That’s fancy, is it healthy
So far, the growth, root development and disease resistance have been convincing. I hope it will maintain these qualities.
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Yes but not as strong as you might expect.
Recently, in another topic, I shortly mentioned two IndigoXRaspberry Kiss seedlings from 2023. Neither has bloomed yet. However, here is one of them that showed its first open flower today.
N.B.: I perceive a beautiful damask scent with a fruity touch.
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Curious. ‘Charles de Mills’ isn’t known for its fragrance. I’ve observed some scent, but it has no sweet component, only a kind of “herbal” spice scent, and it’s not particularly strong.
Do you have a photo of your ‘Charles’?
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I could only find this old & overexposed picture, but my plant is loaded with buds now, so more photos will be forthcoming soon. HMF states “Strong Fragrance” in its description…
HMF states lots of things, and not all of it is correct.
It can be especially problematic when dealing with the really old OGRs, since many of the roses in commerce under the well-known names are imposters. (Some nurseries sell the right cultivar and others have imposters. Case in point would be Heirloom’s ‘Ville de Bruxelles’. To this day - in spite of contacting them myself to explain why it’s incorrect - they still sell the imposter!)
Browsing HMF for photos of OGRs you can find photos that are clearly not the right rose, so people can misattribute fragrance characteristics if they are growing one of the imposters.
That said, it’s entirely possible that I don’t have the receptors for certain fragrance components present in ‘Charles de Mills’ and my impression of its scent are skewed as a result.
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By pure happenstance, when I moved to Nanaimo in 2011, a neighbour had their yard and fences just festooned with OGR and ramblers! I struck up a chat one day and after an hour of geeking out, I walked away with rooted suckers of Violacea/La Belle Sultane, Charles de Mills, Jenny Duvall, and Rosa Mundi (which turned out to be unstriped Officinalis instead) and I’ve checked them against HMF & my reference books. They do seem to be what they’re supped to be, but I am NOT an expert on roses, and would welcome education from those who know.
All four are budded up fairly well, and some are showing colour as the sepals spread. I’ll post a handful of shots of each (flowers, buds, leaves, etc) as they bloom.
Seems like hijacking to do that here; maybe a separate topic for each plant? Or just “Some Gallicas I Have”…?
Dusty
For me Charles de Mills has a scent but not the powerful “swoony” scent of say madam isaac Perrier.
Strength of scent is quite subjective I think. This weekend I was visiting a friend whom I gave some roses I propagated from suckers and cuttings, of which Charles de Mills and Mme. Isaac Perreire. We were inspecting his garden. The roses looked wonderfull. He’s a natural when pruning roses. My friend was lyrical about one rose he found smelled really good. To my surprise it was Charles de Mills and not Mme. IP. I let him smell Mme. IP and he replied “It smells the same as that one doesn’t it?”. 
So some people have a somewhat blunted sense of smell 
Charles de Mills smells sweet but not that strong, when the flower is still fresh. Later in the day I’ve found it quickly loses most of it’s smell… And Mme. Isaac Perreire is about the strongest smelling rose in my garden, together with The McCartney Rose and Parole.
I can recommend Gertrude Jekyll for scent, at least for my nose!
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Congratulations on this beautiful success! It would be interesting for me to know whether the flowering of this cross within the Portland line only starts in the second year.
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It indeed started in its second year!
But is it repeat bloomer?
Not sure at this point, it does some minor black spot quite early in the season as well
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Congratulations!
I read with interest, making my long story very short. Finally moved in fall some 15-20 year Duchess of Portland “scrub” surface runners (may be 3-4 single blooms in that time) from where they shouldn’t be, to a more benign wintering spot for -30C (c/w cover). In the rough they proved tenacious.
They are actually starting to look like “bushes to be”
Look forward to blooms and using as pollen.
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