David Cooper's yard (front and back) in the Kenwick neighborhood is a veritable botanical garden of hybrid tea roses, with nearly 90 varieties on display in the warmer months. When he moved into his home two years ago, he had to transplant his garden from its previous location.
"It took me a year and a half of constant work going back and forth bringing plants over here," he said. "You should have seen the back of my car."
The labor was well worth the effort, though, considering the antiquity of the plants --
the oldest variety in his garden dates back to 1891.
"A lot of times people don't realize that what you are growing is a piece of that original plant carried down through the generations," he said.
And aside from the rose plants' vintage qualities, the roses also have a deep legacy of sentimentality for Cooper. Many of the varieties come from cuttings out of family and friends' gardens.
"I have a couple of roses from people who are no longer here," he said. "I've got a rose in the back from my father's garden in North Carolina his grandmother had from the 1930s."
Hybrid tea roses were "invented" in the 1800s, when the beautiful, yet tender, tea rose was hybridized with the heartier hybrid perpetual rose to capture the attractive traits of both species. Hybrid tea roses are known for their textured petals, assorted color variations, durability and, certainly, smell.
"When it's really warm and the sun is beating down on them, you can walk out here and it's just like being at the Woolworth's perfume counter," Cooper said.
Many of the varieties' names also have significance, such as "Peace," which was created after the end of World War II. Cooper says just about every famous person has a rose named after them as well.
"About everybody and their brother has got a rose named for them," he said. "There's not a David Cooper rose."