Hi Kes - I advocate finding it a place, since Rose de Rescht is a major favorite of mine. I love how it blooms in several flushes per year, with an intoxicating fragrance and deep rose-pink color. It stays a polite hip-high, and doesn't sucker around madly like many other own-roots do. My current plant came as a division from one of three remaining hedge-plants at a property in very windy Springerville, AZ which were doing very well with occasional watering and light shade from a large Siberian elm. High Country Roses carries the same clone as those Springerville roses. RdR's easy care, polite nature might make it a good candidate for going back in your herb garden if the soil around it is amended, or it would be happy anywhere else.

You have to find the right spot for it, and it will reward you with glorious blooms. For me, that perfect spot was a protected area (away from blasting summer heat/winds) where it was in dappled shade from about 1PM onwards. This rose will fare much better if you water it a couple times a week (or more, depending on soil conditions) through the summer months.

What Carol said.

If I were told I could have but ONE rose to keep for fragrance, this would almost certainly be it. But it takes three years or more to really get itself settled and ready to perform.

Thanks, everyone! I got this rose for its ability to do well in less than stellar conditions but thought I might have been asking too much.

Genevre, thanks for your reply. We grow in different zones but have some similarities, I think. I read that it could take shade, but not how much shade. (Thanks for that, Paul.) Heat and dry soil can't be too big a problem if they grow for you in Arizona. I'm not sure how well it deals with acidic soil and humidity. Odd that we can have high humidity and no rain but there you have it. The herb garden used to be the only place I had to grow roses- maybe one reason why the herbs are doing as well as they are. Before it became a garden it was mostly poison ivy and wild honeysuckle so amending soil became a way of life for me if I wanted to grow anything else.

Paul, thanks for explaining what RdR needs. I am probably the only person I know that has it and before I ordered it, I'd only read about it on here and HMF. Saying that this is the number one rose that you'd keep for fragrance means a lot. I always appreciate any advice from people who grow it and like it.

Carol, your photos are wonderful. I hoped that someone would say it would eventually outgrow its problems. Everything you say about it is what I hoped it would be. Thank you.

It might do better elsewhere but it isn't a contest. If it can be healthy enough here and bloom sometimes, that's all I ask. Taking three years to mature isn't a problem for me.

I got rid of mine, then got a new one, then eventually got rid of it as well. It is an enticing rose and at its best I loved it, but it does have problems. The worst one, in my opinion, was its tendency to sucker madly. It didn't do it for the first few years, but once it started it would not stop.

I have grown RdR for three years in dappled sun, no spray, and it has done very well. I am in western KY.

Hey @portlandmysteryrose can you provide any more info on the suckering here in our area? I keep reading conflicting things like RdR is superb in a pot, or it spreads like crazy, or it becomes 6' tall, and I'm having trouble whittling it all down! Haha. Can you provide further info for me?

I'll throw in RdR is great here. Minimal suckering and nicely shaped maybe 4 ft tall and healthy.

Corvallis, OR zone 8-ish: 'Rose de Rescht' now 20+ years old and has not exceeded 5X5 feet. I've never seen it sucker, at least not in the way that Gallicas do. A rose that "suckers madly" makes me think its not 'Rose de Rescht' but something else.

@User My RdR did start suckereing after a number of years, but as @User and @Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR noted, nothing like some Gallicas that shall remain nameless. I've gotten behind in spading the pop ups over the last few years, so I have a bit up catch up to do. The only real challenge is my RdR is planted in a raised, drystack stone bed, and it's a bugger getting in there to slice the upstarts. Adding to the obstacle course is a well-armed Perle d'Or neighbor. At my last garden, RdR was planted in a regular bed next to my lawn, so the task was no big deal. On the plus side, RdR starts seem to root pretty easily, so you can share the joy! Carol