Thank you Catspa! These photos are glorious!!!!!

Wow. Such beauties ......... and they waft......

Catspa,

I can just about smell your magnificent roses just by swooning over your inspiring photos of them. Thanks for sharing!

Talk about roses that waft....

For some years now I have purposely selected roses that have fragrance, the more the better. That's not easy to do. With also having to select for repeat blooming traits, and winter hardiness, plus excellent black spot resistance, the field of candidates is not too large.

Strange as it may sound, the roses that made the cut are all quite tall bushes, which in my relatively limited space in which to grow roses, a single bed, 8' deep and 18' long, they dominate the back of my bed, actually they dominate the entire rose bed. They are:

Princess Charlene de Monaco (1 bush)

Dee-Lish (3)

Moonlight Romantica (2)

Quietness (5)

Pinkerbelle (1)

When their bloom cycles coordinate, their fragrance is heady, and boy does it waft. My garden is tiny, one rose bed, a walk between, and a dwarf conifer/in ground bonsai bed of the same size as the rose bed. That's it. That's my garden (18' X 20', total), plus a (20' X 7'), patio from my house.

There I sit and smell the wafting roses as I am entertained by the antics of my fancy pigeons. The newest resident is Tater, an 'accident of birth,' between a white American Fantail, and a splash, back and white Holle Cropper. He's almost one year old, an adult male now.....full of self importance! Yes, fancy pigeons come in pure breeds just like purebred dogs and cats. Purebred Tater isn't, but he has a terrific, friendly temperament. Charles Darwin wrote about the different breeds of pigeons, concerning their incredible diversity of forms.

My pigeon's small loft is an arm's length from my favorite chair. It's paradise to me, but not quite the Heaven I look to inhabit some day.

Moses.

Your garden looks so soothing and yet magical, Catspa. Joasine Hanet is lovely and wafting fragrance makes it doubly so. I don’t have that one yet, but perhaps if I can find a corner somewhere… or replace one that doesn’t particularly make me happy.

My wafter is Perfume Breeze, a suitable name. I have two of them for that reason alone, but the prolific blooming is worth much to me as well. This is Perfume Breeze on the left of the photo.

Your garden looks so soothing and yet magical, Catspa. Joasine Hanet is lovely and wafting fragrance makes it doubly so. I don’t have that one yet, but perhaps if I can find a corner somewhere… or replace one that doesn’t particularly make me happy.

My wafter is Perfume Breeze, a suitable name. I have two of them for that reason alone, but the prolific blooming is worth much to me as well.

Judi,

Your Roses Forum friends are waiting for your garden tour video. I'll pay admission.

Moses.

Looking up the roses mentioned so far, 'Quietness' and 'Perfume Breeze' in particular, I definitely may have to be looking for more space. What a nice list of great-looking and great-smelling roses already!

@Moses, Pitt PA, cold W & warm/humid S z6, the bit of paradise you share with Tater and your roses sounds perfect to me. There seem to be a number of pigeon fanciers in the SF Bay Area, too, including those who do racing. Working as a plant ecologist in the field, a colleague and I once found and rescued a fancy one standing in the middle of Canada Road in San Mateo after what had been a stormy night. It was banded and quite tame and the county's animal control office helped us get it back to its home.

@judijunebugarizonazn8, love your photo! Second the garden tour video suggestion, or at least more photos.

Marie Pavie wafts for me

That 'Jaune Desprez' is magnificent!!!

Having gotten that urgent communication out of the way, I can list some of the wafters I've grown.

'Mme. Plantier' Large, once flowering, magnificent scent of old rose and musk, lovely blooms. It doesn't like my current conditions, unfortunately.

'Cornelia', 'Vanity', 'Felicia'. Obviously the Rev. Pemberton knew what he was about. 'Cornelia', sweetly musk scented, possibly the queen of wafters; 'Vanity', China rose scent; 'Felicia', voluptuous mix of old rose and musk, one of the best-scented roses.

Rosa moschata, sweetly musk-scented, of course.

I need more wafters! Jaune Desprez and Perfume Breeze especially, what magnificent roses. Portland from Glendora is available here and has been on my wish list for some time. Now if only I had the space..

I agree with oursteelers, Mare Pavié is a great wafter, probably my best. I have two potted ones, one either side of the front door. In a few weeks she should be at full flush, so entering and exiting the house will be a pleasure, as always. A previous year:

Moses, thank you for the description of your garden area. I don’t think I have ever heard how your garden is laid out and since you don’t post photos, up until now I couldn’t visualize it. Now I can. I like the picture I see in my head, a picture of tranquility and beauty; an old gentleman who has lived a full life, sitting in the sunshine enjoying his plants and creatures. Of course, you’re not always sitting, because we gardeners are always pottering about and tweaking things here and there. Anyway, I love the visual.

