Beautiful roses, excellent photos.

These are beautiful. I'll be honest I get a bit envious when I see people with such fantastic collections of more obscure roses. Some of my more recent purchases I actually tried to choose roses that I hadn't seen talked about on here much. Many of the more popular roses shared on here are gorgeous and I absolutely get why they're so popular, but I want my garden to be a place where I can enjoy plants that I wouldn't find in other peoples' yards.

Beautiful, beautiful roses!

I don’t know if I have any that qualify but I just went through my book and these are ones that I rarely if ever see mentioned:

Arcata Pink Globe

Purple Buttons

Black Rose of Sangerhausen

Great Western

Geschwind’s Orden and Schonste

Sui Mei Ren

Gloire Lyonnaise

Gloire Ducher

Hoag House Cream

Royal Dane

Katherina Zeimet

Mdm Zoetmans

Orpheline de Juillet

Rose-Marie

What a wonderful thread. Here is my list:-

Mme Jules Bouche... my favourite HT

White Meidiland

Penelope

Marie Pavie

Pompon Blanc Parfait

Vif Eclat (does anybody else grow this?)

Souvenir de Philemon Cochet

Casa Blanca (LFC)

Moje Hammarberg (my favourite rugosa)

Cl Pinkie

Ausonius

Pompon De Bourgogne (aka The Burgundian Rose)

Lucetta (my favourite DA 1983)

Perle D'Or

Saint Elisabeth of Hungary

Thanks to Vintage Gardens and many excellent local sales of rare roses, at least half my collection would be considered obscure, I think. @oursteelers 8B PNW and I share Arcata Pink Globe, Purple Buttons, and Hoag House Cream and thank you @smithdale1z8pnw for reminding me about Pompon Blanc Parfait -- I bought it this year at the Celebration of Old Roses, but for a bit I couldn't remember where the heck I had planted it last fall, but now I do -- thanks!

Hmmm I need to research Pompom Blanc Parfait.

@catspa_zone9sunset14 give us some of your favorites of the rare ones so I have some to research please!!!!!

Most of mine came from Vintage Gardens, aah, the good old days.

I have a lot of rarities, but my favorites are ones that were at times either my unicorn roses, or ones it took a real effort to identify.

Prairie Peace, a hybrid spinosissima, will probably always be rare, since it's nearly impossibly to propagate except by suckers. It was a unicorn rose that I ended up paying more for than I've ever spent on any other rose when you include shipping. Or any other THREE roses, for that matter. But yeah, it was worth it, lol.

Madame Charles Baltet is one I don't think I've ever seen mentioned on the forum. It came from my grandmother's garden, where it had been since an elderly neighbor gave it to her. It's a hybrid perpetual, rich rose pink, smells heavenly, not very thorny, with large, petal-packed, shapely blooms that come in three or four flushes. One of my favorites. It would be on the top of my list if it were a little more BS resistant. As an aside, I also have an unidentified gallica from my grandmother's garden, and also had her City of York until it succumbed to rose rosette.

Anemone is a climber, a pink-ish hybrid of the Cherokee Rose (Rosa laevigata). It seems to be rare in the trade, even though it roots anywhere it touches the ground. Mine doesn't root much, since most of it is 15-20' up in a pear tree. The large pink, single blooms resemble apple blossoms...if apple blossoms were 3 inches across. The only problem is every time we have a harsher than normal winter, I hold my breath. It has survived for almost 30 years, but has died to the ground several times here in Z7a.

Dr J.H. Nicolas. This is another climber. Another pink rose. Fairly average bloom, but wonderfully remontant for a HT climber. It was given to me years ago as 'Dr Nichols'. But...no such rose. But just a couple of years before she passed, Lynette Payne, The Old Rosarian, (just "Lynnette" on here) ID'd it for me. She took one look at the picture I had sent her and immediately called me...at midnight, lol. There's a three hour time difference between Vancouver and TN. But we talked for almost two hours. One of my most treasured memories, and why this rare, but not particularly outstanding climber is one of my favorites.

Okay, @oursteelers 8B PNW, here are some of the less well-known roses I grow and that I am particularly fond of. Like @fig_insanity Z7b E TN says, it's often not just the rose itself, but some sensation or memory or moment in time they evoke, or a unicorn finally and happily found.

Aimée Vibert: the variety that Vintage offered, not the sprawling 20' climber, but a relatively petite 4' shrub that near-continuously blooms.

