Beautiful, Jackie! I got my version here in "Spanish Beauty", Madame Gregoire Staechelin.

Gorgeous! I have 'Susan Louise' growing as a 12 foot tall limbed plant. The rosebuds are enchanting, very long and elegant.

How wonderful it must be to have her with you again, Jackie. <3

I don't think I've ever seen the Beautiful Portuguese 'in the flesh' but I have to say from every photo I've ever seen of her, she must be one of the most beautiful old roses ever! In my eyes, anyway...

That seems to me to be the way with the once blooming old roses, somehow their flowers often appear more exquisite than any of the recurrent bloomers; something truly ethereal about them. Yet, because, like most shrubs, they only bloom once a year, they may be a much less popular choice for gardens these days. It seems unfair.

I wonder, do you or anyone ese here recall ever seeing any rebloom on her at all?

fig_insanity - I will be sure and post more pics of my BP when she is blooming more.

comtessedelacouche - When my old BP was mature, she was more than 2 stories high, and had a Spring bloom which was extended by new growth of laterals during the Spring bloom, which of course bloomed also.

HU - I have Susan Louise (which is a seedling of BP) also. I like the blooms - they are not quite as elegant as those of BP, but are semi-double like those, and the same color, which makes them very similar. It re-blooms gently all summer, which is nice. Mine acts like a very tall/large hybrid tea. Here are pics of my SL:

Jackie

I just noticed that HMF says that Susan Louise has been re-classified as a tea rose. Mine has been pruned sort of gently each Winter, not hard, but in order to keep it short enough to reach! It is very upright, and IMO does not have the "grow wider and deeper than tall" growth habit of most of my tea roses. I don't think they know who the other parent besides BP was - does anyone know? I was thinking, if the other parent rose was more cold hardy than BP (not hard to do), SL might also be more cold hardy than BP is. Anyone have any info about that?

Also, I want to mention that not only did I get my BP in our neighborhood, growing in front of an old house (I knew the owner, so was able to get permission), but I have found 2 other very large plants of it within 1-2 blocks of my house, both of which appear to be happily neglected in the back yards of very old houses.

Jackie

Your picture of Susan Louise is wonderful.

I've managed a couple of blooms on one of a series of SL plants that I tried to grow. No matter how I tried to keep them alive and protected through winter, they didn't make it.

Whoever said 'more hardy' and tea like....I have a Bracteata I'd like to back them into.

stillanntn - Thank you for the info! Now we know SL is not cold hardy to zone 6. I still think it might be hardier than one of its parents Belle Portugaise (which so far I know likes zone 9 and 10), depending on who the other parent was. If anyone on here has tried to grow SL in zone 7 or 8, please let us know how that worked out.

Jackie

In the past (maybe 15 or 16 years ago?) I managed to keep a SL for about five years, but after reaching a decent size in her second year, she lost size each year after that from winter dieback, and in about the 6th year just didn't come back. I don't have temperature/weather records for the time period, but it seems like those winters had some generally colder than normal periods. At the time, I was in Z7a, now supposedly 7b. I've been seriously considering trying her again, but then along comes the -4F night we had in January. Definitely NOT Z7b, lol. I can't really say if SL would be hardy in zone eight, but I would say it's worth a try, considering how long she limped along for me.

As for Belle Portugaise, I gave up hope years ago, and Rogue Valley agrees with me. From RVR description of BP:

"... I have known several successfully growing it in the milder, Zone 8 areas of the Rogue Valley. Think microclimate and be prepared to allow it to regenerate from the roots when we have the occasional cold snaps that take us out of our zone limits."

More photos of my "back-from-the-dead" BP for fig-insanity, taken this morning:

Of course, it is reaching for the sky:

Last one - taken from underneath its supporting structure, one bloom back lit by the morning sun:

Jackie

I've always loved this rose - Jackie, yours is gorgeous! I remember I fell in love with the picture of it in the old (VERY old, like more than 25 years ago) Wayside catalog. Of course, it would never survive in my climate, so I'll just have to enjoy other people's enjoyment of it!

Thank you Jackie. In my opinion there's no rose more graceful than BP. And the color is both translucent and glowing.

You're welcome - BP is just barely beginning to bloom, so I hope to be able to add more photos as the bloom progresses. She has already sent canes over to the structure which is holding up my Fortune's Double Yellow, which is covered in buds now, so I hope I will be able to get some photos of them blooming together, if they overlap.

Jackie

Here, I'm sure BP would not be happy. My Lady Banks struggle with Spring freeze/thaw. I saw damage to flower buds yesterday from frost. Sad.

Sheila - yes, she is certainly a warm climate rose. A long time ago, I learned to search for the old & beautiful roses surviving in my old neighborhood, and try and grow them, as most of them had survived for decades with no care here. So, I figured they would like it in my garden too, and that they were "hardy" in our conditions. BP is still lurking way in the back of the lots of some very old houses around here. I love to spot them blooming in the Spring. There are many roses (like Madame Hardy), and things, like tulips, which I can't grow here (not enough winter chill, and getting less every year), so I try to find plants that LOVE it here. Makes gardening easier.

Jackie

Well, it has been 3 days since I last posted pics of my BP on here. It changes every day, so I took some more pics this morning. Hope you guys are not getting tired of these pics -

Jackie

Oops - I guess I posted 2 of the same pics (my fault, not Houzz's). Here is the third photo I meant to post:

Frilly, billowy, beauteous.