Not La Ville de Bruxelle?

Well, it's a pretty rose, but it isn't likely 'La Ville de Bruxelles', now, is it?  In my search for Old Garden Roses and Hybrid Rugosa roses that might have a chance to resist the Rose Rosette virus, I had ordered this Damask from Heirloom Roses in 2019.  Last year, it bloomed just a couple of blooms, a small wisp of a plant, and I was primarily only concerned for its survival.  This year, it's blooming profusely, and whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be what it's supposed to be, at least not yet.

The color is not far off 'La Ville de Bruxelles', a clear deep pink, and the rose only bloomed once last year (and will, I presume only once this year), but everything else about it is wrong.  These blooms are not the tightly packed, fully double blooms of the Damask, nor are they the expected 3-4" size.   The blooms on my specimen are easily 5-6" in diameter, loosely organized and semi-double to double, appearing more modern than any Damask rose I've seen in the past.   They open, as you can see below, to a more flat form with golden center stamens and an often white strip   The foliage of the bush is matte green, and healthy as anything, but the canes are long and sprawling, with small thorns.   Fragrance is strong, with sweet OGR tones, certainly no hint of the spice of a rugosa. 

For someone who likes to know the denizens of his garden, it's a bit frustrating to receive a rose that isn't it's namesake, and it is unusual for Heirloom Roses to mislabel a rose in my experience.  I suppose it's possible that this bush will gain more double blooms as it grows and matures, but that sumptuous color is just far too perfectly pink for an Old Garden Rose, no mauve at all, just pink.  And the size!  These blooms are enormous, bigger than any other rose in my garden.   I considered Hybrid Perpetual 'Paul Neyron' due to the blooms size, but, again, the color is just too perfect and even 'Paul Neyron' is more double than this seems to be; not to mention that my rose doesn't rebloom as a Hybrid Perpetual does.   A cross between something modern and Rosa gallica is, I think, a far more likely provenance for this unknown creature of my garden. 

I shouldn't care, I know, since it shows no signs of Rose Rosette Disease, is cane hardy without protection from a very cold winter, and it has great color and fragrance.  What more can I really ask of a rose?  It will stay in my garden, just another mystery among mislabeled plants and my sometimes inaccurate plant maps.  In fact, I should just close my trap and accept it, because the bees certainly seem to like it.  Nature knows best.

Ann Endt

'Ann Endt'

It is high time, I think, that ProfessorRoush shows you a rose new in his garden.  My garden where every new rose has to be a Rose Rosette resistant Old Garden Rose or a Rugosa.  At present, the rugosa newcomer 'Ann Endt' is on deck, and she will suffice, I think, for a rose-related post today.

I obtained 'Ann Endt' from Heirloom Roses last year and she bided her time growing a little bit and basking in the summer heat.  This year she is still a small plant, about a foot high and little more than that in diameter.  Because her mature size is supposed to be anywhere from 3.5 to 6.5 feet, I'm expecting much more growth from her this year.

But she IS blooming, her continuous single (5 petal) blooms feathery against the Kansas winds, and so she's our favorite at the moment.  Last year she bloomed, as a seedling, sporadically for me, teasing me with only a few blooms before disappearing for the winter, but in my garden and full sun, she is pretty close to a real red, with not much blue in the mix.  Each bloom has, as you can see, prominent yellow stamens that sand out against the almost-red background.   'Ann Endt' is officially a dark red or magenta Hybrid Rugosa rose, discovered by rosarian Nancy Steen in New Zealand prior to 1978.  There are those experts who believe she is the same rose as a Rosa foliolosa x Rosa rugosa cross made by Phillipe Vilmorin in the 1800's.  Her buds are long, held above soft green, matte, mildly rugose and very healthy foliage.  No blackspot on this rose!  Her listed hardiness is Zone 2A, and she came through a really tough, dry winter for me with no protection, so I will choose to believe her reputation for drought and winter resistance.  There is supposed to be a cinnamon fragrance attributed to her R. foliolosa parent, but I have yet to really sample it. 

Named after a famous New Zealand rosarian, Nancy Steen wrote about her discovery of 'Ann Endt' in a 1966 book, The Charm of Old Roses.   I hadn't run across this book yet, but I have ordered a used copy from Amazon and hope to review it for you soon. I have seen a quote from the book stating that the rose is also shade-tolerant, relating that "Even the partial shade of a tall purple birch does not seem to affect its free-flowering habit."   She is also supposed to produce hips, a trait that I enjoy in roses and will take as an advantage.  Suzy Verrier, expert on all things rugosa, wrote in Rosa Rugosa that this is "an interesting hybrid of R. Rugosa", but "neither widespread nor well-documented."  Verrier herself did not provide a picture of the rose.  ProfessorRoush didn't find much else written about 'Ann Endt', but maybe this blog will serve to help others find and grow this tough rose. 

