Are roses losing their aroma because of man’s cross pollinating and tinkering to create a better rose?

I’ve heard that. It wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve also heard that some of our fruits and veggies have lost flavor having been bred to look more perfect and bruise less. Oh, and there are the American chickens that now have breasts so big they can barely stand up.

Maybe some people prefer roses that are not as fragrant??

There are very few “natural” roses, as roses are easily grafted and new varieties created. People have been doing it for centuries. Yes, many new ones are not as fragrant as older varieties.

Growers are constantly working to develop different and improved varieties. A rose is a trade-off between its many characteristics: beauty, resistance to mildew and rot, size, resistance to insect pests, fragrance, beauty, longevity, even thorn density.

I recall a wonderfully fragrant rose at a previous house. Unfortunately, I had to keep dusting it with “Rose Pesticide” (I’m guessing it was powdered sevin) to keep the aphids and Japanese beetles from devouring it in a couple of days. How did the bugs find it? Was it the fragrance? I would have gladly given up the smell if I could enjoy the appearance of the roses without pesticides.

It depends on what’s most important to the horticulturist who’s doing the selecting. If appearance is the prime factor, then if some aroma is lost in the process no big deal. Some varieties, however, are specifically bred for aroma; likewise, if the resulting rose isn’t spectacular looking, no big deal.

It’s not that emphasizing either beauty or fragrance automatically sacrifices the other. A rose can have both. But a breeder isn’t going to throw an especially beautiful variety on the trash heap just because it doesn’t have much fragrance, and vise versa.

All of that “tinkering” by man has produced many varieties that are both more fragrant and more spectacular looking than the wild rose. Rosa x damascena is the hybrid grown for much of the world’s perfume. An “untinkered” wild rose looks like this and doesn’t have as much aroma. Which would you rather have in your garden?

The varieties that are heirloom roses still have the scent, and they are being kept and planted by many people. The hybrids raised for florists and some being grown in gardens are disease-resistant (roses are prone to a lot of diseases naturally) and the blooms are bred to stay budlike longer. Some, however, are still being bred for scent.

In a few weeks when the wild roses bloom, the first clue is their scent. The aroma wafts over everything. The flowers themselves are white, small and single-petaled…nothing to write home about. They don’t have the blowzy charm in a vase of the hundreds of new varieties but the smell is intoxicating. (And their thorns and thick branches act as an impenetrable hedge.)

http://www.all-creatures.org/pica/ftshl-wildrosesm2.jpg