Roses

When I wrote this page, I had about 300 roses.

I know, it's a sickness.

What can I say? I like the way they smell. I even like the way some of them grow. You wouldn't know it to look at most ordinary rosebushes, which are kinda gawky without their flowers, but there are roses that are extremely beautiful in any season. ‘La Mortola’, for example. You have to have space for it (the plant is huge), and it will only grow in fairly mild climates; still, there are pretty rosebushes for most areas, always depending on your taste in shrubs and the like.

As I get more time, I will put more rose info into this page; for the moment, I think I am going to start with a short list of extremely fragrant roses and perhaps a wee bit of information about acquiring them.

• ‘Yolande d’Aragon’: This one is available from several of the usual old-rose vendors. If you don’t know any of them, email me and I will front you some names and addresses, or (if you are fanatically interested) get a copy of CRL (see below).
• ‘Ferdinand Pichard’: Striped. Smells kinda like lingonberries (to me).
• ‘Duchesse de Brabant’: Smells like raspberry sherbet to me, though I have read a rather more complex writeup by Babette deBarr.
• ‘Sweet Afton’: A modern rose. Smells like roses and honeysuckle. This is probably one of the best moderns ever, as far as I am concerned.
• ‘Double Delight’: Another modern. Rich spicy fragrance.
• ‘Ruhm von Steinfürth’: Not very available...yet. I think we will be seeing more of this one. I also suspect that one of the unknowns available from Antique Rose Emporium may be this rose, but I have not been able to check that yet, so don’t quote me. href="http://www.vintagegardens.com">Vintage Gardens has something available under this name, but it is very different from my plant. (Mine came from the Study Plot at the Huntington, shortly before the Study Plot was bulldozed, and may or may not be accurately identified.)
• ‘American Beauty’: We all thought that this had become extinct, but that may not be the case. The rose I have is quite nice, and has a particularly lovely fragrance. I got it from Antique Rose Emporium. Vintage Gardens also has a rose under this name, which they claim is different from the Antique one. I need to acquire it and compare.
• ‘Belle de Crécy’: Lovely old-rose fragrance.
• ‘Papa Meilland’: Like all (or nearly all) the modern velvety-red roses, this is a martyr to mildew, but the fragrance is worth it. (Other velvety modern reds with lovely fragrance include, amond others, ‘Mister Lincoln’; “Étoile de Hollande’, though the bush form of that last is not very happy, and if you like it you should probably be growing the climber; ‘Crimson Glory’; ‘Oklahoma’; ‘Chateau de Clos Vougeot’; ‘Guinée’; and a few others.)
• ‘Henry Nevard’: I seem to do well with many of the old Hybrid Perpetuals. This is definitely one of them.
• ’Granny Grimmetts’: This is actually a new Hybrid Perpetual. Smells like roses and burnt oranges or cointreau or... I can’t quite identify one of the components of the fragrance. Can anyone help?
• ‘Fragrant Cloud’: Another modern. Plants of this variety seem to be extremely variable. I have smelled some that I thought should have been named ‘Flagrant Crud’, and others that were stellar. So go figure.
• ‘Lady Hillingdon’: An old Tea rose, with an apricotty-fruity fragrance.

I think I shall stop here for the moment. (I have 54 pages of these, and that seems a bit excessive, though I do hope to add to this list as time permits, and you already know I’m off my rocker on this subject, so you can expect this page to become a bit top-heavy.)

With regard to other plants, I am growing several kinds of hot peppers: ‘Czech Black’, ‘Manzano’ Rocoto; ‘Red Savina’ Habanero (THERE IS NO TILDE IN THAT WORD! It has to do with Havana. There’s no tilde in ‘Havana’, either!); a nonhot Habanero variety loosely known as ‘Ajicito’; some fluted yellow thing with a flowery fragrance that reminds me of marigolds and is probably ‘Aji Limon’; etc. I also grow an orchid or two, and various other fruit or vegetable things, along with a few fragrant flowers of various sorts.

For those interested in the odd bit of fun, I commend Unusual Fruits Worthy of Attention, by Lee Reich. I’d mention some more Web sites, but they are easy enough to find, and there are zillions of ’em.

CRL is the Combined Rose List, by Bev Dobson and Peter Schneider. It is available from Peter. You should be able to find info about it on the Web, but if you have trouble, please send me email and I will be happy to furnish a pointer. CRL is issued in March of each year (or at least used to be), and sells out fairly quickly, so it’s a good idea to get your order in swiftly when the time comes.

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