Healthy Butterfly Magic

S'il vous plaît permettez-moi de vous présenter 'Butterfly Magic'....er....excuse me.....Please allow me to introduce you to 'Butterfly Magic', a Griffith Buck rose introduced by Chamblee's Rose Nursery in 2010.  As many are aware, there are 10 "posthumous" Griffith Buck roses which were originally given to friends and later introduced after Dr. Buck's death in 1991.  Their parentage is often unknown, but if they survived in the gardens of friends, as some of them did for years before commercial introduction, we can probably assume that they're pretty disease resistant.

And 'Butterfly Magic' is certainly disease resistant.  Look at that beautiful glossy foliage, here, in August, with no spray whatsoever in a wetter-than-average Kansas summer.  There isn't a spot of blackspot or an insect-damaged leaf on the bush that I can see.  This is the second year for 'Butterfly Magic' in my garden and she hasn't reached her full growth yet, but she was cane hardy here last winter as a tiny rose-tot, and she has grown as much as any rose this year.  I have a 2 year old start of 'Quietness' in the bed next to her, and although I view 'Quietness' as one of Buck's healthier and more vigorous roses, my 'Butterfly Magic' has been growing just as well next to it, and is just as healthy.  It just seems to be a tough year for the roses, with the extra rain and late spring.

'Butterfly Magic' opens up with moderately large 4 inch diameter salmon pink blooms with yellow centers.  The blooms are semi-double, with 12-16 petals, open flat, and have only a very light fragrance to my nose.  They bloom in broad clusters and fade from their homogeneous salmon to a light pink or white, often mottled with spots from moisture.  The yellow stamens and pistils provide wonderful contrast in the new bloom, but fade to brown as the flowers age.  According to Heirloom Roses, the mature size will be 4' X 4', but mine, in its second full season, is only about 2' X 2'.  There is very little available on the Internet or in my rose-themed books about 'Butterfly Magic', and she is not registered or listed in Modern Roses 12, so this is the best I can give you right now.  Chamblee's doesn't list it on their website any longer and the only current source I know of is Heirloom Roses.

 And, no, I don't speak French, but Google Translate is a marvelous thing.  Given the pace of technology, I assume we're only a few years away from a Star Trek-like Universal Translator.  What a marvelous world we live in.

Gee Whiz, That's Incredible!

'Incredible'

Help, ProfessorRoush has a problem!  No, not that problem. No, not that problem either.  My current problem centers around that fact that I have two new Griffith Buck roses that I can't tell apart for love or money.  'Gee Whiz'!  That's 'Incredible', you say?   Yes, those are the two roses,  'Gee Whiz' and 'Incredible'.  I know perfectly well what they were labeled when I received them from Heirloom Roses and I've got them accurately mapped out.   I just can't believe that these two roses are so similar.

'Incredible'

'Incredible' is pictured above and to the left.  Although it is registered simply as 'Incredible',  it is also known as 'That's Incredible'.  She is a yellow blend shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1984. The helpmefind.com listing for 'Incredible' lists her as a yellow and pink blend, also stippled, with occasional repeat. 'Incredible' is an offspring of 'Gingersnap' and 'Sevilliana'. The Iowa State Buck Rose Website states that 'Incredible' should be double, 25-30 petals, with 4-4.5 inch blooms of barium yellow streaked with vermilion. The blooms are born in grandiflora-type clusters on a 3-4.5 foot plant.

'Gee Whiz'

'Gee Whiz', pictured to the right and below, is also a yellow blend shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1984. He is officially described as having stippled orange and yellow petals, with a double (17-25 petal) bloom form and occasional repeat.  Also an offspring of 'Gingersnap' and 'Sevilliana', at maturity (my bush is only a few months old), he should be 2.5-3 feet tall, slightly shorter than his sister. The Iowa State Buck Rose website listing for this rose states that the blooms are also borne in clusters but are slightly smaller than 'Incredible', at 3-4 inches diameter.

