Buttery Beauty

I've long nurtured a 'Rosenstadt Zweibrücken' that was almost smothered by a similarly-flowered shrub, my 8 foot tall and wide 'Freisinger Morgenröte' (who makes up these German names anyway?!).  Both have been present in my oldest rose berm for better than 10 years, but the 'Rosenstadt Zweibrücken' disappeared for a couple of years, only to peek out two years ago and struggle a bit since then, caught between the Freisinger and my tall 'Alexander MacKenzie'.  I keep pruning things away so it will get light and survive and it does just that, but no more.

'Rosenstadt Zweibrücken', or KORstasis, is a small remonant pink blend shrub rose of 3 to 5 feet at maturity (mine is about 3 feet tall), that was bred by W. Kordes & Sons in 1989.  The German name roughly means "Rose City"  and Zweibrücken is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Schwarzbach river.  At first glance, you wouldn't think much of the flowers on this shrub; semi-double, only about 2.75" in diameter and without any fragrance, but each individual flower in this clustered rose is a masterpiece of delicacy.  The finely veined pink on the outer petals turns to yellow at the center as if the ample golden stamens were reflected onto the flower.  It seems only moderately healthy in my garden, but since it tries to grow in the shadows of taller roses, I might be more to blame than the rose.  I do have to watch it for blackspot, but again, part of that might be the environmental stress it lives under.

This year, my 'Rosenstadt Zweibrücken' (also known as Spanish Enchantress or Morningrose) surprised me by opening up this perfectly butter yellow bloom next to the regular pink/yellow blend flowers.  At this point, I'm not yet sure if this flower is a sport or just some quirk of the weather, but the unopened buds around it seem yellow as well and you can bet I'll keep an eye on this cane to see if that color holds true.  The world just can't have too many reblooming butter-yellow roses.