As for the video tour of my garden, hopefully that will happen within the month. I’m waiting till the gardens are in peak bloom, probably another week and a half or two. I still don’t know how to do it, but if my friend won’t be able to do it, I’ll try. ;)

Marie Pavie has been on my list for a long time, but I’ve never gotten it. Some day!

I agree about 'Cornelia' and 'Marie Pavie'. I have both and they do waft, especially 'Cornelia', but my clone of 'Marie Pavie' doesn't seem as strong that way as some mention, though it certainly has a nice scent and is an excellent, sturdy rose. My 'Felicia', maybe because it's planted in a hardscrabble, edge-of-the-garden kind of place and hasn't bloomed all that heavily in the past, hasn't wafted, though the scent is beautiful. I did give it some TLC and good doses of compost and Rosetone last fall and winter and it has responded with many more buds this spring, so I'm hopefull it will give off more scent now. 'Vanity' is one I haven't noticed before -- hybrid musks are about 50/50 as to whether they will tolerate our terrible summer heat here, but 'Vanity' is rated as "excellent" on HMF with respect to heat, so worth considering.

@Melissa Northern Italy zone 8, I've always wanted Rosa moschata and missed out on it every single time (many times!) it came up as available at Vintage Gardens -- it would be snapped up virtually instantly. This reminds me that I should try again to seek it out, from another vendor. 'Madame Plantier' sounds heavenly, but it says on HMF that she likes cool places. She would probably think she had gone straight to Hell if I brought her to Livermore!

'Jaune Desprez' is, at this point, unstoppable, which is funny because it took it a fairly long time (like 6 years) to begin getting established and even re-bloom. Now it blooms all season long, though never as heavily as that first flush. I don't do anything with that rose, just stay out of its way.

@Moses, Pitt PA, cold W & warm/humid S z6, I will definitely be seeking 'Quietness' out and am so glad you recommended it.

@catspa_zone9sunset14, OMG! what amazing specimens! The perfume of all those roses must be amazing!

I’d say that Grandmother’s Hat can waft when the air is moist in the early morning. However, I think the fragrance I enjoy the most is the Tulsi Basil which releases its fragrance when brushed as I walk the garden path.

@jjkOC zone 10a/22, SoCal, I did notice my "Grandmother's Hat" wafting yesterday, in just the conditions you mention, as I passed by! Another plus for that tough beauty.

I totally agree about the Tulsi Basil, which I've known as holy basil and of which I have at least a few volunteers every year (it's only ever annual, never lasting through the winter -- must be very tender). On a warm day it's like catnip for humans. Another herb like that, for me, is Thymus mastichina, fortunately a reliable perennial here because I've found it somewhat challenging to raise from seed, that being my only choice as I've never found plants of it in commerce.

Thank you everyone for sharing your favorite wafters, I'm trying to get a few to perfume the yard. I mostly buy fragrant roses, but it's frustrating how many of them need you to stick your nose into the flower to smell it.

Judi, how have you trained your Perfume Breeze and how big is it? I'm trying to figure out if I need to train her like a climber against a wall, or if she'd be happier as a free standing bush, or climbing up some sort of support like an obelisk. Right now I have one potted and I'd like to get her in the ground asap because her canes keep hooking me when I walk by

My favorite wafters are Orchid Romance, Pope John Paul II, Tess of D'ubervilles, & Munstead Wood. The latter two seem to just perfume in the morning though, while OR and PJP perfume all day long. I got Penelope, Felicia & was gifted a Perfume Breeze for more wafting power for this year - just need to figure out where to put them. Hoping to get Marie Pavie next year for our back deck

Moses, congratulations on being cured! What wonderful news. Quitness is lovely, there's a botanical garden in Virginia we see each year on vacation that has her and I always go to seek her out - she looks and smells beautiful

Elestrial, both of my Perfume Breeze roses are trained up and over arbors. They work well for me that way but they do branch heavily and I am ruthless with the pruners when it comes to cutting off branches that grow any direction that doesn’t suit me. They are so prolific that it doesn’t hurt them in the least. If you grow it as a free standing bush, be prepared to give it lots of room to arch in all directions. In my climate, it would engulf and eat an obelisk!

