"Sunflower" wrote in message ...
Currently, I'm personally growing 9 varieties indoors. I'll be
growing more later. I don't think I need to personally grow all of
them, so I pick and choose among those that interest me most.

You do if you're going to describe them as fragrant. There is NO substitute
for personal experience. 9 varieties is hardly a representative sample of
the thousands of minis on the market. Second hand reportage of something as
ephemeral and individual as fragrance is misleading. Hybridizers and
marketers are notoriously optimistic in their glowing descriptive terms.
Marketing isn't fact. Nose sniffing in person is.

I do plan to smell them, as many as I can. I don't have to grow them,
in many cases, to do that. The reason is, within driving distance of
Portland, Oregon, there are many varieties already in gardens,
nurseries, etc. I presume that's one reason Portland is called "The
City of Roses."

For those varieties I don't get my nose that close to, I may select
trusted sources - not just relying on hybridizers' descriptions,
obviously. If I create a list of fragrant varieties in this way, I
anticipate the error rate will be very low, perhaps zero. There may
be disputes between some people along the lines of, "I detect a
moderate fragrance," "but I detect a mild fragrance," etc., and
fragrance varies according to environmental factors, but those issues
aren't primary concerns of mine.

The ARS doesn't evaluate minis. Individual growers of all kinds of roses
evaluate what they grow in RIR, and you don't have to be an ARS member to
participate. (Are you and ARS member and did you participate? And are you
a RHA member since you want to produce your own hybrids?) And the AOE, like
the AARS is a professional growers award, and doesn't have anything to do
with the public's evaluation of a mini as gardenworthy, disease resistant,
or scented. As far as the ARS folks go, the majority of office holders and
doers would be interested in a mini's show potential, which again doesn't
coincide with disease resistance or fragrance.

I'm not presently a member of any rose-related organizations. I just
have a personal interest. I'm not really interested in a rose's show
potential. Maybe I'll become interested someday, who knows...

Dan