Those yaller Tea/Noisettes (Auerstadt, Chromatella, Marechale Niel ...) are unsuccessful here. Finally got Jaune Desprez to grow, and WHEN it produces a bloom, it's lovely, but 6 blooms/year don't cut it.

I can grow the older-style cluster-flowering Noisettes from now 'til the cows come home, but the only "yaller" Tea-Noisette that's good here is Reve d'OR.

Jeri

Interesting that your findings are similar to mine, Jerome. From about eight noisettes that I started with I now have none, the beautiful Mrs. Wood's Lavender Pink Noisette having been the last on the chopping block. The flowers were sublime when the plant was happy, which was almost never. Reve d'Or is okay but only really nice in the spring. When I look at pictures of the glorious noisettes at the Sacramento cemetery rose garden I could die of envy, but there are still the teas that love it here (and obviously your garden) so all is not lost. I've found it's always a great relief to banish from my sight the specimens that hate it here, and the shovel has become my friend. I'm still waiting for Celine Forestier to improve but if year 4 doesn't show some gorgeous blooms, well then...

Ingrid

I have tried many of the tea noisettes too and am currently nursing Chromatella and Duchesse d'Auerstadt to health from our summer heat. The Duchesse is pretty healthy, has alot of new growth but Chromatella I'm not as confident about. I think he'll make it but he's just not a very robust grower.

I have several noisettes which seem healthy but no blooms yet (they've been in ground about 2 1/2 years).

Jerome, do you have any pictures of your tea noisettes? I'd love to see how yours look, even the ones you're planning to get rid of. Would like to compare to how mine look.

I have had some success with Mlle de Sombrieul, is she a tea or tea-noisette...I've seen her listed as both. I can't imagine how she got mixed up with the climber Sombrieul as Mlle is almost thornless and Sombrieul is very thorny. Anyway, Mlle d S. is a great rose so far. Not many blooms but she is a very healthy grower

The tea noisette are frustrating to me too but I keep hoping my latest ones will produce those exquisite blooms.

I tried to love "Mrs. Woods Lavender/Pink Noisette," but after several years, it has proven to be overwhelmingly vigorous here, with marginally-decent foliage, and almost no blooms.
To add insult to injury, the blooms she DOES produce seem to show up in the early, wet, period of the year, so that they fail to open.

She has to go.

The spot she is occupying can be filled quite nicely by a vigorous bush of Aimee Vibert from the Sacramento City Cemetery, which DOES want to bloom, and has lovely foliage.

I also have a Found 'Ducher' which was given me by the person who collected it, near Chico, CA. This is another dependable bloom-factory, with terrific foliage.

My found Ragged Robin (Gloire des Rosomanes) has really taken hold this year, growing close to 6 ft. tall now, always covered with lovely leaves, and never without bloom.

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Jeri

Here is a link that might be useful:

I have only grown one tea-noisette, and it is white, not yellow, but it has been amazing here in No Cal. Madame Alfred Carriere will grow in partial to deep shade (surviving until it gets big enough to get up to some light). I have 4 of them, each climbing high into a tree(s), or over the garage, or up over the garage, jumping into a tree on a neighbor's property, and then up some more. One of mine has made it into the actual canopy of a small "forest" in our yard - you can see it blooming way up on the top, from any angle, for at least 10 months of the year. Part of it has fallen downwards about 15 feet in a storm, clung on, and is cascading over a smaller tree. I have thought about why I love it so much, and here are the reasons:

1) NO CARE whatsoever - once it is established, and takes off on its 20-30 ft tall adventure, they might get a handful of osmocote once a year if I remember (as they are growing in wilder areas where I certainly do not pick up the leaf litter, they get natural food from that), certainly no spraying, and no pruning unless dead parts fall down far enough to impede pedestrian traffic.

2) Truly everblooming, with large white flowers sometimes tinged with pink - look fantastic way up against the sky.

3) Really do cover outbuildings if you want them to.

4) Perfect for my lazy style of gardening - this may be the most important - if I were a perfectionist they would be difficult, as needing constant pruning and tying and etc. to keep them looking picture perfect. Luckily I like the wild look they give in wilder parts of my garden while needing no care.