Apricot Glow

"Arcata Pink Globe"

Blanche Lafitte

Comtesse de Rocquigny

Dr. E.M. Mills

Etoile de Feu

Fred Howard

Geranium Red

"Hoag House Cream"

Ivory Triumph

J. Otto Thilow

Jeanne d'Arc (Alba)

Kathrinerl

Lemon Spice

"Lundy's Lane Yellow"

"Marlowe Soft Orange"

"Merete Stenbock"

"North Bloomfield Raspberry"

"Old Red Runaround"

"Oneto Home Saffron"

Purple Buttons

Rose du Roi of commerce: Vintage's clone, which seems to differ from others on HMF and I absolutely love it, though not the best grower or bloomer here

Sappho (alba)

"Schmidt's Smooth Yellow"

Sir Henry Segrave

"St. Helena Cemetery Very Double HT"

Sutter's Gold

Talisman

"Vina Banks"

"Zalud House Shingled Raspbery"

I love seeing these lists, and was actually rather pleased that I also had Hoag House Cream, Cl. Pinkie, White Meidiland, Penelope, Perle d'Or, Marie Pavie and Gloire Lyonnaise of those mentioned here. Right now I would give almost anything to have any of these roses, if only the ground squirrels would allow it. I would feed the squirrels caviar if only they would leave the roses alone.

A few more:

Cels Multiflora

Bermuda's Kathleen (the squirrel above the rock is Sammie, whom we rescued as a tiny baby, and who was with us, off and on, for quite a few years. She would disappear, come back with a few of her children, which she left with us, before leaving again.

A true outlier, a tea rose named Souvenir de Germain de St. Pierre

Ingrid, I know I've shown this rose on another one of your threads, but it's one of my roses that nobody else seems to grow and even though it's only 2 years old, I can tell it's going to be a favorite. The blooms and foliage are very cool toned, powdery pink and silvery blue green. The fragrance is so pretty, it forms orange hips, bees love it, and is very hardy. Don't mind the leaves in these photos, the first round of sawflies last year found it to be a very tasty rose I guess .

Oops, the above is "High Country Banshee".

Some of my other outlier roses or unpopular roses are (new): JoAn's Pink Perpetual, Lilian Gibson, Morgengruss, (previously planted) Himmelsauge, Erinnerung an Brod, Indigo, Henri Fouquier.

Magpie, I see that your High Country Banshee is the only photo on HMF, so I think truly you have an outlier. It looks like a fragrant rose, as I gather the other Banshee's are. I'm intrigued by your JoAn's Pink Perpetual which looks really lovely. Lilian Gibson reminds me of a hybrid spinosissima, Suzanne, that I had long ago but whose fragrance still haunts me. Given your location I suspect that your "unpopular" roses are well suited to their environment. Indigo is a rose I've often considered but I was always afraid that in my climate it would turn fire engine red like my "The Dark Lady" did to my horror.

I don't have any pictures of my outliers because they're all new. so I'll link them to HMF.

Grafin Esterhazy

Romaggi Plot Bourbon

Soupert et Notting

Indigo

Vincent Godsiff

Madame Doré

Like Ingrid, I have an aversion to screaming red, so I'm wondering what Vincent Godsiff will look like, but I've seen it described as "shocking pink" or "neon pink" so I might be ok with it.

I don't like red either, but I suspect that if "Indigo" (or my new "William Lobb") turns anything besides purple, it will probably be pink. Even my Munstead Wood, now gone, was definitely a fuschia kind of pink. Maybe something to be with my soil.

Edit: Oh my GOSH that Grafin Esterhazy!!! Wow what a find, so jealous! I've got 2 Geschwind roses so far and I'm trying to be patient and see how they do instead of rushing in to buy them all... But I really like the look of them and your new one looks incredible. Love how globular it is. I'm waiting to see how my Erinnerung an Brod handled the winter, and Himmelsauge is still a tiny band-sized baby, but I have high hopes for it.

Frances Sims is a polyantha bred by Linda at Long Ago Roses

Peach Perfection is the rose that made me want to seek out other Jalbert roses. I ordered mine from Palatine and haven’t seen it offered since so I’m glad I jumped on it.

bellegallica mentioned Madame Dore and Romaggi Plot Bourbon but had no garden photos as her plants are very young. For anyone interested here they are, or rather were, in my previous garden.

