Campanula, it's so great to see your name on the forum! Your roses are magnificent!! I'd ignore a few of my roses in hopes of similar results, but I doubt things would fare so well here. I have never seen even a photo of Tolstoi. That's a treat! Your designer's eye obviously had a lot to do with the beautiful compositions in the first 3 photos. Truly lovely specimens of fine roses. Carol

Camp, I love your pictures! I love seeing a large Moyesii. It is really great to have photos. I'm a naturalistic garden fan.

I'm so glad you've got a camera.

Welcome back! Good to see you! Beautiful garden!

Why don't my roses thrive on neglect like yours? Oh well, many reasons, but these are all lovely, Camp. Your beautiful bloom of Tolstoi lead me to this rose on HMF. A magnificent rose for cooler areas, I'm sure. Once again we see that rose varieties planted in their proper habitats survive quite well without our intervention. Well, actually a heck of a lot of living organisms do, a thought that suddenly popped into my head. We in warmer climates seldom see how wonderful once-blooming roses are. They have a special beauty that nothing can equal.

Glad to hear from you, Campanula! I can certainly relate to "well armoured and fierce enough to be a bit scary" (Alba Odorata and Jaune Desprez here, to name two, both of which demand a fair amount of blood as tribute and are too vigorous by half). The roses in your photos are so magnificent -- I love roses grown without excessive intervention. I have been experimenting, also, with just how tough the roses on the edges of my garden might be -- have seen enough old homestead survivors now to have some faith in their toughness.

catspat, how are your roses? I always look forward to garden pictures of your magnificent group.

That Tolstoi is beautiful, Camp. That is a new one for me. It doesn't seem to be sold over here.

I thought a few of you would like Tolstoj. While frilly roses are not my usual fare, I simply HAD to have this Czech rose when I realised Madame Gregoire Staechelin was one of its parents. Madame G was my introduction to antique roses (and is visible, I think, on its own roots on one of my allotment photos), and remains one of my truest loves - early to bloom with a bonus crop of almost crabapple sized heps to lighten the winter garden.

I am also addicted to properly tasty vegetables so I kept my allotment going, even as I was busily growing foxgloves, campanula and primroses for the wood...and grew a lot of hardwood cuttings from my rose stock. Despite not buying any for several years, I think only a very few succumbed to my idle ways . Nahema, Cardinal Hume, Nastarana and Buff Beauty were either grubbed out in a massive blackcurrant disease purge or were simply engulfed by the insane vigour of the likes of Pleine de Grace and Jasmina.

Anyway, I have kept tracks over the years, lurking a bit, and am really glad to see so many rosy stalwarts not yet lost to Facebook and such. Over on perennials, there is a distinct feeling of holding the line...but 20 years of posting history is not easily dismissed, even though Houzz is an ungainly and intrusive site operator..

And I had almost forgotten HMF (which was once a permanent fixture on my bookmark tab)

Thank you for welcoming me back .I have no problems ignoring forum purity by rambling on about annuals for example, but feel endless waffling about roses might strain the patience of my perennial forum mates.

What a wonderful post. I love species roses -- though they are scarily vigorous.

I love the look of the roses planted with vegetables and iris. Tolstoi is so sumptuous.

Mme Gregoire Staechelin has been on my wish list for a long time. Is it in the third photo on the right?

I got Mme G because of you, Camp. Initially, in a pot, the foliage had mildew but I hung on because you said the plant had such beautiful foliage. It is now in the ground and on the same retaining wall as Long John Silver. The foliage is beautiful now.

That might be as close as I can get to your Tolstoj.
Long John Silver

Yep Krista. A young plant (4 years or so), on its own roots. Although it is only once blooming, it will bloom for a good 6 weeks, with winterlong heps. I have never seen mildew but occasionally, rust will make an appearance late in the season.

Hi Comptesse - good to hear from you too. For sure, I would have grown Laevigata in a heartbeat (I am such a sucker for these enormo-roses with single blooms in small clusters (as opposed to the 30+ florets on Kiftsgate, Rambling Rector and so on).But no, this is my Darlowes I bought from Bierkreek (not usually available in the UK) - a massive freestanding presence (which despite judicious limbing up, still entails crawling around underneath to access the top end of the plot. Tolstoi/j (can't recall the spelling and the labels are long gone) was almost an afterthought and spent its first few years half hidden under a holly and a romping Ghislaine de Feligonde. Even now, it is best viewed from the road, outside my plot... here's a pic but please ignore the shaming street bindweed which is not in my control...and the going over Crepuscule.

My main gripe with a lot of Austins (and indeed, many-petalled roses in particular) is based less on how they live and quite a lot more on how they die...and in many cases, it seems to be badly.One of my favourite classes are the multiflora ramblers such as GdF and Goldfinch (and my best Austin, Snowgoose) because just a shake of the cane and all those old blooms shatter and fall, leaving clean coronets of stamens and receptacles. I found I simply couldn't stand Penelope as it looked to be in a state of disarray for 90% of it's bloom time. Crep is also terrible and Buff Beauty was even worse.

But hey, moaning within 5 minutes of raising my head above the parapet is NOT a good look (must be the dreary weather we are enduring - early blight also lurking and putting me in a bad mood...but otoh, there is a good chance my beloved helenae will be starting to come alive...

Hi Countess. Yep, definitely Darlow's...but the blooms are actually clusters of 3, 4, 5 roses. Less blooms in each group than Moonlight, say...and there are also singular blossoms too. Have found another pic, with Meg just showing also.

Welcome back, Campanula! Everything looks absolutely cram packed with life, as usual. Beautiful roses! Thank you for sharing. I especially like the picture of Tolstoi over Crepuscle, bindweed notwithstanding :)

Welcome back. I've always enjoyed your posts and wondered where you'd gone.

I had to laugh at your Tolstoi / Madame Gregoire Staechelin comment. While shopping I was on the fence about a rose and ended up adding it to the cart when I saw it had some interesting ancestors in it's background. I thought, "I must be the only person in the world who'd buy a rose based on its parents and grandparents." But I'm not! I'm in good company.

Ah right. comtesse. I admit to viewing photos with a combination of short sight and a filthy, undusted monitor...so it is a wonder I can see anything.

Just want to say a big thank you for the welcoming comments. I wasn't really gone...just lying low...although it has been years since I did the bare-root wish-list thing...then I felt a bit shy about commenting because the roses just grew while I was off, trying loads of different things (and often failing). Trees loomed large for me...and wild flowers... but shrubs are becoming more important...so back to testing the shade limits of some of the tougher roses again and taking a heap of cuttings from abelia, deutzia, pyracantha, yew, box and holm oak.