[Daisy]

Most of my roses start flowering in spring. They continue throughout the early and mid summer, and then take a rest until autumn. There are a few stalwarts, that continue in the hottest part of the summer. There are also some, mainly tea and china roses, that flower throughout the winter, but this rose is unusual. It doesn't start flowering until the heat of the summer in July. It then continues into the autumn.
It has the most unusual perfume too. A strange scent, that I have not found in any other rose. I asked my friend and my husband what they thought it smelt like. My husband said it reminded him of his art classroom from his primary school. All those crayons and poster paints! My friend simply said it reminded her of old lady's handbags!
I planted it at the foot of a golden gage tree fifteen months ago. It has grown right up through it, and is now hanging down amongst the branches.
Daisy

[Alisdair]

This is a lovely rose. It's a true noisette rose dating from 1828, best as a strong climber, though it can be grown as a bush.
With us in SW France it does flower a bit in the spring, then from late September onwards into autumn it has a second much stronger flush of flowers thrusting out from the new growth. (We are trying it in our hot garden in Greece, but as it is in the part where everything has to do without summer water after its first or second year we are a bit doubtful about whether it will survive there.)
As Daisy says, the flowers - individually small, but forming huge trusses - do have a unique fragrance, which I'd describe as having a nostalgic sense of fading.
A big bonus is that it is practically thornless. On Monday this week, pruning it came as an absolute blessing after tackling beastly if beautiful Mermaid.
It is a very strong grower. We have it up the side of a pigeonnier, and it's lovely when it can cascade down far over one's head. It would be good growing through a compact-foliaged conifer.

[Daisy]

First year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps.
My climbing roses, have obviously not heard this saying. They were mainly planted around March last year and apart from Devoniensis, which is still sulking, they have far exceeded my expectations. Some had been potted up for a few months beforehand, but even so!
Here is Marechal Niel this year.
Daisy

[Alisdair]

You're so lucky to have Marechal Niel! We had it on the pigeonnier in SW France, and it did well for a few years looking lovely against the grey stone there, but died in one very hard winter.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Twice lucky Daisy because this year seems to have been outstanding for roses in Greece. Newly palnted and established they've flowered beyond the call of duty everywhere I've seen and in both my gardens. Up in the village I have a Rosa x damascena ‘Trigintipetala’ which I've been promising to dig out for years because it's so vicious, flowers sparsely in spring and never in the autumn, but this May it was so floriferous and so sweet-smelling - combining with the scent of a Lonicera japonica ‘Chinensis’ behind it - that we were dropping like drunken bees before it. Unfortunately it still was unattractive because the plant had been beaten sideways by the rain.

[Alisdair]

Yes, late this last April a Banksian Rose we have in the Peloponnese, on a south-facing wall with no summer watering, was flowering more profusely than we've ever seen it before.

[Daisy]

"we were dropping like drunken bees before it."
Brilliant Fleur I have the most amazing picture in my head now
But I do know exactly what you mean.

Alistair, that is a wonderful banksia rose. I would love to grow one, but no space left. Boo hoo
Daisy

[Daisy]

Over a year later and my Aimee Vibert has changed it's flowering time.
This year, it started flowering in May and has continued ever since.
It is still flowering now.
I suppose it is flowering longer as it is much more mature now.



Daisy

[Trevor Australis]

Flowering could depend on how cold the canes get in winter. Isn't it a wall plant in the UK? Here, in Australia, she flowers non-stop, apart from in our garden. We don't grow her but our neighbour has one on our shared paling fence and she's fully bursting now along with our clematis - Roguchi, Prince Charles and a dark purple viticella hybrid.

[Daisy]

Janet, your question about climbing roses for summer flowering. My soil is a sandy loam. The top soil is only one, to one and a half spits deep.
The areas around the fruit trees, which were there for a long time before I moved in, are slightly darker in colour, and a little more friable due to the annual leaf drop.
Apart from lots of rocks, I did find a lot of animal skeletons, mainly cats, in the garden when I initially dug it over. Not what I wanted to find.  
Because there is not a good depth of topsoil, I usually plant the "greedy guts", i.e. roses and clematis in cardboard boxes. I dig a deep square hole and put a lot of donkey manure in the bottom. Then I put a large cardboard box on top of that, and plant the rose or clematis in it. This makes all the difference, as I found out two years ago when I planted some new roses without bothering with the cardboard boxes and manure. They did not grow at all, and only produced a couple of wimpy flowers at the end of the summer.
I have dug them up and planted them properly since then.
I am very greedy, and tend to plant things close together to squeeze more in.
This may be why my garden seems "lush." There is no soil exposed, so I suppose, there is less evaporation.
I know I have to top the water in the pond up, more often than I need to water the plants in the garden.

