thank you, Seil for that Dick-Clark beauty. Thank you, Jerijen, Tomva, and Jacqueline for the roses that you posted. More people should know about these beauties, besides the boring knock-outs.