Romaggi Plot Bourbon

Madame Dore

Thanks, Ingrid! It was your photos of Madame Dore and Romaggi Plot that made me want them. I have a few of MD that I shared on another thread, but they're not as nice as yours.

With these photos I'm just noticing the contrast between what seems to be warm pink in Romaggi Plot and cool pink in MD. I wonder if that's a trick of light or camera, or if that's how they really are. I'll have to compare if they're ever in bloom at the same time.

I’ve wanted Alfred de Dalmas forever! I’ve heard great things about Aunt Margy’s Rose also :)

Ingrid, is Sammie a ground squirrel? If you are that fond of them, I can see how you would not want to be rid of them. But if you had rats in your house, wouldn't you get rid of them even if it meant killing them? I don't kill animals outdoors either. I really can see how you wouldn't want to. But if you just can not have a garden, maybe an extermination company could help you. Some relocate animals and take a compassionate approach.

Online recently I saw an outdoor fake owl with motion detector in it which made hoot noises when activated and had eyes that light up and his head swivels. Looks a little odd but looks like it could scare a squirrel too. With decoys you move them around from time to time. I also heard about someone using blood meal to scare rabbits or squirrels away. A fake snake could be good too. I'm sure you've tried a lot of things.

Last year I got Peter's Joy from Palatine. They're not offering it again this year, but hopefully they will in the future. This rose is a joy. I'll need to. add my photos to HMF.

Lots of fragrant long lasting clusters all season. Colors that change from apricot to pink. HealthHealthy .

I'm loving seeing else's lovely outliers!

@librarian_gardner_8b_pnw That 'Peter's Joy' is a beautiful rose!

Super intrigued by Penelope (I think Heirloom has that one) -- any photos? And, I am growing a St. Elisabeth of Hungary, but so far a very young rose in a challenging spot and not much action yet...

I think my only "rarity" is not an antique rose, but one that is not big in USA anymore, and that's a climber, High Hopes. A Harkness rose. My oldest rose and the most trouble-free, easy maintenance, reliable bloomer. A keeper.

Ingrid, I love your Sammie squirrel. We had a rescue squirrel I found in the yard as a newborn. Our cat nursed it along with her kittens of all things!

I am loving all these rare roses. I dont think any of mine would be considered rare on the rose forums lol.

Rescue squirrel with kitty..this was yrs ago. This cat loves all babies and has sat in a nest box and had chicks at one point lol.

Penelope. The blooms fade quickly to white but they're pretty with the buds.

Its curious to see how many roses now considered "outliers" were widely available/common in catalogs only 15 years ago. Many roses I used to have are now extinct in commerce, and some may even be extinct, period.

Oh, that is the most amazing picture of the squirrel with kitties! I wonder if they'd be friends when all grown up or if the squirrel lived in the wild but was fond of her old buddies.

To me Penelope is not an unusual rose.

@Paul Barden Paul, I hated to "like" your comment, but I had to acknowledge it, lol. It's so regrettably true. Even in my garden, which I never considered a repository of rarities until recently, some once common roses are now nearly impossible to find. And the sad thing is many of them are better roses than the majority of the "common" ones. That goes for modern, as well as old roses. Who ever thought Tiffany would become so hard to find?!?!

P.S. If anyone has an older/virus-free clone of Tiffany, it's my newest unicorn rose. Fool that I am, I put off propagating mine, and it died of rosette disease last summer.

I had Penelope on its own root. It wasn't very big yet but it didnt survive the move so I got another one from Heirloom. Its going in the ground in a group to cover up a RV/farm equipment Carport thing that came with the property and is kinda ugly.

For those that have Penelope in a warm climate, how big did she get? Could I put her in front of Crepuscule and Cecile Brunner Spray (they both get quite large here).

sultry, I'm sorry but I can't recall how big my Penelope was; this was many years ago. I would say about five to six feet though. On our present property I never grew hybrid musks, of which Penelope is one, because the Chinas, teas, Bourbons and polyanthas seemed more suited to my hot and dry conditions.

erasmus, I've had and do have roof rats in the eaves and attic but have only used live traps for them. We used the other kind once and never again. The rat was still alive and looked at us with the most imploring eyes. Fortunately it was still okay and we let it go. Many people would say I'm crazy and I can't even disagree. However, you can only do what your heart tells you, and here there are predators that control populations although never in the timely manner that you'd like, and they never eradicate a species. Ground squirrels were never a problem for the first twelve years we lived here, and it's only climate change that has made it so now. That's not their fault, only ours.