'Gee Whiz'

Confused yet?  I assure you that I am and I've got them growing side by side in my garden.  Both bushes are identical so far in growth and bloom rate, both have dark green leaves that start out with copper tones, and they are equally blackspot resistant.   The blooms of both roses open quickly and fade a bit lighter, but so far, I think 'Gee Whiz' retains slightly more orange tones than 'Incredible'.  I'd hate to hang my hat on that, though.  So, apart from counting petals or waiting to see if the ultimate size of the bushes are different, I guess I'm going to have to trust Heirloom Roses that they sent me two different roses.  And also trust that Dr. Buck, in the later years of his career, wasn't playing a joke that would live on long after him.  I wish there was a record available, straight from the professor's mouth as it were, that tells us why he released two such similar roses in the same year.  Perhaps, like me, Griffith Buck just loved stippled and striped roses and couldn't bear to shovel prune one of these beautiful creations into oblivion.
  

Un-Frühlingsmorgen?

If I have raved over 'Vanguard', it's only fair that I also list my biggest disappointment of the "new-to-me" roses.  If I set aside my concerns over several roses from last year that didn't make it through the drought (and thus may not have been given a fair chance), my most disappointing new rose is 'Frühlingsmorgen'. 

'Frühlingsmorgen' (or "Spring Morning") is a Hybrid Spinosissima bred by Wilhelm Kordes II in 1942.  The large pink and white single flowers are very attractive on any given website, including helpmefind, but my young specimens do not resemble any picture I can find of this rose.  I obtained two 'Frühlingsmorgen' from Heirloom Roses last year and while both have single blooms, the resemblance stops there.

 Mine start as uniform very light pink (no "halo" effect of pink surrounding primrose yellow centers), and they fade very quickly, within hours, to white.  More importantly, even though they are young roses and 2-3 feet tall at this time, the blooms are perhaps one inch in diameter, a far cry from the 4 inch diameter blooms that are supposed to come from this rose.  My specimens also appear less thorny than other website pictures of this rose.


The foliage is healthy, although not very Spinosissima-like.  These roses, whatever they are, were hardy enough without winter protection so I can't complain on that end.  If they didn't start out pink, however, I would think that I had been given more 'Darlow's Enigma'.   
If anyone has any other ideas, I'm happy to hear them.  Perhaps the very moist stigmas of these flowers will aid in the identification.  I expect the female parts of flowers to be moist to collect pollen, but these seem almost overly....sticky.  Gooey.  I don't mean to be a prude, but they are almost embarrassing in an anthropomorphic sort of way (click the photos to blow them up).  I've looked for similar roses on Heirloom's web site and nothing else seems likely there.  I know that sometimes young roses don't resemble their mature forms, so I guess I'll wait this one out, although I've got a year now to wait, since 'Frühlingsmorgen' is a once blooming rose.  Perhaps this rose will yet quiet my worries and have the yellow fall foliage that is characteristic of  'Frühlingsmorgen'.  If I'm very lucky.

Wonder 'bout Wonderstripe

For those who are searching out the "unusual" for next year's garden, I thought I'd add a preliminary note on a rose that tweaked my interest this Spring.  In my annual Heirloom Roses order, I included one of the roses that John Clements (of Heirloom Roses) bred himself; the striped yellow and pink rose he named 'Wonderstripe'.  I can't testify to its full performance yet, but I can tell you it does pretty good in an extended drought when provided a little extra water.

All who read this blog know that I'm a sucker (pun intended) for striped roses.  I don't know what it is about seeing stripes, particularly on Old Garden roses, but put a thus-afflicted rose in my hands and I'm a goner.  I'm the same way with Rembrandt tulips and I'm sure that if I'd been alive during "Tulipmania", I'd have lost the farm while trading in virus-infected tulips.  I was no less resistant to 'Wonderstripe', which offsets its pink tones not with white, as in most striped roses, but with a creamy yellow.

'Wonderstripe', which also goes under the registered name 'Clewonder', was introduced as a shrub rose by Clements in 1996.  The blooms are supposed to be large (4 inches) in diameter and double to the tune of 98 petals according to the Heirloom catalog, but so far my young rose has only been extended about 2.5 inches in diameter and is mildly double. It did bloom several times after I planted it as a band in the Spring however, and based on a thread about the rose on a Gardenweb forum, I have hope to believe that by the third year it will make a thriving bush with the promised large blooms. Again, I don't know how the mature bush will bloom, but I would rate the fragrance so far as moderate.  In a single season, 'Wonderstripe' is now about 2 foot tall and it showed no sign of blackspot this year. 

