WOW! What beautiful pictures! Thanks everybody for sharing them. I was caught up in the fun of this, thinking of what rose flower I liked best, when I had a thought - most of the responses and pictures here focus on the beauty of the individual blooms. This is understandable, but it is also how 20th century hybridizers thought, and unfortunately it resulted in the development of: spindly upright ugly bushes; new roses with no fragrance whatever; & roses so disease prone that everybody had to spray poisons all over their gardens every 2 weeks! So, I would prefer a different definition of "beauty" - roses that are beautiful not only in their individual blossoms, but as an overall bush. Banksia lutea, as it bursts into bloom all over town, suddenly appearing all over large trees, and dripping down from on high, would certainly be my favorite. All of the teas are graceful shrubs if you have enough room for them, and also have gorgeous flowers. MAC is beautiful in my garden because it has climbed up several old plum & fig trees, and I can see blossoms from my bedroom window as I speak, seemingly floating all over the top of our fruit tree forrest. This has been going on non-stop since March! Ditto Cl Peace, which is now producing blossoms all over the top of a huge pomegranite bush - its third bloom flush so far this year. I have a dark red/purple many many petaled mystery rose that I found in our garden (from where it was growing inside of a Japanese quince bush, I would say it was planted at least in the 1930s) which I rooted & planted out by the street in the sun, right next to the sidewalk. It blooms for 10 months of the year, and is amazingly fragrant with that heady "old rose" fragrance. Our street is a busy street, as is the sidewalk. This rose is only about 4-5 feet tall, so the blossoms are very accessible to passer- byes who want to smell it. I enjoy watching people's reactions when I am near there weeding or whatever - it is truly a "beautiful" rose, as it startles people into a brief happiness! Jackie

luxrosa, I am growing Yolande d'Aragon in San Diego inland and it has been a great rose for me. The flowers are really big, have the mid pink color that you want (it is definitively a deeper pink than Grandmother's Hat, which I grow too) and are very fragrant. I would say the blooms of YdA are showstoppers! It repeats also well for an Hybrid Perpetual. It is a very vigorous, easy growing, and disease free rose in my garden and the growth habit and leave color is exactly as nastarana states, therefore I would also agree that is a rose for the back of the border. I love, love, love this rose! Portland from Glendora I have only seen growing in a friends garden, who is living close by but I have to say I was not impressed. I am pretty sure his plant is own-root, so when it is on rootstock as you intend to grow it might be a different story! The rose was a couple of years old, had a little bit of a spindly growth habit and topped out at approximately 5 x 5 feet. I found the individual flowers not very attractive because they are nondescript informal, small, and an almost boring deep rose pink. One thing that speaks for PfG though is the strong fragrance. With this rose it is rather about the whole bush, than about the individual flowers. Definitively more a cottage garden rose in my opinion. If I would have to make a decision between the two roses I clearly would go with Yolande d' Aragon! Good luck with the choosing. Please let us know which one you will get. At least I am curious to know! Christina Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

I checked the forecast for the southeast Ches Bay - WU says "partly cloudy" now, but it's very clear. After rains stopped yesterday, it was very clear last night - many stars. Keep your fingers crossed - the cloudy weather may hold of a little longer.

That's just gorgeous, Jasenka! Do you know what type of moth it is? It looks like some type of underwing moth to me. MissSherry