I'm looking for a yellow climber that has a good scent for my mom. She has a thing for yellow roses much like my fascination with mauve/orange roses and, like myself, has to be smelly. However, she doesn't like the single/double petaled.. .they have to "look like a real rose". Any suggestions? I saw Autumn Sunset in the Edmund's catalog and HMF shows some pretty pictures of it, but none in the climber phase. And since it's a sport of Westerland, it can tolerate the colder temps (she lives in the southern mountains of NM, which is either a zone 5 or zone 6, like myself).

Any suggestions?

Toni, I love Autumn Sunset so much that I already have four of them, and I'm sure I'll buy it again whenever I see it in bloom at a nursery. It's pretty much irresistible.

I don't know that I'd call it yellow, though. It's more of an apricot blend, with lots of yellow, but also with beige, orange, and even pink. It doesn't get very tall. I think 8 feet is as tall as it has climbed in my garden.

Did you see the photos in our database? You can see that most of them aren't very yellow.

http://cubits.org/roses/db/ros...

I'm glad that you pointed me to the database here (I'm always forgetting about it.. kinda like when you have something on speed-dial & you can't remember the number thereafter?). That's not what I'm looking for. Of course the picture in the Edmunds Roses catalog showed a gorgeous "texas yellow" color.. that's what I'm looking for. One of these days...

Ooooh! Now I want Autumn Sunset, what lovely blends of colors!

Toni, look for Casino or Lemon Meringue for your mother. They're both plain yellow and have a strong scent. And there's always Golden Showers, of course, although I hate the name of that one.

Porkpal, you really do need Autumn Sunset because I know you like to avoid temperamental roses and it's highly untemperamental.

Better and better!

That Casino is almost exactly what I'm looking for, but looks like it's gonna be harder to find. No pics in our database for Lemon Meringue, so can't compare to HMF. However, I like the selection with Cool Roses http://www.coolroses.com/. I may look at ordering from them, perhaps.

Autumn Sunset is another one I will have to replace, i had to leave mine behind. Only had it a little over a year and just loved it.

Emerisa always has really nice ones, Sue. If you get your resale license, you can pick one up on the wholesale side of the nursery. One of the neighbors here bought two from Emerisa in the 5-gallon containers, planted them on either side of an arbor, and by the end of the year they had met at the top.

Help Me Find says it is an "occasional repeat" bloomer. What do you experience in the way of repeat from Autumn sunset?

Mine rebloomed just fine, along with my other roses. I just had to make sure to clip off old blooms to stimulate new growth and avoid hip formation, as usual. I have pictures on DG taken in May, June & Oct. and it was blooming also in July when we sold the house.

Sue's right. It reblooms all the time, Porkpal. HMF has some annoying features and one of them is the range of choices given to people adding roses to the database, or perhaps their carelessness when they add roses. This rose does not belong in the "occasional repeat" category.

My favorites are the people who click too many options, producing a description that says: "little or no fragrance, strong fragrance; double (17-25 petals), very full (41+ petals); cupped, high-centered; bushy, upright."

Yah, I looked up some familiar roses to see whether I agreed with the descriptions. Among other things Europeana was also listed as as "occasional" rebloomer while mine are constantly blooming even though they often have no leaves.

Yes, Europeana is in no way an occasional bloomer. It's almost as constant a bloomer as the Meidiland landscape roses.

Mine re-blooms all the time....it was 'supposed to be' Golden Showers but it is not! I have been very pleased with it.

I keep forgetting about Casino, which is supposed to still be among the best of the yellow climbers. I grow Allgold which seems to be pretty easy to grow and is definitely a strong, unfading yellow. Not sure it has any fragrance, nor are the blooms formally shaped. I grew Autumn Sunset in NJ in a spot where it got just two hours of sunlight. It survived for just three years, but it was glorious. It's in one of my orders this spring, perhaps Rogue Valley Roses - if that counts.

I'm guessing you wouldn't consider a DA rose such as Malvern Hills or Teasing Georgia.

I had no luck with Europeana this year, though I did plant it in a punishing spot with hot sun and poor soil. It bloomed once and proceded to die. Still, several of the roses nearby did a little better including Maria Schriver which bloomed once and didn't completely die.

Steve - Your Europeana died??? wow. That's one of my roses that I have 100% faith in.. harsh cold (all the way at the edge of my property next to the road, so gets blasted with wind all the time), crappy soil (mostly rock & clay), 2 gal from Home Depot.. blooms non-stop once it gets going. Last quite a while, too, too bad doesn't smell as awesome as it looks.

DAs are too fragile for me, which means they're about 100% more too fragile for my mom. Need something more.. plug & play. I love her dearly, but she has a black thumb. She can kill plastic plants. Not even lilacs do well for her.

I'm sure I am capable of killing even the most invincible rose from sheer neglect.

Perhaps I should be buying my Europeana's from Home Depot rather than from Edmunds.

I'm guessing your mother lives in a zone warmer than your Colorado zone 5. I am led to understand that lilacs do very nicely here in zone 7, but I haven't checked on the one I planted last spring. I, too, am capable of killing lilacs, even in NJ! In any case, DA roses do very well for me here - ones that I buy from DA roses, anyway.

Actually, my mom lives in the mist southern mountain chain in New Mexico, e Sacramento mountains. She's at about 7018ft, give or take a foot or two and she has enough shale in her yard to make a Roman jealous. And she has a 'tales from the crypt' thumb. Lol

My guess is that her weather will be a lot like the weather here with lots of fine, bright, warm days and quite a few wickedly chilly nights. She's a little south of where we are here, and almost 2000 ft higher. There are mountains around Prescott that are the same height. And they get a lot of snow when we get rain. In any case, it is not uncommon for fine daytime weather to lure a plant out of dormancy and then for a hard frost to whack it hard. Then there is the fact that the ground is only ever moist when the roses are dormant. So she'd have to be committed to watering it regularly for some time. Of course the fact that there is no soil to speak of can be a real detriment. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

In any case, I kill a lot of plants, too. I can't tell you how often I've thought of just declaring pigweed a decorative garden plant.

I have noticed that Le Reve, owing to its close relationship to R foetida, no doubt, appears to sail through all sorts of bad weather - blistering heat, yo-yo temperatures, dryness, and so on. I know you didn't have this in mind, but maybe one of those two cultivars would be a good starter rose for your mom. The roses may not look like much individually, but when you've spotted a 35 ft tall Le Reve in full bloom from 200 ft away, it's a sight hard to forget.