I guess I'm about to see how this Zone 5-rated plant does in a Kansas winter. I'll keep you informed about the condition of this rose in the Spring, after we see if it can survive this first winter unprotected here in my Flint Hills garden.

Hi! We're Here!

Imagine that your doorbell is ringing early on a Sunday morning when you are just trying to start the day quietly and calmly with the newspaper and a little quality time with Mrs. ProfessorRoush (okay, not the actual latter person, but somebody else close to you).  And it turns out to be your persnickety insert here (parents, brother, sister, mother-in-law, cousin etc.) arriving unannounced for their visit several weeks early.  And you haven't cleaned the house or made up their room yet and the yard needs mowed and the dishes are piled in the sink and the dog left you a present on the dining room rug.

Think about all that for a while and you'll have a small inkling of how I felt yesterday when Mrs. ProfessorRoush called to tell me that my new roses had come in and asked me what I wanted her to do with them.  Yipes!  Like many other rose-lovers, I had jumped at the 50% off sale that Heirloom Roses announced a week or two back and I ordered seven rose bands at that time.  Yes, I knew that it was the wrong time of the year to order roses for planting in Kansas.  I was counting on slow order processing in a time of increased demand, and on the promise by Heirloom that "once my order was reviewed by staff, I would receive an updated confirmation with details on the expected shipping date and the official order number."  I planned to follow through on their offer to make adjustments to the shipping date, if necessary, once they informed me of the likely time of arrival. 

There was, however, no followup email confirming the order, and now I've got to figure out how to keep seven baby roses alive indoors (which I'm not very good at) until the +100F heat wave breaks here in Kansas (which may take until the end of August at this rate!).  Planting these greenhouse grown plants outdoors right now would be approximately equivalent to applying a blowtorch to their tender leaves.  I would expect their survival time to be numbered by hours, whether I placed them in shade or in sun and regardless of watering schedule.  So, indoors they are and indoors they'll stay for, at the least, several weeks while the calendar moves closer to the Autumn Solstice. An incredibly sunny window, an old aquarium, and, I'm certain, some chemical fungal preventatives will be required.   On the plus side, these are incredibly vigorous and healthy looking plantlets, perhaps the best that I've ever received by mailorder from any nursery.  Even with that, I'll be lucky if the seven innocent little green creatures aren't seven brown sticks before I get them outdoors.

The names of my new roses, for the interested, are 'Amiga Mia', 'AppleJack', 'Chorale', 'Gentle Persuasion', 'Fruhlingsmorgen', 'Scabrosa', and 'Souv du President Lincoln'.  Yes, I'm still on a Griffith Buck rose kick. Thank God I showed some uncharacteristic restraint and narrowed my initial list down from 25 roses or so to just these seven infants.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush would have been quite unhappy if her entire kitchen cabinet space had been converted into a nursery once again. 

Buck Mania

Yesterday was what I consider a very good gardening day.  To start off, we got approximately an inch of much-needed rain here in Manhattan last night.  But even better, just before the rain, I received and planted a box of bands from Heirloom, primarily composed of Griffith Buck cultivars:

For those who are used to Grade 1 potted roses, the bands that you receive from most heirloom specialty growers could be perceived as a disappointment, but let us try and remember that what we are buying is primarily the genetic material.  Bands most often come, as you can see below in small pots and are barely rooted cuttings, but the advantages of having your roses grown on their own roots, ungrafted, makes up all the difference.  As rosarians, we can make the growth happen on our own with enough patience, but we can't manufacture 'Ferdinand Pichard' out of 'Easy Does It' or 'Carefree Spirit'.  Expect for them to take a couple of years for these to make a large bush, but with a little protection, they will get there in time and they certainly have a better chance than a BigBox "bagged rose" with its paraffined canes and clipped roots.  Yuck!

In this shipment, I received a number of mostly Griffith Buck cultivars, all planted into the same bed, including 'El Catala', 'Folksinger', Iowa Belle', 'Queen Bee', and 'Bright Melody'.  I'm particularly interested in growing the latter two bright red or reddish-orange cultivars as I've never seen them in person.  I am also received a 'Wonderstripe' from the Heirloom Roses breeding program, a 'Crested Moss' to add to an OGR bed, and I'm going to give 'Ferdinand Pichard' one more chance.  I've purchased and killed that gentleman before, but I'm such a sucker for striped roses that I certainly think he deserves a second chance.  Or is it a third?  

