Frau Karl Druschki, at a palace garden in southern Germany, years ago. The biggest, most voluptuous creamy white blooms, larger than my fist. Absolutely in awe. I have never something as magnificent before or since. I have seen a lot of Frau KD, but nothing as amazing as that specimen. Maybe I imagined its perfection, but I will always remember it.

'Felicia' at Sissinghurst, circa 1986.... at the time I didn't know such roses existed and I've never had one as good as that since, but I'm still trying...

I've never actually seen Frau Karl Druschki in person, but I have a Felicia that I hope someday grows into the huge flowering machine I've seen in other gardens. There's a good reason why both of these roses are still popular so many years after being introduced. Both can be swoon-worthy.

Who's next? :)

Montecito, festooning itself up and out of the enormous pecan tree at The Huntington Library way back in the mid eighties. It was (is) a real Jack and the Beanstalk plant! I have, somewhere, photos of it in full flower, exploding from near the top of the reportedly 40' tree. You could see it from the entire main rose garden. While not the photo shots I wrote of, these should give you an idea of what they plant is like. I still love that plant!

For me it was Mutabilis in the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. It must have been about 8 feet tall and nearly as wide and was covered with open blooms from top to bottom. This rose began my passion for old roses and, although I no longer have one, Mutabilis will always have a special place in my heart.

I have Frau Karl Druski. I don't know what to make of it. It sputtered for years, but took off this year and has 8 foot canes. It's a heavy spring bloomer and then sporadic. I am treating it like a small climber in the hopes of getting more blooms. The buds have a pink streak but open pure white. The only issue is that the petals are very thin and the blooms fade fast.

Kim, that thing must be a sight to see. I had actually never heard of it, so I had to read the descriptionas well as look at the pix. I'd love to see your photo if you can find it.

Ingrid, YOUR mutabilis will always have a special place in MY heart. Your pix of it several years ago were one of the things that rekindled my love affair with roses, which was decidedly on the waning side at the time. Many thanks (or much blame, take your pick, lol).

John

If I can ever find it, I'll be happy to post it, John. I'm glad I managed to coax Nessie from it before losing it in the old garden. I am eager to place her in the right spot here to see just how large she wants to be!

The rose that had a breath stealing effect for me was Nancy Hayward ( Cl; A Clark 1937) grown along a fence by a private driveway. I first saw it on my way to work in winter and it was a sheet of light, bright red. Over the years it never seemed to be without some bloom, whatever the season. I wanted to know what it was, so finally plucked up the courage to go and ask. Sadly, the house was sold to developers about three years ago and now there are units and no rose. Funnily enough, I didn't fancy single roses until then. Now, my Nancy lights up the view from my kitchen and family room windows. ( Mutabilis runs a close 2nd)

For me, it was Mutabilis too. I saw it in the Parnell Rose Gardens in Auckland, NZ, in the mid 80's, and was taken aback at all the different colours on a huge, rounded shrub. I remember talking to one of the gardeners about it. My mother had grown Queen Elizabeth when I was a child, but I was not enamoured of her stiff, upright habit, and didn't realise that roses could look any other way.

What I can't figure, and it really annoys me!, is that I had the good fortune to stay at Sissinghurst in my mid 20's, about ten years prior, and I don't remember much about the garden at all, except for picking raspberries for dinner, and how green the grass was.

Ozmelodye, Nancy Hayward is another one I had to look up. Single blooms up to 5 inches would be enough to make for a spectacle (I'm a fan of Mermaid, too). I can imagine a plant covered in them must be incredible. I doubt it would be hardy for me, too much R gigantea in it, so I'll just have to file it next to Belle Portugaise under "admire in someone else's garden", lol.