5) I have never planted one that died, or did not immediately take off, and bloom and bloom and bloom.

Jackie

I know M.A.C. is a great favorite. For me, though, the problem with her was that she mildewed at a low level ALL of the time. She NEVER had truly clean foliage, and tho she stayed here for 10-12 years, she was always subtly annoying for that reason. Had she been closer to the house, she'd probably have left long before she did.

In my conditions, 'Lamarque' seems to do better. It's just always "Location, Location, Location," isn't it?

Jeri

Like Jackie, I've found Madame Alfred Carriere amazing -- have 3 in different situations: on a pergola, on a trellis (that one takes some work), and up a tree. She blooms a lot; the blooms have a wonderful texture and luminous quality and great scent.

Other than MAC and Allister Stella Grey (who from the start has always been in bloom and perfectly behaved with very little attention from me), some of the other tea-noisettes have only really become prolific bloomers after five years in the ground; Jaune Desprez and Celine Forestier have fit that model. With CF in particular, I don't think I got more than 6 blooms altogether the first several years, but this past summer she has only rarely been out of bloom. JD used to bloom only in one massive flush in the spring, but now blooms all season long. Marechal Niel looks like he may follow that pattern, too: slow but steady building-up and better and more reliable bloom with each year.

My Reve d'Or is only a year in the ground, but certainly seems to be taking off -- though only a few flowers this year. Crepuscule was fantastic and quite floriferous at five years but sadly was too near an active oak-root fungus source, contracted it and had to be removed -- I am definitely replacing that one.

Follow up...I dug up the Duchesse on Saturday and put Tea Clipper in her stead. My friend Mary, aka Peachikean, gave me her Tea Clipper as well as Irish Hope, and that was my Saturday workout. Tea Clipper's roots went to somewhere in Peking, and I got it out with difficulty. The ever-merciful Fr. Ambrose insisted I pot up Mme. La Duchesse, which I did - they can have it at the novitiate. Maybe it will come back after a year in a pot...Marechal Niel did.

Catspa's observations are very similar to my results...

It's the holy water they use on them! Sure to bring them back every time!

I am not above using Lourdes water on roses that look like they're going to expire (and I have not lost one of them...) But on more thought, I am thinking that Tea-Noisettes (around my area) need a year or two in a pot before being put in the ground. I just put Teas right into the ground as bands, and they take off, but no Tea-Noisette has done that for me, unless I potted them up and let them get really established beforehand.

Jerome, that's been my prescription for success with them since before my Limberlost Roses days. The need the warmth a pot provides to push their development. No matter how warm your climate, the soil just doesn't have enough to push them. Many of the yellow Teas benefit from this treatment also. Kim

Maybe you just need to find a magic in your yard. I'm always fascinated when people complain about Celine Forestier. I must have been holding my tongue right when I planted her as a band 3 years ago, because she's become a monster. Here's a photo of her this summer--and this was after a massive whacking back trying to keep her in bounds. She was reaching the roof before this:

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And incredibly beautiful blooms:


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Maybe she just wants abuse. I don't spray her, water her, or feed her other than a couple handfuls of alfalfa in the spring.

Lucretia, I've come to believe that some roses just want more rain and/or humidity than others. I have the same problems as Jerome and we both garden in hot, dry locations. Roses seem to have their preferences as to where they live, just as people do.

Ingrid

Jerome, I know what you mean. I am about to say goodbye to Crepuscule - just as he is sprouting new growth and a very few flowers. He does this to me all the time. He tricks me into thinking he's going to take off - only not to. This time I'll replace him with a clematis. My Duchesse is slower going that Reve d'Or and a little thicker caned, nowhere near as many blooms yet. If the squirrels would just quit chewing on her, she'd probably have half again as many canes. Since she's got heat here, I'm sticking with DaA. At least she doesn't wear me out with maintenance. You gotta do what you gotta do in the garden. Hopefully, Tea Clipper will be THE rose for that spot.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...