Catalogue Gardening

Like many of you, I am now deep into that annual January effort affectionately known as "catalogue gardening."  My mailbox is brimming over with so many collections of brightly-colored, bountiful images of perennials and produce that my mailperson may have to file suit against my homeowner's insurance to pay for their hernia.  Just a single day recently brought me the pictured catalogues below, some of which I've ordered from before, and some that I've never heard of.

I know that some of the companies behind these and other catalogues are likely run by evil capitalists who are preying on my current deficiency of green scenery in order to increase their sales.  I don't care.  I'm an addict in a poppy field.  Indeed, as I open the mailbox and leaf through the daily minutiae, I can feel myself begin to salivate and shake.  A mere glimpse of the perfect magnified beauties within the pages and my mind's-eye view of my garden begins to shimmer and change.  There are those plants that, upon a single glance, we know exactly where to place within our garden beds and budget.  There are others that make up our wish lists, contingent for their purchase upon pennies from heaven or other unexpected funds.  The choices are narrowed down or expanded again and again, as we examine lineage and breeding, learn about environmental preferences and zonal requirements, and simply choose by our heart's desire.  And then there are the shining iron tools, the irrigation controllers, the cloches, and the plant stimulants to be mulled over.  Will it never end?

It is particularly cruel that many of the catalogues have arrived within the last week, just as if their makers knew that I would have a few days off over the holidays to spend some quality time with them, but I am braced by the knowledge that Christmas bills were high and the sky is not the limit for anything but a trumpet vine. 

I'll look through them all, and some new enterprises will probably receive some of my coin along with my tithes to old stalwarts.  I've already submitted my order to Stark Bros., planning for renewing the strawberries and adding new blackberry varieties.  In fact, Stark Bros. got in line first because I was sampling the less common fruits of the local market and came across an Asian pear labeled as a "pear-apple."  Somewhere out there in a field or a storage cooler is my new Asian pear tree, scheduled to arrive in late March.  In my current state of rose-fever, I'll likely succumb to a few new roses from  Heirloom Roses and Rogue Valley Roses, and nary a year goes by when I don't order a bit from High Country Gardens  and Song Sparrow Farms.  And, of course, the local nurseries shouldn't fret because I always trust my senses of touch and smell to add some final purchases, introduced during the spring trips to the growing greenhouses as my winter discontents fade to April's optimism.

Happy Catalogue Gardening, One and All!

Good Grief; 'Griff's Red'

It never fails, does it?  A gardener gives up on a plant and then low and behold there it comes again, fighting its way back from oblivion.  Right after you've planted something else in its stead, of course.

I've had a 'Griff's Red' rose for several years while it struggled along (the most charitable way I can put it) in my more formal "hybrid rose bed" in the shade of  three taller roses, a 'Variegata de Bologna', a 'Prairie Star', and a 'Prairie Harvest'.  It has meagerly clung to life in the shade and clay, barely putting up a cane for two years running.  This spring I decided to move it to the front of another bed (to replace yet another failed rose) where it would get more sun and better attention from the gardener.  Again, it put up a single cane about a foot high, limping along with one bloom to reward me for the summer, and then in July, a high wind took out the final cane.  I waited and waited for signs of life and finally in late August, I gave up and planted one of the new Paul Barden gallicas, 'Marianne', in the spot (see my blog titled I Dream of New Gallicas).

But, as I'm fond of quoting, "life found a way."  The picture above is of the 'Marianne' on the right, in the ground only a month, and the 'Griff's Red' on the left, the latter looking healthier than I've ever seen it with two young canes.  As soon as the August heat left, up popped 'Griff's Red' to remind me why I choose to grow own-root roses as often as I can find them.  Of course, I moved the  'Marianne' immediately, fortuitously to a new rose bed I had started with four other Barden roses.  Griff deserves another chance.

'Griff's Red' is a hybrid-tea style rose bred by the late Professor Griffith Buck at Iowa State University and introduced in 2001.  In fact, it's one of the "lost Buck roses," which means it was introduced after his death, by Dr. Buck's wife and daughter from the Buck rose-breeding stock.  Of the Buck roses, it's the best, brightest red, the four inch double blooms colored a fine ruby-red.  It's a well-refined bush, reaching only about three by three feet maximum and hardy to Zone 4.  It seems to be fairly resistant to blackspot and mildew, since I've never seen either on it, but I'm at a loss to explain my struggles with the plant except that I never gave it a chance to get going well, I guess.  I got mine from Heirloom Roses, which, last I checked, still offers the rose for sale.

Next time, I'll wait longer.  I promise.