Part 2.

A closer look at 'Sanguinea', which has been flowering well for some weeks now; it was always one of the first to bloom. A big, beautiful plant, sprawling down the escarpment: about twenty years old, own root.

'Mme. Antoine Mari'. With the current cool weather, she is still rather pale: this is one of the more richly colored blooms. There are fuller flowers on the plant, but they're having trouble opening. Plant is, again, about twenty years old and own root, gawky and awkward, but it keeps on putting out new growth. One of the most beautiful Teas, in my opinion, but then, they're all lovely. Perhaps 7'x7'.

A particularly fine bloom of 'Mrs. B.R. Cant' for this early in the season. The Mrs. has been flowering for a while. After I rebuilt the pergola a while back I retrained her on it and helped start her up the flowering ash growing out of the terrace wall. Now about 14' high and, oh, perhaps 10' wide? Big, anyway. A beautiful rose and good climber.

'Isabella Sprunt'. The lemon-ice-colored sport of 'Safrano'. I adore this rose, and only have the one plant, growing hopelessly large for moving in one of the propagating beds. I need to take cuttings of it and start some new, small, riskable plants to try out in the garden.

These are most of my Teas. There are a few that haven't reported in yet, though they have buds.

Melissa - so glad that you are posting pics! Your teas are gorgeous - I think teas are a type of rose which comes into its own when it is 15-20 years old. (not suitable for those who think every rose should be replaced at about 5 yrs). After 20 years, they just keep getting better - when we moved in here we had 3-4 which were, accd to the family, at least 70-80 years old. They all eventually died at around 100, but by then I knew who they were, and was able to propagate them from cuttings Still all in the garden, and my most favorite.

Thank you for posting a pic of Isabella Sprunt! I have a Safrano which was planted by my FIL in the mid 1970s, so it is about 50 yrs old, and getting better every year. I think I need Isabella...

Jackie

Gorgeous pictures, Melissa.

Thank you Melissa for the gorgeous Tea photos. I'm in love.

I love the wild, free beauty of your gardens, Melissa.

I do, too! Thank you for the pictures.

So nice to see some pics of your roses Melissa, thank you for sharing ! They all look wonderful!

Also glad you finally got the rain you were hoping for, everything looks so green and lush!

A couple more roses, pics taken this morning:

'Mrs. B.R. Cant' growing onto the pergola and up the flowering ash. It would look tidier if I could reach high enough to deadhead old blooms. The pergola is the usual "This exists solely to keep the roses off our heads". I like them, though.

'Clementina Carbonieri' (of commerce), sprawling over a decent amount of the escarpment. This most beautiful rose burns instantly in the sun, while growing in our garden with a south-facing exposure and no shade (she is surrounded by many hefty shrubs, though); so thank goodness for the current coolish, cloudy-hazy conditions.

'Etoile de Lyon'. The rose chafers adore this rose, my greatest problem with it, but thank heaven it's still a little early for them, so this bloom was untouched. A very lovely (I know I keep saying that) rose and tough, as are Teas in general. EdL has a somewhat shrubbier and stouter habit than a twiggy Tea like 'Général Schablikine', for example. My plant is perhaps 6'x10'. Another twenty-year-er, as is CC above.

I cut a rose bouquet today for our overworked and super-diligent doc, and as I was carrying it over to her office I ran into a group of toddlers and their two carers. One little boy looked like he was interested in the roses--he stared--so I stopped and offered to let him look, and touch "with one finger". And I showed the flowers to the other children and let them touch and, on the suggestion of the carers, smell. I don't know how many of them were moved by a bouquet of Tea roses, but if even one was, it was worth it.

There's not enough beauty in the world.

That is a beautiful post ,Melissa! Especially, above all, the part about the kids.

Btw, I hate those chafers. For what it's worth, I've had some luck with improving the soil around plants that are particularly victimized by them.

I love these, Melissa! Absolutely beautiful.

And a couple more.

'Noella Nabonnand' on top of the balcony, just coming into bloom. HMF gives this variety a height of 10', but given support it will travel considerably further in its lanky, open way. This is the correct variety. Very satisfactory rose.

And one last kind, 'Archduke Joseph', the flower a little older and opening past the rounded swirl of petals, flat across its face, that is its commonest form when in its prime. This color looks a little light; more often it's a rose pink/red with coppery tints; occasionally paler. The Archduke is just starting its flush. My rose, about twenty years old, like most of the ones I've shown on this thread, is a behemoth, climbing up into the persimmon, and beyond it onto the eastern end of the wisteria pergola: my largest Tea rose. It obviously loves its growing conditions. AJ has particularly clean and beautiful foliage.

Thank you for these photos, too,Melissa. I especially like the shot of the pergola-beautiful! as is Noella.

My Noella is still in a pot. I had it, Audacieuse, and Annie Laurie Mc Dowell-all own-root plants-growing together in one huge pot. It seems to me that sometimes roses that refuse to "take off" in individual pots appreciate being grouped together in one really big one, where their roots can grow freely. When I seperated them out at the end of the season,Audacieuse looked good enough to put out in the garden (besides, I have duplicates) Annie had developed a pretty impressive root system,much better than it had been when growing alone,but had not done much top growth. Now, this one has had a difficult history-bought years ago as a potted, grafted rose from Bierkreek,it had to struggle against it's own rootstock, which kept trying to take over. Finally it managed to go own-root, and I planted it out, but it was very unhappy, so I re-potted it. Needless to say, I plan to wait on this one until it has grown into a BIG plant,since I don't know that it is possible to find it here in Europe any more. And then there's Noella-put on great top growth, but the root system wasn't impressive. I'm going to wait on this one, too, because ,like Annie, it seems to be a slow starter in my conditions. I got mine own-root from Nino Sanremo; I wonder if it would be faster as a grafted plant.

Hi, bart, I'm glad to hear you obsessing over your roses as I obsess over my plants. Wow, you have 'Annie Laurie McDowall'?? I'm impressed!

I never know whether my plants are puny because they're own-root rather than grafted, or because of the conditions in which the individual plant is growing. The plant of 'Noella Nabonnand' that I rooted is puny compared to the grafted plant I bought, but is that the reason, or the ground? On the other hand, I have two 'Archduke Joseph's, one enormous, one rather small. However, both are own-root, so the reason IS evidently different growing conditions. Good luck with your roses, in any case.

I'm enjoying the pergola now that we've rebuilt it (it's not perfect, but is less rickety than the old one), have been admiring 'Mrs. B.R. Cant' all this month in its improbably sumptuous flowering, and am looking forward to 'Mme. Alfred Carrière' once she gets going. I didn't haul all of her over the pergola, but enough to make a good show. She looks rather awkward now, as just-tied roses generally do, and probably I could have pruned away more of the older growth. Oh, well: patience. I do need to continue cleaning up the terrace: the roses won't look nearly as fine if the plants underneath them aren't tidied and nicely arranged. And the potted plants need repotting anyway: I'm not sure if I did it last year, what with the Covid. The terrace will change as the year proceeds and the three trees of the terrace, two oaks, one columnar and one semi-columnar, and the two-trunked flowering ash growing out of the terrace wall, all leaf out: they're still bare now. A festival, I hope, to look forward to.

More plants!