No blooms yet here but Cl Pinkie has a lot of buds & glorious foliage, no mildew yet. My 3 Comte de Chambord are beefing up at last, after all it is year 6. All is forgiven when I see the beautiful blooms. I planted 2 Teas ( Mme A Mari & Dr Grill), they are languishing but the Bourbon (Honorine de B) is flourishing, has grown over a foot. It seems to like my cool temps. The Mary & Vif Eclat are always exuberant growers but we need another month before we see blooms. I've planted a clematis by Vif (Ascotiensis) hoping to slow him down, last year he grew into the hazelnut tree! Mme Plantier is feisty, battling it out with the ancient quince even in partial shade. Every year is different but there are always the trusty stalwarts.

Ingrid, Madame Lambard and Wild Edric are two of my favorites in your garden! Of course, there are so many others as well. Your photos satisfy my desire to drink in shades of silvery pink and plum frosted blooms. Your garden is refreshing and romantic and also sprinkled with fun surprises. Like Sheila, I adore your pedestaled frog. :-)

Your photos of wonderful Wild Edric sent me on a research project the other day. I have a friend who wishes to grow a rugosa, and I immediately remembered your WE and sent her to the forum to view your garden. I do believe there will be one more WE growing in Portland due to your influence.

My friend will probably start asking about growing Teas, too, after gazing at your images of M Lambard and company. Fortunately, John in Portland is having grand Tea success, so I'll send her to his photos for confirmation of healthy Teas in this area.

Blush Noisette does cling to her spent blooms, doesn't she? I jokingly refer to her as "a hoarder rose" (which is my term for plants that just never let go of the detritus). Mine is quite tall, so I walk by and scrunch whatever spent blooms I can between my fingers. At the top, I prune off clusters with bunches of spent blooms even if all the buds haven't opened yet. BN is a bloom machine, so more buds follow in the footsteps.

Carol

Oh, I just realized I never answered your question, Ingrid! My potential successes are just beginning to reveal themselves. Portland's weather returned to cool rain and cloud cover, so our rose season is delayed. Updates to follow when the next chapter begins. Carol

I'm pining for Blush Noisette, I need to find a perfect spot to plant one.

My top spring performer has got to be Bobbie James. Still not in bloom yet but LOADED with buds. It's going to be magical in about a week and a half. It grows like a weed, has never had a single moment of sickness, disease or pestilence in three years, and seems to tolerate just about anything. Like a cane can be whacked off and hanging by a thread and it will still manage to send enough sap to keep it looking like it's intact!

Promise....

What will be..........................

Ferndale red , rommagi plot Julia child, and Irene ford. Setzer noisette and grandmothers hat look like they will do well once they get established

No blooms yet, the result of a terrible winter that has made everything late, plus continuing colder weather than normal. I know that Jude the Obscure and Frederic Mistral are both hot messes and won't be doing anything wonderful for the spring season. It's a big guess after that. The peonies look great, though, with lots of buds. Diane

This spring, it's definitely Alnwick Castle.

These won't be quite what you're looking for, as of course our Spring flush

is only just starting, and I expect warm climate gardeners will have

more pleasing shots, but I'm always up for it regardless... I know you are too..

'Marie Nabonnand'.. with a perfume I'd be happy to wear..

''L19 Laos'' found China growing through 'Blush Noisette' of all places..

''Odee's Pink''.. a most graceful China...

..full potted shot... I'm becoming very fond of this rose.. despite mildew..

Azalea 'Megan'.. a Glen Dale hybrid..

..front road border... 'Lady of Shalott' on the wall..

''Irene Watts''

'Princess Anne'

..from my local hedgerows.. well it is in the rose family and what better sight?

Hawthorn..

Ingrid, have you noticed the strongly wafting BN's scent? It is very noticeable early in the morning in my garden.

Despite a worse than our usual bad mildew affliction (this year even roses that don't usually get it had it..) and despite our continued drought, all my roses have performed admirably this spring. Maybe it was due to the chillier than usual winter we had. Even the Austins performed very well... One couldn't see any leaves on Abraham Darby due to the blooms covering them.. It was the first time I saw my Cornelia growing in very partial sun fully covered in blooms, my climbing CB finally took of after many years of sulking, I got blooms out of the Shropshite Lad (!! for me..) and I saw more than 3 blooms at a time on The Prince... La Mortola and The Garland were covered in blooms in their first year in the ground. My usually sickly MIP performed well and she gained another season off the spade. I had such a good flush in the garden that deadheading the spent blooms is becoming a big chore..

Maybe my roses sensed my predicament healthwise and tried to lift my spirits..

