Northspruce, I gathered my courage to click on your thread, and then found that I was treated to such beauties!!! Thank you very much!

I am very surprised to see how well Peace has done in your yard! Now that is quite encouraging to me :-) BTW, does any one of your beauties here smell nice?

I wonder if you or anyone has been successful in growing Double Delight in our climate, with all the right winter protection? It is one of my favourites.... :-)

Your roses are beautiful, Northspruce!

Thank you! Ostrich, it's funny you mention Double Delight because I do grow it and it does very nicely. One of its blooms is visible on the far left of Mme. Plantier. I didn't take a photo of it yet because it's just started.

Every one of these smells heavenly except Peace and Polstjarnan which have no scent, and Winnipeg Parks I can't remember if it does or not.

I also grow Blanc de Coubert but it's only a couple of years old so I didn't think it qualified for a mature bush shot yet. It's a very stinky one too.

So nice to see roses blooming! Thank you for sharing them, Gil. I especially love to see R. gallica even if you are on the outs with her. :) That was one of the only roses my mother grew and I can still smell her. And Mom. :) Mom passed 41 years ago, the day after my 11th birthday. This year marks the same age for me next week. Her casket was covered in yellow roses, her favorite. Thank you for sharing your pictures. They give me a peaceful, easy feeling.

Ginny

Lovely roses you have!
And it is difficult to photograph some of them, isn't it? I can't get a good shot of kilwinning...it just seems to reflect too much light, even on a cloudy day in the early evening.

Nice. My rose buds are still just opening. Gak, it's such a late year for them :(

Ah ha! Northspruce, I found the Double Delight!!! YAY! :-)

I absolutely love the form, colours and fragrance of DD. How do you protect it over winter please?

Now you have given me hope :-) However, it is chinook country here so hopefully it won't make it much more difficult to protect it over winter here in Calgary.

Gil, you mentioned Blanc de Coubert. I have Blanc Double de Coubert - same thing, or is yours a single? Mine is a pretty prolific bloomer with a nice fragrance but it hasn't quite got enough sun where it is.

I call her Blanche, btw. :>

Nice collection and showing Northspruce!

Ostrich, I have been growing roses for a long time and have tried several things for winter protection, but what I've settled on is fallen leaves held together with burlap. I used to use flax straw which works great and is convenient, but I had problems with the loose seeds attracting mice which then girdled my roses. :( I don't cover until the frosts have come and the plant has started to go dormant. I uncover when the native trees start to leaf out, unless there is some severe frost in the forecast. I protect everything except Rugosas, Canadian Explorers, Polstjarnan and Mordens. Celeste is tall and usually doesn't stay covered but it doesn't usually have any dieback. We're lucky here in MB that we almost always get good snow cover and not too much freeze and thaw.

Marcia, yes I meant Blanc Double de Coubert. Mine is only 3 years old and I didn't include it because I think it'll get a lot bigger in time. It has a great scent and the flowers are SO white! I always think of mine as a little boy rose. ;)

Thanks for the great tip, northspruce!

For your tender roses like Double Delight, do you cut them right back before you protect them? Or do you do the pruning in the spring?

Sometimes I prune a bit in fall but mostly I just cut off what's dead, quite a while after it's leafed out in the spring.

ostrich,

The Calgary Rose Society has an excellent book about growing roses in Calgary, including various forms of protection for less-hardy varieties. It's well worth the cost.

Also, there is a house in Lower Mount Royal at Durham and Hope where a well-known (in Calgary) rose expert lived. His sons own the house now. It's worth driving there and taking a look. They're pretty friendly - he's let me tour the garden before.

Hey, I just took a drive past the house you mentioned.

I think a person would need to get out of the car and walk around to fully appreciate all those roses.

Google maps just doesn't let you get a close enough look =:)

shazam, thank you for the tip - I will drive down there and take a look! Will also look into the Calgary Rose Society information. Thank you.

Gil, Blanche is over 4 feet tall now, maybe closer to 5. She suckers a bit, but not too much. I'l try to get some "bush shots" tomorrow, or sometime this week.

LOL, you're too funny Gil, love the heading name of this thread. Great photos! I have some roses bushes that are like 7-8 ft this year, of course I can't remember their names, over the years I have lost their tags and my memory ;)

Sharon

Okay, here are a couple of my "bush shots".

One of the White Kosters:

Blanc Double de Coubert (well, heck, you can hardly see it here!):

Delicata, from the back.

Henry Kelsey (still haven't tied him to his trellis):

Marie Bugnet (left) and Champlain (right):

Martin Frobisher:

And Hansa - from one side and the other. It's huge!

I haven't had time to deadhead all these yet, so they look prety bad.

Hansa is a fantastically fragrant rose. Very hardy.