@fig_insanity Z7b E TN John, my 'Tiffany' came from Pickering Nurseries about 24 years ago, and I am pretty certain that its virus free (though I have not used a test kit to verify that). Perhaps I will bud a couple sticks of understock with it this year.

librarian, your Peter's Joy is lovely. I wish it were available here.

sjn, how sweet is your cat! Yes, I'm another who'd like to know what became of the baby squirrel.

Of course, the baby squirrel grew up (not surprisingly) to Not be afraid of humans or cats! We placed him with a lady who rescued wildlife and had another squirrel who could not be released back into the wild. They had a nice big outdoor enclosure that was safe from predators and had a tree in it.

When I first found him as a baby, I watched him for quite awhile to make sure the mom wasnt returning. The nieghbor's tomcat kept coming around trying to get him because he was making crying noises. Finally, I just picked him up and took him in before he became lunch. At first, I had no clue what to do and we called a rescue group that was close enough to drive to, thinking we could just take him in but they said they were full at the moment and gave instructions on how to care for him in the meantime. I really didnt have time to feed him every few hrs with work and everything and it dawned on me that our crazy baby-loving cat had kittens recently. I decided to at least try and she luckily took to it like it was hers! This little squirrel turned out to have a bot fly larva in his abdomen which I had to remove! Gross and not fun lol but he recovered fully from that. He became really crazy as he got older and would jump all over the place in the house: from floor to ceiling and on people too. He was really cute but once we let him outside he would go right up to cats and strangers, unafraid and we knew we would either have to find him a home where he had a squirrel friend or keep him inside in a cage.

@User Exactly, on the roses that were available even 15 years ago that are now impossible to find. I used to buy regularly from Pickering and Vintage (and a few from you) back 15-25 years ago, and I now have several that are ultra-rare. Some I propagated directly from the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden. Now that I'm retired, I'm doing my best to propagate and spread them around to fellow enthusiasts. It just kills me to think of the ones I gave away when I was trying to cull the herd of 375 I'd accumulated by ~2006. Or the ones that died. Alas.

Just to keep things going I tried to find a few more, and you'll have to tell me if these are truly rarities, or only in my fond eyes.

Westside Road Cream Tea

Mr. Bluebird, one of Ralph Moore's lovely creations

Casino, a yellow climber that I don't recall seeing anywhere lately

Ingrid, I think these are unusual. I've never seen any of these roses for sale locally or growing in anyone's garden. They are not easy to find in specialty nurseries. I don't often see them mentioned even here. If your photos are any indication, they should be far more frequently grown.

BTW, I also grow Mr. Bluebird and really like it. It's one of my healthiest little roses and the blooms are frequent and showy. I have no idea why I ever decided to get it because Old Blush hasn't been a stellar performer for me. Your Mr. Bluebird looks terrific in a garden that couldn't be more different from mine. I hope this will be an encouragement for a lot more people to give it a try.

Karen, it seems that a lot of good roses are disappearing, which is really a shame, but I'm glad to know that Mr. Bluebird is still available. I know what you mean about Old Blush, mine constantly had mildew at the base of the flowers, and it just wasn't a very showy rose, even at the best of times. Where are you located, by the way? You can edit your profile so that your zone and/or location is available when you post, which is really helpful for anyone reading it. I'd love to see a picture of your Mr. Bluebird!

Lots of lovely roses here, but my favorite has to be Librarian's Peter's Joy!!!! Glorioso!!

Sultry - that's such a sweet mama cat you have!! Such adorable pictures. I read a story just like yours in a Chicken Soup for Pet Lovers book. :) :) :)

Fig - that's such a shame about your Tiffany and RRD. :(

@Aaron Rosarian Zone 5b Burling has Alfred de Dalmas. I ordered one from her this weekend. It should arrive later this week. I always admired Ingrid's phots of it.

@Ingrid_vc zone 9b, San Diego Co. inland I also like your Mr. Bluebird. Another one to add to the list for later.

belle, I'm so happy you now have Alfred de Dalmas. I think it's a rose well worth growing and cherishing. I know without asking that you'll post pictures when there are blooms. It's such a lovely and sweet little rose, well worth preserving into the future.

Thanks, Ingrid. I'll do my best even though my photography skills are seriously challenged.

I don't care, belle, I'd be so happy to see that rose in your garden; it would be a beautiful gift.