I grew Pickerings Alba named Princesse de Lamballe. I moved it as the canes got about 4 to 5 feet in a couple of years and it was not suited to the spot. It has not recovered well - was looking at it tonight and saw 1 cane for a years growth and now consider it finished. I now wished I had not moved it as it was growing so well. Here is a photo of mine in bloom 2 years back. Pickering gig not carry it last year. The Queen of the Bourbons I am more use to being the name for a pink single bourbon that does not repeat. I tried it and could not get it to bloom.

There exists far less documentation on roses from the 1700's when Marie Antoinette lived. Because she held what appears to be a Centifolia, perhaps the Cabbage Rose in her hands in a famous painting, she probably really did hold that rose in her hands and hence was familiar with it. Centifolia is believed to be the earliest garden class developed in Europe, and a small plant called ' de Meaux' a white Centifolia could date from the late 1700's. Other roses that are documented, or believed to have been grown in Europe, before 1800 include 1200 a.d. The Apothecary Rose' was brought to France from the middle East, probably. This rose is the primogeniture rose of the Gallica family. The earliest other Gallica rose mentioned is 'Tuscany' or the Velvet Rose which might have been grown during her lifetime. 'La Belle Sultane' may have been grown since 1795 the white Rose of York' was grown in England since the 1400's and since D.N.A. shows Alba roses descend from R. fed. a wild rose that comes from further east, perhaps Alba roses were first in France, or the Netherlands before they arrived in England. One source told me that he believes a rose that was described as being grown in Europe in the 1500's fits 'Maidens Blush'. Of colors of roses, in Europe there are no wild native red or yellow roses, and all the pre-1800 red roses descend from R. gallica. She might have seen the 'Austrian Briar' a yellow wild rose that, despite its name, is not native to Austria. It too was probably brought from Turkey or further east. The 'Yellow Rose' a double rose that appears like a bowl filled with petals, was so rare that even a Dutch Master painter might have had trouble finding even one to paint, which is why most of the Dutch masters painted pink or white Centifolia type roses. However if anyone wanted a R. hemispherica, I think perhaps someone of her social status might have acquired it. Graham Stuart Thomas wrote that he believed that R. moschata was brought to England in the Elizabethan era, (mid 1500's to 1603). Marie Antoinette might have seen this rose. There are no native plants extant of this rose and no one knows where it originated from, one source believes that perhaps the Moors brought it from Northern Africa to Spain and the Iberian peninsula. There wern't many types of garden roses in the 1700's and so Marie Antoinette could have also loved wild roses. The wild roses of France are several, all are pink and/or white and like all European roses bloom only once a year, each bush for about a month long. Hope this is of some help. Lux.

Hi Debra! #1 GW's search bar even forum specific search bar doesn't work very well. So I use Google, I look up a specific cultivar ex. Citrix. I type in (Google) Daylily Citrix 1st and see what comes up. Then I type in Daylily Citrix gardenweb and it will pull up tons of stuff. It will then give the option 'show all gardenweb' and I hit that and then sometimes depending on the cultivar it will pull up tons of GW threads. But even with all of this sometimes you still may pull up zero (on a particular cultivar) and I search up images. I then hover my mouse over the image and it will show me the source of the pic without actually having to click on the pic and be directed to the source of it And a lot of times I may go thru pages of images hovering my mouse to try and find a gardenweb thread in hopes that maybe someone will have more in depth info. such as strong grower/weak grower, hates the south/loves the south etc. I find so many super cool threads. I soooo want to comment on many more however I didn't want to get on everyones nerves commenting on thus bringing to the top old threads. So I try and reserve my commenting on ones that I find as precious as gold. You seem to have lots that fit that category Debra! I love these threads! And I am a new daylily grower/collector so these are so enlightening. There are soooo many cultivars available I try to find good opinions on the ones that I want before I bid/buy them. I can't ever just seem to be a 'regular' gardener I obsess over and collect whatever plant I am into for that year or two. Buy books on it, spend tons of time reading up on it and of course buying too. lol It's not my only hobby but by far my favorite and I've shelved my other hobbies for the time being. But I do get burn out and (usually in the winter) swear off all my major gardening but then Spring rolls around and I'm back at it full force again. lol Rena'