John

I'm not sure I ever experienced a single blinding moment, but the first house I bought, in Olympia, Washington, had a rose by the front door, and when it bloomed the following year I thought a miracle had occurred. The rose was a big trailing shrub, and it streamed clusters of smallish, pink-blushed white, elegantly quartered blooms with a rich fragrance that wandered around the corner of the house and into the living room. Imagine a full-skirted, perfumed lace wedding dress, and you'll have the idea. My horticulturalist sister later identified it as 'Mme. Plantier'. Now that was a rose to make converts. I have it here too, after some efforts spent in procuring it, but it struggles in unfriendly conditions and is taking time to build up. Nowadays my task is to grow overwhelming roses, and I'm working hard at it.

Melissa

Mermaid, grown horizontally all along a house, at a height of two stories, and also grown on a very tall (about 12 feet) gateway -- I think it was the same house. The fragrance must have carried for over 50 feet. This was in Venice, Italy, in 2009 when I went there with my husband. Spectacular.

Also in Italy, when I was a child of 11 we lived outside of Rome, Italy, for a year, and there was a big mimosa tree in the countryside growing by the Lago di Bracciano, in full yellow bloom that had a peachy pink climbing rose trained up it. I think it must have been a tea rose, as I remember full, nodding pink blooms amid the yellow mimosa. We used to drive past it every day when my mother drove me to school and I used to be dumbfounded by its beauty. I think it must have been in late March -- (April?). I was 11 years old. I don't know if mimosa trees bloom at the same time as roses, now that I think of it, and I was just beginning to notice flowers, especially wild flowers -- you could hardly avoid it, they were everywhere, primroses, cyclamen, crocuses -- like out of a ancient mythical landscape. In any case, I'm pretty sure it was a mimosa -- the florist's kind and a tea rose -- or it could have been Mme Gregoire Staechelin, possibly. These are things you just come upon and gape.

Huge ... red ... quartered ... and it was fragrant, too.

Anybody know what it might be?

Thanks,

Sylvia

Sylvia, I don't have a suggestion for an ID, but it's gorgeous. I hope someone can help. I'd like to have one, myself. As if I *need* more roses. But then again, what does "need" have to do with it? lol.

Monarda, Mermaid is my OTHER obsession, which I managed to grow for a few years during our warm period....which ended two winters ago, lol. It never liked it here, just too cold, but the few blooms I had were incredible, and even worth the wicked thorns.

John

John, I will take the praise (but not the blame) for my Mutabilis having inspired your interest in roses again. So often other people's roses have thrilled me to the point where I just had to have it, and that's how we enable ever more rose lovers. It can only make for a more beautiful world. I miss my Mutabilis very much, and hope that the Blush Noisette and Aloha I've planted in its place will in maybe a few years help me to get over that longing.

Years ago, i saw a photo on Internet of someone's Climbing Angel Face in California. I have never recovered. Clbg. Angel face is not available here in Europe. I have since roamed the seven seas, obsessively pursueing every mauve/violet climber that I can lay my hands on...

I've not had an ultimate infatuation for a single rose, but I have had many moments of sheer green envy over other gardens.

More than one rose has impressed me powerfully over the years. The one that I keep coming back to is the pernetiana 'Climbing Shot Silk'. Large, luminous, fragrant roses on a huge spreading climber, and it repeats, too. One came with the house, probably a 50 or 60 year old plant. It became necessary to move it and sadly it did not survive for long. Then a few years ago we encountered one in Italy while on vacation. I recognized it instantly. I had to have it once again. Thanks to an acquaintance who generously offered me cuttings, I have a two-year-old plant growing on the arbor off the side porch. Some years it gets a fair amount of disease but I'm keeping it anyway. Nearby I have planted 'Mutabilis' which is a single more or less in the same color range. I like the way the two offer different versions on the same theme, much like a piece of music.

I just love this glorious rose.

