Beauty Pageants

'Marie Bugnet'

ProfessorRoush, at the beginning of a new gardening year, believes he has hit on a new theme that will at least temporarily increase his post frequency and simultaneously provide you with fitting flower pornography to fill your fancy.  As things bloom, I am simply going to run a series of beauty pageants of each grouping, leaving you to judge the winners for yourselves.  I'm optimistic that minstrels will indubitably hereafter sing songs of this season and look back on 2023 as, "The Year of the GardenMusings Beauty Pageants." 

'Marie Bugnet'

This week, as a start, we'll set aside any accusations of color bias and go with a simple "White Rugosa Pageant."   So, you get to look, you get to salivate, and you get to choose;  which one is the "Miss Gardening Universe" of the years' white Hybrid Rugosas?

'Blanc Double de Coubert'

First up this year is, as always, 'Marie Bugnet', she of shy nature and short form, blooming first for me in the annual garden race, nearly 2 weeks ago.  Marie struggles annually a bit, lacking vigor but persistent nonetheless, and I think she's doing better now that I'm pampering her with a little extra water and care each year.  She holds perfect white blooms without a spot of pink or brown on healthy foliage.  Is she your choice to win the double crown this year, the race to be the first to bloom AND the most beautiful?   Just look at that delicate center above, golden pistils held in perfect pristine order surrounded by stately stamens. 

'Blanc Double de Coubert'

Marie was followed quickly a week later by my 'Blanc Double de Coubert', a rather stocky gal of medium height, as round as she is tall.  Blanc has obviously bloomed out of her bloomers, as you can see from all the petals on the ground, although there are plenty of bountiful flowers left to fall.   Gertrude Jekyll, as I've noted before, thought Blanc was the whitest rose in existence and I won't quibble over that title when this rose is blessed by sunshine and heat as she blooms.  Sadly, a little rain and she turns from the purest virginal bride to the browned wilting and damaged unfortunate that fate decrees, turned out and soiled by the fickle weather of spring.  I'm a little biased, but isn't the pistil area in Blanc a little messier than Marie's?   And what a mess she leaves on the ground!

'Sir Thomas Lipton'

Tall and stately 'Sir Thomas Lipton' has recently joined the ball, the perfectly white blooms of the 123-year-old gentleman (introduced to commerce by Conard-Pyle in 1900) held higher than my head atop the lean and thorny canes.   I like Sir Thomas more than most rose aficionados seem to (particularly Suzanne Verrier who called him "ungraceful...with the nastiest thorns imaginable"), but I think he probably does better in my arid Zone 5 climate than elsewhere in the US.   As a gentleman, he perhaps shouldn't be part of the pageant, but I'll choose not, in this moment, to be sexist and deny him an equal chance for pageant glory.  After all, a rose is a rose and their flowers contain both male and female organs, whatever gendered moniker we chose to hang on them.

'Sir Thomas Lipton'

Those are your contestants for the week.   Hybrid Rugosa 'Polareis' has started a few meager blooms but the night chill keeps them more pink than white, so I'm leaving her out.  And some of the Pavement roses that are near-whites are blooming, but I'm holding them for inclusion in a Pavement Rose Pageant.  Of the three presented here, which is your choice, my gardening friend?  Will you stand against the opinions of well-known garden writers and go with 'Marie Bugnet'?  Disdain the Canadian-born and stick with 'Sir Thomas Lipton'?   Or follow the herd supporting the strumpet, 'Blanc Double de Coubert'?