Hi Everybody! Ive been away from the garden forum for a while finished my masters and just submitted my thesis which is also due to submit for publicationa busy year! Anyway, back to ROSES! Mom and I planted a ton last year, mostly OGRs (old garden roses) and a few newer varieties. My criteria remain the same they have to be able to flourish in organic conditions. We pay lots of attention to the soil, they are planted with lots of care and organic material/fertilizer, and we give them lots of water the first year to help them get really established. But, there is little patience for black spot or powdery mildew in our garden and we are 100% organic a tall order! Most of the roses we planted last year did well, with a few exceptions, but there were some that performed exceptionally well. 1. Climbing Pinkie a vigorous climber with smallish blooms (quarter to 50-cent size, depending on the time of year) of clear pink and lush dark green foliage. I covered at least an 8 foot section of fence last year. In fact, I had to cut back a number of canes that were encroaching on other plants/beds. We were so happy with her that we are putting in at least 3 more. 2. Earth Song a Dr. Griffith introduction that, planted side by side with a knockout, really gave the knockout a run for its money, both in terms of growth and blooming. Earth Song is a medium pink with good-size blooms that are really large in the cooler temps. The blossoms dont fade all that much in Oklahoma sun and it just bloomed its heart out all summer, reaching about 4-feet by the end of the season. Nice dark green foliage. Were putting at least one more in this season, and honestly it was probably our favorite rose all summer. 3. Lafter an old garden rose in apricot/pink shades. It didnt perform like Earth Song, but its completely wonderful! Reached over 4 feet the first season and bloomed regularly throughout the summer. One of my favorites. 4. Moonlight a lovely white climber. It didnt rival Climbing Pinkie, but it was planted close to a shade tree so it received less sunlight. Still, it covered at least a 6 foot portion of fence (possibly closer to 8). I love the delicate foliage and the small white flowers. A wonderful climber. 5. Carefree Sunshine a great yellow rose with large blossoms reached 4+feet by the end of the season and bloomed throughout the summer. We planted the yellow Knockout (Sunny), and though I liked it a lot, Carefree Sunshine definitely out performed the knockout. 6. Old Blush this thing went wild! It is a Spring and Fall bloomer, so it doesnt provide much summer color, but I like having a variety some roses that bloom all season, others that put on a one-time show, and some that only bloom when the weather cools off. Old Blush has great fine foliage and just keeps putting off canes. We are putting in an arbor for her, and its a good thing, because Im sure she could take over a 20ft. section of fencing if you let her. The blossoms are not my favorite shade, a little too bright pink with a mauve base, but some folks love that color. The blooms fade slightly in the sun to a more personally palatable rose-pink shade. We are putting in a couple more on a section a fence that we want some real coverage on. 7. Knockouts We planted pink single and double knockouts, sunny (yellow), and rainbow. Some were first year last season while it was the second for others. The pinks by far out perform the others, but I completely love Rainbow it ranks up in my top 5 favorites. I know there has been some discontent with Knockouts on this thread, but for our garden I cant say enough good about them, and I dont have a single complaint. They bloom from Spring through fall without stopping, the foliage stays looking great all season, and they need less water than the rest of the roses. They also do well in a bed with other perennials and annuals and dont seem to mind the close company. The only disease issues Ive seen has been with one of the Rainbows because it got crowded out by the more vigorous pink knockout and got some blackspot. I cut it back drastically this fall and it survived the harsh winter weather just fine were moving it to a suitable location. I havent had any issues with them and I have around 25 of them in my garden. 8. Alister Stella Gray I love this rose! It has the most amazing fragrance!! Its a noisette small yellow blossoms that fade to a creamy yellow in the sun. Its a fairly vigorous shrub rose, reaching at least 4 feet in a season, and blooms all summer. Dont be put off by the fading blooms because the fragrance is completely worth it! 9. Antoinette Mari a short-ish pink rose that needs some room. It didnt do much at first because we had some annuals crowding its space, but once we pulled them out in the fall, it just took off. Nice foliage and beautiful blossoms. 10. New Dawn not much needs to be said about New Dawn (thanks to Jean, the pics are awesomecant wait until mine is that large!). This is a great climber that needs plenty of room in order to do her thing (not that you cant crowd her a bit, but she can do so much with some space). Gorgeous mellow pink blooms. 11. Souvenir de St. Annes This lovely thing was planted in an area that, unknown to us, was a water path when the rains cameso she sat in water quite a bit, which didnt give her a fair chance for the summer, but by the time we cooled off a bit she just took off. Throughout the summer, she put forth loads of creamy pink blooms breathtaking! Last year, we (by "we" I mean my mom and I!) ordered from Antique Rose Emporium and Chamblees, and purchased a number of them from TLC, and we bought some Knockouts from Lowes. I was very upset with the TLC roses they all had grub worms eating on the roots when we went to plant themneedless to say, we took them backneedless to say TLC was not very happy about it but they did refund our entire purchase. I was also really disappointed with the Antique Rose Emporium the starts we received looked just terrible! But, ARE did refund our order and asked us to plant them anyway because they were sure that they would do well. All of them eventually snapped out of it, though they were certainly stunted initially. Im not ordering from them unless I have to in the future, but they were honorable in how they handled my complaint. Chamblees, on the other hand, was great! The roses are very small when you receive them, and I was a bit trepedatious about that, but all of them took off and were every bit as large by the end of the season as the roses we planted from gallon+ containers. Chamblees is also very reasonably priced most of them are $8.95, less than half of ARE, and their shipping is pretty reasonable, especially if you order in the right incriments (for instance, a dozen roses ships cheaper per rose than does 14 roses per rose). I wish they had better pics on their website, but they are a great company to do business with in fact, its the only place we are ordering roses from this season and Im going to do my best to avoid buying them from the nurseries this year on a whim! Anthrogirl78 I was thinking about America but didnt end up planting itat least not yethow did yours do? You might try the Alister Stella Gray if you are after a yellow rose, it doesnt have large flowers, and the yellow is a little more toward blush than daffodil yellow, but I read that it can get up to 12 feet tallto us it looks more like a 5x5, but its a great addition to the yellow clan! Thanks for the good wishes, ladies! I am making a goal this year of taking photos of all the different roses so that I have a photo record of how they all did. As for this year, were putting in a number of new roses here is a list from our first order of new varieties to our garden: Wild Ginger Jefferson Rose La Marne Gruss An Aachen Mrs. Oakley Fisher Distant Drums Also, a number of the roses we grew last year just sort of sat there during the summer - they grew a bit, and didn't get any diseases, but neither did they flourish. However, as soon as we cooled off in September, they started going gang-busters. We had an amazing show of roses all fall - I had a full bouquet for Thanksgiving! They provided nice variety for us - even though they didn't like the heat, who can resist rose bouquets in the fall?! Happy Rose growing everyone!!! I'll try to post some photos throughout the upcoming months... :-) Ada (PS: I posted the pic below from facebook, so hopefully you all can access it...speaking of which, don't you think it would be cool to have a facebook group based on this forum?) Here is a link that might be useful: Roses for Thanksgiving