As to which roses will be okay in an exposed windy situation. Well, I have such a small garden, that I only have a few climbing roses. I can only tell you which ones have worked for me here. Someone else may be able to give you more ideas.
My garden is completely open to the north, north easterly and north westerly winds.
I have on my pergola, Colombian Climber which came from Peter Beales.
It has a wonderful perfume. It started flowering in a pot initially, as I was not ready to plant it.



Since then, It has not had a single day, without flowers.
It is also evergreen. It is not a very tall climber, mine is now about 12 feet.



I planted Clematis Perle d'Azur in the cardboard box with it. Neither of them seem to mind.



On another tiny pergola I have David Austin's Teasing Georgia.
Teasing Georgia doesn't flower in winter, but flowers well all through spring, summer and autumn. Lovely perfume.



On the same pergola are, two Plumbago capensis, a Solanum rattonettii and an Aristolchia elegans.
So far, they all seem happy.



I have two black plum trees only 4 feet apart. I planted a Madame Alfred Carriere in between them. Because it is such a poor situation, I thought it would take a long time getting established there. It was a lot slower than the others, but has now reached the top of the trees, so I hope it will flower a lot more this year.





I also have Aimee Vibert climbing through a golden gage tree.
She has grown up through the tree, and is now cascading very prettily out of it.
She also flowers all spring, summer and autumn, but not very much in winter.





I have squeezed in two seat arbours. On one of them is Sombreuil. He has a small flowered Mandevilla splendens (Dipladenia)? with him.
He has such a gorgeous perfume, I can sit there and sniff him for hours.
He flowers for most of the year, but only has a few flowers in winter.





On the other arbour is Marechal Niel. He flowers profusely in spring and early summer. The rest of the year, he flowers more sparingly. His perfume is lighter than the others to my nose, but other people tell me they find it strong.
He has the most flexible canes and is the easiest to train.





The New Dawn is climbing through an apricot tree. She smells strongly of green apples. She flowers mainly in spring and early summer, with some intermittent blooms at other times.
Here she is with Clematis viticella Abundance.



...and with foxgloves and Rose Blush Noisette next to her.



I also have Climbing Devoniensis going up another apricot tree, but would hesitate to recommend him, as so far, he suffers badly with powdery mildew and die-back, which I am hoping he will grow out of.
He also, so far, has not been very floriferous.



None of these roses have been bothered by the wind.
We also get a very strong wind from the south, out of Africa here.
We had three days of it, last autumn. The bougainvillea next to rose Columbian Climber, was stripped of all it's flowers and leaves. The leaves of the Clematis viticella Polish Spirit  nearby,  all turned black, but none of the roses were damaged at all.

This is only what I have in my little garden. I hope someone else can recommend more.
Daisy

[Alisdair]

Whilst posting this I want to ask you about the rose Marechal Niel that I think you recommended previously. I have the name written in some notes I made when compiling a list of perfumed roses. To recap - a yellow flowered climber? rambler? with good perfume and a healthy grower?  I am also looking to plant one deep pink perfumed climber and am leaning towards Mme Isaac Pereire, is there any other that you would recommend above that?

Carole, For what it's worth:
We planted Marechal Niel in our SW France garden, but after two or three years it died - I think it was a particularly cold winter that finished it, though other tea roses survived (it loved our hot summers there). I do want to try it again there one day, as it is a lovely fragrant climber.

[Fermi]

In my opinion one of the best roses for Australian conditions is the Alister Clark raised tea rose 'Lorraine Lee' which also comes in a "climbing" form which is more of a sprawler for us but looks effective on an arbour!
The flowers are delightfully scented and have a pleasing pink/salmon colouring. In mild winters it flowers through into spring but in our area she really only gets going after a month of "true" spring.
cheers
fermi

[Alisdair]

That's certainly a gorgeous creature. Another climber which we saw growing magnificently in several South Australia gardens on the MGS trip last October was Crépuscule - pictured here in Margaret Burrell's Tipsy Hill garden, overlooking the McLaren Vale:

[Trevor Australis]

  You are so right Alisdair, CREPUSCULE is fantastic but gardeners in the real Med should stretch themselves with Reve d'Or, Alister Stella Gray, Chromatella, Clg LADY HILLINGDON and heaps of other Teas bred in the Riviera - or Australia which are generally thought too tender for Northern European gardens. See if you can get NOELLA NABONNAND a fabulous wine red climber, or try COMTESSE du CAYLA There's a whole new world of roses out there to discover, grow and enjoy.  tn

[Daisy]

Your Lorraine Lee is drop dead gorgeous Fermi, as is Crepuscle, Alistair.
Strange, some people say that Crepuscule's perfume is strong. Whereas, others say that it is a light perfume.
Daisy