Love all your blooms, but Yuka is my fave.

Oh, sigh. Love them!!! My favs are: Yuka (never heard of that one before), Ispahan, Kazanlik (never heard of it), and Louise Odier. Louise Odier is out of this world gorgeous!!!! I would order that one in a minute, if my local greenhouse had it. My goodness!!!!!

Thank you!!!

Carol

soooo beautiful, bgrose, and I'm so happy/thrilled that you are placing these very rare special roses on our Rose Gallery! I wish more antique rose people would post at our Gallery, because it lets us see all the rare historical roses. What a unique coloration Yuka is. Krista loves her Odier and Oger roses too and once recommended them as roses that would do really well in my zone. Alas, all pinks fade to white in my garden, so I can no longer get any pinks except for the deep, deep pinks. I've got an overload of pink roses that make my garden look like nothing but white roses, lol!

Carol, I told Wes, a friend to either get Ispahan or Kazanlik, because those were the 2 roses that would have bloomed during Marie Antoinette's time. He was real fascinated by the painting of Marie Antoinette carrying her rose and wondered what pink rose it might have been.

Ispahan or Kazanlik are very ancient and date in the very early 1700s, maybe even the late 1600s, when roses first came to Europe. They are once-bloomers, but the history goes waaaaaay back further than even the Old Blush Damask roses and are actually the ancestors of the very first European damask rose. That is if my memory serves me correctly. Probably the antiques people can help out in case my dates are screwed up.

During the height of Marie Antoinette's reign, the Queen helped introduce them as the "haute couture" flower, lol! At the time there were just a bare handful of species of roses. Some of the Kazanlik did have enough petal layers though what I saw of the Peter Beales rose, but! I did tell Wes that I did think it was Ispahan over the Kazanlik....

Bgrose, your Ispahan would go beautifully with that painting :) Thanks for sharing all your Lovely roses.

Thank you for the beautiful story...it is so touching. I will post a picture of Ispahan later when in full bloom because it is a favourite of me too. However I think it is another rose on the portrait, not related to my garden unfortunately. Ispahan starts blooming a little later than other Damasks, that is why I did not post a fully opened flower of it yet. It is very vigorous healthy rose, more orderly than Kazanlik and can be a good climber, produces many blooms, very spectacular. The bush on the portrait is rather low for Ispahan, I think.

Yuka is Japanese floribunda, it has big blooms of nice color, very good repeat. Thanks for good words all.

Bgrose, you must have an absolutely lovely garden with the Damasks. Usually only the very advanced gardeners can have the damasks or once bloomers, because they only bloom once a year and therefore the roses have to be entwined and integrated very well with other colors that stay perpetual in the garden. Wow, a spectacular climber! Please be sure to post the photo of Ispahan when it gets ready to enter its major flush. I would love to see it! my roses only produce moderate-decent flushes, never SPECTACULAR, lol! I drool whenever I see the Spectacular, especially with the climbers and if they can manage to climb in my cold zone. I can only get cruel Cornelia, Viking Queen and Jules to maintain that climbing potential. I call Cornelia cruel because she will keep her buds for 8 whole weeks before finally opening up those flowers! I think she is the only one to have prolific sprays of blooms but that's just this spring. Last year she only had 3 flushes the ENTIRE SEASON and only a bare handful of blooms each time. Right now the entire bush is covered with buds but they are still at a standstill and only 3 have opened. But she's not Spectacular, simply because even if those buds do open at once, the blooms are tiny. Oh, well, I can't complain because at least they are very fragrant to my nose. I simply expect small roses like hers to bloom more often especially if they are labeled continual bloomers, lol! I bet all of your small-blossomed roses are far more successful and look far more SPECTACULAR, lol!

I think we should appreciate the roses we have, I know the roses I grow could not be compared to those of other people who have a better environment than me, but I think they are nice and charming to me because I have put some effort in them. I hope you enjoy your gardening and find the experience rewarding, and are not disappointed by the results if the result is not as you expected. I wish I had a better climate too.

No, I do not entwine other plants with the damasks, of which I have 4 bushes, they just stay green in the summer to autumn because foliage is pretty healthy. I have one damask which actually blooms in autumn too.

These are all beautiful but my favorites are Louise Odier and Kazanlik. Louise has the most delicious color and I can almost smell it!

Ingrid