For me, it's a hedge of Crepuscule growing around the corner from my place. It inspired me to grow my own roses. It's in full spring bloom right now :)

For me it was actually reading Henry Mitchell's brief descriptions of Celsiana and Celeste in The Essential Earthman. I had never seen anything other than a hybrid tea and the odd climber. His recommendation was strong enough to cause me to google a picture of Celsiana and within another hour I had found a nursery selling it. It's horribly suited to my climate but it will always be a favourite.

For me it was this place, the Berkeley Rose Garden. As a little girl I played in Codornices Park which was around the corner from my grandfather's house. I'd take the tunnel to this magical place with roses taller than me, set up like an amphitheater with a creek running at the bottom. Sadly, I visited last summer and it has fallen into disrepair though I believe there are funds set aside to restore it to its previous grandeur.

Sylvia, I am ridiculously happy that you got to see some roses in Visby! I was worried that the weather would be too awful for you to see any roses in the Swedish City of Roses. My own experience of Visby was disastrous as our tent was flooded and this remains my image of Visby.

I have told my own story of my first strong impression of a rose many times on the internet. I grew up in a small village on the Baltic coast in the north of Sweden where most roses were red rugosas grown in hedges. When I was about 9 or 10 my mother had a friend whose little house was covered with a pink rose. I have realized later that it must have been an alba, perhaps Minette or Maiden's Blush, both common roses that can be made to climb. One day there was a big bunch of these roses on the living room table. I found them incredibly beautiful. The next day the roses were gone and my mother told me that my father had made her remove them because they reminded him of the funeral of his first child. Until then I had not known that my father had been married before or that he'd had a child, older than me. I had such strange confusing feelings. I felt both jealous, ashamed and triumphant, because I lived and that little boy had died and I had my father to myself. I still remember that rose.

I had an intense rose crush that I feared might turn into stalking, on a 'Susan Louise' in Berkeley, California that had been pruned into a tree size and shape; one central thick "trunk" and all the branches clipped off to about 6 feet above the ground with an immense canopy of pretty leaves covered with very large and lightly fragrant cream and pink roses dangling overhead, it seemed magical to me. I visited every season and one day I got the nerve to knock on the door and ask the lady what it was... she said it was sold to her at a local college as "Belle Portugaise" and she said it bloomed every month of the year. (I mentioned that I thought it might be 'Susan Louise). It is not in commerce but last year to my utter joy I found a Susan Louise 'at the Old Rose Celebration for only 5 bucks!!! My prayers were answered. It was on rootstock and is presently nearly 6 feet tall...

Now if I only had room for R. gigantea.

Lux.

Lux, actually Rogue Valley has Susan Louise in stock, and Rose Petals lists it, but it's out of stock (but on my wishlist, lol). I've been drooling over this one for a long time because of its resemblance and kinship to Belle Portugaise. But it's not much, if any, more hardy than BP. So I'm trying to resist temptation and do the *sane* thing, lol.

I'm thinking maybe since it's a smaller rose I might be able to protect it????

Somebody hellllllllllllp me! I feel an episode coming on................lol.

John

It's available in Australia too, if any Aussies are interested.... wish I had room for it.

I used to have an old Sterling Silver rose bush. When the bushes are that old and well established they produce beautifully shaped blooms. This is not so apparent on younger bushes. It had the most wonderful scent too, like a freshly cut lemon and damask. I wanted to say like lemon blossoms because the smell was somewhat sweet like blossoms, but it really had more of a cut lemon element to it. I think this had to be the most wonderful smell in existence. And the color! Sure the tone might have been a little greyish but Sterling Silver has the most blue-hued color of purple of any rose I have come across, and I do have several other "blue" roses. Sadly the bloom shape and fragrance do not really fully develop until after several years, apparently.

The fragrance was wonderful but I would not say the smell was particularly strong, maybe a 6 out of 10 on the scale.

