Here are pictures of my mystery rose, which still has not put our her blooms. She had already opened blooms by this time last year. They are still a mite too tiny to bloom, maybe another week? We've had cool, overcast weather a lot lately, so I think that is why. The plant itself is very healthy. I had aphids but treated her and they are mostly gone, save a few loners here or there.

New growth is always bright, plummy-red and the leaves even when fully matured are tinged red around the edges, and they are also serrated and sorta glossy/shiny. They feel thin, but leathery as well.

The blooms, last year, had a lovely classic rose sort of scent, perhaps a bit tea-ish. I am not sure how to classify it's strength, but I do know I could smell it upon first opening the door, and it is about 12 feet away.

They do not hold well, they generally fade from a lovely magenta-red color to a darker purple, within 3 days, and the petals fall quickly. The stamens look golden/yellow and there is often a whitish center. I have always seen 13 petals, never one more or one less.

The first spring flush is typically a group of 3, a large one with two small ones coming behind it, at the end of each major cane, with single bloom offshoots in the middle of the bush. Later flushes are usually several of the 3 groupings at the end of each major cane and several single blooms on the smaller branches. It blooms basically continuously. There are always new blooms. Last year it had it's first spring flush around this time and it had it's last the first week of October. We had a long summer and I was pruning/deadheading it.

I have not noticed a single hip the two years we've lived here, but, the first year I didn't really pay attention to it, and the second year my grandmother dead-headed all the blossoms, so I guess it didn't really have a chance to. So it may actually be able to make them, I jsut haven't seen any.

It's extremely vigorous and healthy, living in a part-sun location that stays relatively moist, it has no diseases or conditions that I can see, other than some insect nibbles here or there. It was planted circa 1960-1970 as a Mother's Day gift for my great great grandmother, whose house this originally was. Another man bought and lived in it for several years and he said he fed it some leftover azalea food once, the first year he bought the house, but never touched it again. It was smallish and had poor circulation the first year we had it, so we trimmed it next to nothing and opened up the interior and this year it's almost twice the size and last year it had 3 times the blooms.

Any idea? I checked HMF and I've seen one that looks similar, Inge Pein, and it's a polyantha, which I am not sure mine is, since it often makes single blooms and its multi-blooms are 3 and no more, unless the summer flushes of multiple triple clusters is like a polyantha. In the past, someone figured it to be a Dr. Huey, but that is once-blooming and mine is definitely not, and all the pics I have seen of it, are waaaay darker red than mine, and not pink enough. Plus, it says it is climbing, and mine isn't particularly climbing, though I do think I could train it that way. It is mostly hardy and shrubby.

I will post the first blooms whenever she finally sets them out. Hopefully not much longer. I keep looking out my window hoping they're open, haha.

Here is a link that might be useful: pics to helps you