Damask Rose, Portland Rose 'Rose de Rescht'

Found by Miss Nancy Lindsey in 1945 in the town of Rasht---from which it gets its name---on Iran's Caspian Sea coast. She brought it home...Read More to England, and it returned to commerce about 1950.

This old rose often gets high ratings for disease resistance, and it is often recommended for beginning and organic gardeners. But every shrub I've seen in the humid northeast is sooty with blackspotted foliage from early July to frost. It doesn't even have the grace to defoliate.

As is usual with black spot, plants do not exhibit symptoms till after the big June bloom flush. Perhaps that is why some gardeners are willing to tolerate it.

The disease does not appear to affect this plant's ability to grow and bloom, which explains its persistent promotion as a rose that can be grown without sprays. Perhaps this looks better on the west coast, where black spot is rarely a serious problem.

I've seen only a little rebloom, quite stingy by modern standards and limited to just an occasional flower, even in September.

Its classification is controversial. Many call it a Damask Perpetual, but because the ARS recognizes no such class for exhibition, in competition it's classified it as a Portland.

Yes, the small flowers are exceptionally fragrant, and a rich deep magenta, though they last only a day. But I'm no longer interested in growing it.

I ordered this rose this spring from David Austin Roses as a bare root. It is the first of the 10 I ordered to bloom. It has many buds an...Read Mored a marvelous damask rose fragrance. I love it. It is flourishing in Stillwater, OK.

Great beauty with high fragrance like the perfumes in soaps and lotions. I rooted mine awhile back and this yr it blooms for the first t...Read Moreime. From a small twig it grew into a shrub. The magenta color is rather unusual for an old fashion rose. At first the foliage is very healthy and then it got black spots but that doesn't bother me. The flowers are unaffected by the spots. I am running out of room so I stuck it in a shady spot and still it got a rather big flush of flowers.

This plant is very hardy (-24F) and trouble free. It has great fragrance but the flowers are on very short stems, making it difficult to ...Read Moreuse as a cut flower. I did win best shrub with it at a local show.