This is the best picture I can find, but the blooms on the bush I had were even a little bigger and more complexly shaped. http://www.unionagway.com/images/Plant%20Images/887654%20Rose-Sterling_Silver_002.jpg

Here's another picture that I believe better captures the complex bloom shape: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_uA11VV3Naao/S8YuoNTBLRI/AAAAAAAAATw/_FEIEDp-7Ak/s1600/Sterling+Silver+Rose.jpg

https://img.thrfun.com/img/071/604/lavendarrose_l.jpg

Again, these are all not very good pictures, but is the best I could find.

First time I hear of an old and well established bush of Sterling Silver. I suppose anything can happen and life is full of surprises.. lol Here it is a barely surviving, mildew ridden one and a half cane wonder. Reason it hasn't got the shovel is my SO likes the occasional truss of blooms.

Nik, I've actually seen one. Many years ago, Marissa Fishman of Greenmantle Nursery, wrote me saying, "Barney Gardner wants to contact you." Barney was an elderly gentleman who lived in Los Banos, California. In the early 1970s he had a garden of over 2,000 roses and was listed on the American Rose Society list of open gardens for people to visit. He dabbled in breeding roses, eventually releasing Dream Dust, what he liked to call a "lay down rose". What we now call ground covers. Barney and I started a correspondence which turned into a friendship. I visited him on my way to the San Jose Heritage Garden and he showed me around his home town. His family had been there for quite a few generations. He was born and raised there, living his long life in that town and he knew most everyone. I had lamented that Dream Dust seemed extinct, but he found a childhood friend who had bought one "way back when" because it was proof of "the local boy who made good". His friend still had the rose and he proudly gave Barney cuttings, which he propagated and shared with me. We had corresponded about the "funny colored roses" we shared appreciation for. One of his thrills during our visit was showing me an ancient bush of Sterling Silver, the likes of which I have never seen, before or since. None of the amazing looking plants of it I have seen in the rose fields compared to this plant. It was reportedly purchased when it was still a new introduction. It obviously loved Los Banos where it is hot and dry. The plant was easily five by five feet and studded with its characteristic buds and flowers. My biggest thrill for the day was being shown around the Randall Fawcett, Frank Lloyd Wright house in town. Barney went to school with Randall Fawcett. A local architect had studied under Wright at Taliesin and came home to practice his skills. The Cattleman's Association, many commercial buildings in town and several private residences had all been designed by this architect and looked straight from the "Frank Lloyd Wright Songbook". It was an amazing visit. He was a delightful, interesting friend.

John, to give some perspective...an airplane hanger is smaller than a cathedral, but neither would be easy to winter protect! Susan Louise can still build to a mountain of a plant.

...thanks, Kim. I think that's a big enough dose of reality to hold me to reason. For now, lol.

You're welcome, John. It's a gorgeous rose. This is the base of the plant in a friend's garden in Torrance, California, just over the rise from the ocean. Susan is definitely NOT one to be kept small through pruning!

lol...it does look like she could get large-ish, Kim. But the more I look at her, the more I'm tempted. After all, she's a *seedling* of BP, so she MIGHT be a little more hardy. Maybe???? Who knows who the other parent might be. Right????? Gee, if I take a jackhammer to my patio, take out a section of concrete up against the house, then I'd have a huge three story height of dark brick, south-facing wall available. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

I've been thinking about this question for a week or more and haven't been able to come up with a single "moment". I've just always loved roses, that's all. My first memory of a rose is the 'Blaze Improved' that grew on the fence of my childhood home.

I've seen the 'Susan Louise' in the SJHRG -- she's big, and that one is pruned.

Like Ingrid I've been ga-ga for Mutabilis for years. Of course it's a China and winter tender. That hasn't stopped me from trying though, lol! I grew a potted one from some cuttings that Kim sent me and it did live for a couple of years but didn't make it out of the first polar winter. This spring I purchased one and planted in the ground in THE most protected spot I have and will see how it does this winter. Fingers crossed! It's such a lovely thing!

Fingers are crossed for you, Sharon!

I was never very fond of roses other than Iceberg until I saw my first Austins.