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Apparently the rose Davoust by Laffay is much older than thought (see reference 1829). The original name was simply Davoust (almost certainly Louis-Nicolas Davoust, one of Napoleon first commanders). No female of the Devoust family was named Laure: the wives of Devoust were Adelaide Séguenot and Louise Aimée Julie Leclerc and the daughters were Antoniette Josephine, Adele Napoleone and Adelaide Louise. Probably the italic letter L, close to the name Davoust, which stands for the abbreviation “Pépinières de M. Laffay, à Auteuil”, was later mislead and “translated” into Laure.
I like this rambler very much. It can also be grown as a very big shrub, I saw some gorgeus plants grown that way here in Genova surroundings, where it's widely spread.
I particularly love the full, perfect rosette shape of its little flowers, which open shallowy cupped and than flatten, and the beautiful alba-like fragrance. To me, they remind a miniature "Fantin Latour"! Its very big clusters can contain dozens of this little beauties, and in many different colours, as they open a vivid pink, then change to pale lilac, fading into white.
It's very, very vigorous and healthy (only some very minor oidium issues), and well established plants can repeat some flower clusters here and there during fall, which is a good bonus for such a type of rose to my opinion.
The only drawback is the fact it tends to retain drying petals in a quite antiaesthetical way if you don't do deadhading.