Thank you Judi - I'll save her for an arbor then. I plan to start a new garden off the front porch and put an Arbor in there, that might be the perfect place for her to go

Moses - that is wonderful news to hear the word "cured" from your Oncologist! As medical professionals I'm sure they are cautious with such terms so it's all the more powerful when you hear that absolute clear bill of health where the cancer is concerned. I'm thrilled to hear it and have continued chances to hear your voice chime in on rose topics here on the forum. May it be so for many years to come!

Cynthia

Elestrial and Cynthia,

Thank you for expressing your joy at knowing my cancer has been cured. The battle was intense, the treatments, brutal, but the results.......amazing success. Have you seen a marathon runner cross the finishing line and collapse? That was my reaction at getting the miraculously good news.......an emotional release......then haustion. I'm back in the saddle, well recovered, energized now as the good news sinks in. What to do with the rest of my life is a question I didn't think I would ever contemplate a while back, but now I do! I'll let the Lord figure that one out for me. He's done a great job so far!

Moses.

One of the things I most love about the roses in my garden is that nearly every one has a story or a memory associated with it -- where it came from, what was happening then, who was a part of its story, and so on. Walking around out there in the garden with all those memories is such a peaceful pleasure. The plant of 'Quietness' which is now headed my way will always be associated with the image I have of Moses in his bit of paradise, with roses and pigeons, and the good news about his cancer. What a great thing and thanks again, Moses!

@Elestrial 7a, as it happens, I was visiting the Berkeley Rose Garden with my daughter on Tuesday and experienced the wonderful scent of 'Pope John Paul II' there -- I hadn't realized how strongly scented it was -- wow! There were a lot of other wonderfully scented roses there, but two that I very much liked (though maybe not wafters) happened to be two Tom Carruth roses, 'Memorial Day' and 'Queen of Elegance' -- very nice. The scents of 'Gertrude Jekyll' and 'Bubble Bath' were both noticeable while walking past, that particular day at least.

Back on the main topic of wafting, I love reading about the roses that have scents in the garden, but I rarely if ever experience fragrance in my garden without my nose in a flower. We have such dry air that it doesn't convey scent very far, and even when intensely fragrant things like hyacinths or lilacs are blooming all over my yard, their scents don't waft. People with much better noses for fragrance than mine will enjoy the visual impact of the flowers but no one comments on fragrance even at the best of times with multiple fragrant flowers, bushes, and trees blooming.

I'll have to visit your yards to enjoy fragrance aside from direct nose to rose contact.

Cynthia

Too true, Cynthia. When its over 100F here, as it often is in summer, little in the way of wafting goes on. It's tough to smell scent in ANY rose, even close-up, under those conditions! (I had no idea Nebraska was so dry.) When it gets that hot and dry, the go-to is appreciating roses with another exceptional characteristic: heat tolerance (like 'Snowbird', 'Alba Odorata', 'Lyda', etc.) -- topic for another thread!

I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but I doubt any of you have drier air than I do here in Arizona. It’s not uncommon for the humidity levels to fall into the single digits here for most of the day… and yet, Perfume Breeze wafts very well here! It’s my only rose out of more than 150 varieties that does this predictably. I have noticed an increase in the fragrance of my back yard since we have a well watered lawn. I suppose the moisture rising from the lawn carries the scent better. My Perfume Breeze plants have just started blooming this week and I’m just delighted when I step out my back door and the scent comes to me on the air, many feet from where either is planted. In fact, I can’t see either of them from the patio, but I could smell them before I saw they were blooming and I knew that they had started.

@judijunebugarizonazn8, well, that finishes selling me on 'Perfume Breeze'. I will be seeking it out!

Good point Judi - you are drier than most people posting on GW Roses! I'm glad Perfume Breeze lives up to its name for you in your dry air and does indeed waft in very challenging dry conditions. It wouldn't work for me because I can't get it to overwinter. Another problem with wafting and me is that I have a poor nose for fragrance to start with. The time when the roses might be most fragrant in spring is when my sinuses are least receptive to scents from allergies. Year-round allergies may be part of why I have such a poor nose in general.

Cynthia

I agree that Marie Pavie is excellent at wafting, although I have had comments from some people that they don't like the fragrance.

Bishop's Castle wafts very strongly throughout my garden when my three bushes are in full bloom.

Alnwick Castle wafts for me, and I can smell a single open bloom from a yard away, a bush in full bloom I can smell from across the yard. But it seems that not everyone can smell it. I have had visitors who couldn't smell it until they buried their nose in a bloom.

I have six Icebergs in my entrance, and they waft in these numbers. I don't know if a single bush would waft much, but I seem to remember a single Iceberg wafting in my aunt's yard.