Lynn, your photos are stunning. Your Blush Noisette is amazing. In regards to your question, I've had Alnwick Castle for 4 years, own root from RU. Overall, I'd say it is what I would consider to be one of the closest to what I imagined an English Rose "should" be of all my roses, when I started growing Austins. There's the flowers, of course, the form of the flowers is that seductive globular-to-cupped shape in the cooler spring and fall (and also having that slightly nodding form), opening up to shallow bowls in the summer showing the small inner petals (and more upright form), which I don't like as much. The color fades very little through the life of the flower and are a
soft cool pink in the cooler weather, a color that is straight out
of my box of pastels, that same saturated depth of color. In the heat it is more salmon colored and can be paler.
Here it is in August (2015):

Sometimes it has that warm/cool thing going on (July 2015)

Sometimes rather pale (September 2016):

The flowers
are fairly short lived, few days at most. One of the best things about this rose is the fragrance, which to my nose is like Talento raspberry sorbetto. It is a delicious raspberry, tart and sweet at the same time, and strong enough that I can smell it from a couple yards away. I don't cut my roses, so I don't know how it would work as a cut. Like all Austins, or most roses in fact, it does not bloom much in the middle of our heat, and they fry but not as quickly as some. It gives me about as many blooms in the fall as in the spring. The bush is upright, and started out almost fastigiate and is now more bushy. It grew to 3 feet and then stopped getting taller, became more bushy. No octopus arms so far. I think that my Falstaff is closer to my idea of "English rose" in bush form and leaf, but Alnwick is not bad. Leaves turn a rich burgundy red in the colder weather and that lasts throughout the winter. I've never seen disease on the leaves. It's not a perfect rose, but it's a very nice one.

Nik, please show us some photos of your Abraham Darby! Actually, show us all of them (I just have a soft spot for Abe).

You should be writing rose descriptions for David Austin, Noseometer. Thank you for the compliment and information. I decided to keep my Princess Alexandria of Kent despite the plant having blooms that are sometimes pink, other times salmon, and occasionally both. My thought is that these roses (Alnwick & PAoK) might play nicely going in and out of their pink then salmon mode. Sorry for the hi-jack, Ingrid.

Wow... these photos are gorgeous and I will need to go back through and read more of everyone's wonderfully informative descriptions once my brain isn't fried from weekend classes.

Ingrid... Schon Ingeborg has been a quite impressive new spring performer here during my hot and dry spring.

It did so well in hot, full sun over the past couple of weeks that I thought I would test it next to a stone wall with a lot of radiant heat to see how much it could actually handle. This may prove to be too much for it, but it's in a pulp pot for now so I can keep moving it and testing it in different places until I find the right spot for it to flourish. It is VERY fragrant.

It came from Palatine and was a bare root, not a band. It's just a little short thing for now, but lots of blooms! If I'm not mistaken, the mother plant was from oldrosarian's yard. She said it balled terribly in the PNW, but I'm learning from this forum that blooms that ball for others do quite well here and don't blow or crisp as easily in the dry heat.

The heat here encouraged it to set A LOT of fragrant buds. They're really petal packed, luscious, fragrant and can stand heat.

It's a great one so far for my hot and dry garden!

General Galieni, Marie Pavie, New Orleans Cemetary Bourbon, Benny Lopez, Forest Ranch Pom pon, Nastarana, Nachitoches Noisette, Spice, Blue for You, Eyes for You, Lauren, Sweet Nothings, Secret Garden Musk, all of the red chinas, Mutabilis, William Allen Richardson

Thanks for all the replies and the gorgeous pictures. Nik, only your health issues will do as an excuse for not showing us pictures of the cornucopia of roses you're describing. If they helped you to cope I'm glad they put on this special show for you. Cori Ann, Schoen Ingeborg sounds like a rose made for our hot gardens. It's beautiful too, and I'll keep it in mind if I ever have a vacancy in my garden. It seems I always hear about superior roses after I've already planted something that doesn't work quite as well. Brandon, you're quite right, your gorgeous rose is not Old Blush and may well be Napoleon.

Eden, Buff Beauty and Lady of Shallot for their many blooms and for being the first to bloom in my garden. Eden's blooms last a long time on the bush and in the vase. Mine are still young.

Ingrid, it is so wonderful seeing plants get more established. The blooms are filling out and the plants look happier. Reve d' Or is an example. Second Spring.

Wow, Cori Ann, the buds on Schon Ingeborg look almost like a peony!! It's so pretty!!!!!

Sheila, that photo of Rêve d'Or makes me want onnnneeeeee..... please post more?

Another bud, Anna -Lyssa.

Oh my goodness, I have to see this rose in real life... it might be true love!! Thank you Sheila!!!!!