Dee-lish has wonderful fragrance, but it doesn't waft at all for me. Neither did PCdM.

@noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque), as I mentioned above, the scent of 'Gertrude Jekyll' was wafting the day I visited it in the Berkeley Rose Garden park and it's good to hear other Austins can do the same. I have never once thought of 'Iceberg' as having a scent, let alone being a wafter, though there are multitudes of them in the newer housing development south of ours. through which I often walk. (The developeer made a good choice there; that rose looks great no matter what the mow-and-blow guys do to it). But there are roses that are supposed to be highly scented that I can't smell at all -- take 'Alba Odorata' for a notable example. You must have a great sense of smell! I wish I could smell all of them (and especially 'Alba Odorata' -- what its scent might be totally intrigues me....).

In our hot, dry summer climate, very few roses waft outside so my old nose can smell their scent. But inside in plonks and bouquets, the best smellers and wafters for me are Young Lycidas and Rouge Royale. Diane

@catspa_zone9sunset14 that must have been an incredible experience to smell 'Gertrude Jekyll' wafting! Since GJ can be a huge climber with hundreds of bloom, I can only imagine. I wish I had a place for one. There are some roses that I can barely smell, Mrs. BR Cant is one of them. But it might have been that I had too young a plant. I've heard that some roses take a few years to develop fragrance. Mine did not like winter here, so was removed after the first winter (regretfully).

'Purple Pavement' wafts for me. This is a rugosa, so probably better for us northern folks.

@Diane Brakefield The description of the scent of 'Rouge Royal' on HMF sounds fascinating: "Strong, anise, raspberry, strawberry, sweet fragrance". It must smell heavenly indoors.

@noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque), The 'Gertrude Jekyll' was large, trained up and for a long ways horizontally on a tall chain link fence that was surrounding the adjacent tennis courts. Hundreds of blooms for sure and fantastic. The scent of 'Mrs. B.R. Cant', which I have, is very strong to me, like raspberries. It's an interesting thing, isn't it, how each of us perceives the world differently and uniquely this way.

@Nancy R z5 Chicagoland, I love the scent of rugosas. I had 'Hansa' in my garden in Massachusetts and the scent could knock you over. But, you're right, rugosas don't do so well here in hot, dry Livermore.

Rouge Royale smells wonderful, but I don't get any wafting yet. She's only a few years old though, so maybe she needs more time

I ended up adding Marie Pavie to my order with Angel Gardens and she arrived yesterday with lots of buds and an open flower. Her fragrance isn't very strong, but it is nice - I like it

@Elestrial 7a, That's my impression of the scent from my 'Marie Pavie', too -- nice but not that strong. I think there may be different clones of MP out there, some with stronger scent and some (recalling a discussion on this forum some years ago) with more petals. Mine was sold by Annie's Annuals as the "Marble Garden Mystery Rose", started by Annie, as the story went, from discarded prunings from some famous garden, but there is little doubt it is MP, the one with fewer petals and a moderate scent. I love it -- it blooms a lot and has stayed a tidy 4' x 5' for years, nice healthy leaves.

Marie Pavié wafted for me in my California garden. I have planted it here, but it is quite a young plant and has not yet bloomed. The odd thing about MP is that while it wafts deliciously, there is hardly any scent if you put your nose right into the bloom. At least that has been my experience.

My California one came from Antique Roses Emporium a number of years ago. My new one came from High Country Roses. I don't know if they are the same clone or not.

I agree an individual bloom of Marie Pavié doesn’t smell of much. It needs a certain critical mass of blooms before I notice the sweet, musky fragrance, which I really like. Mine is not at full flush yet but has just begun to waft:

One rose I don't notice wafting outdoors, but the scent of which is perceptible from several feet away inside, is 'Mme. Alfred Carrière'. This is a wonderfully scented, abundantly flowering rose, one of the few I really like to cut for a bouquet.

I need to pay more attention when the next flush of 'Marie Pavié' rolls around...

Melissa, yet another of the many virtues 'Mme. Alfred Carrière' has! Also, as I headed up the hill to check on how things were going in the bird house on the oak tree last evening (good for birds this year, by the way; both bird houses in the backyard are in use: oak titmice in the oak bird house and chickadees in one nailed to a rather large and tall xylosma tree nearer the house), I did catch the scent of 'Felicia' wafting. It had been a cloudy, humid day and, this year, 'Felicia' is just so full of blooms, thanks to me finally giving her some TLC last year. It paid off!.