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.

Robusta



In terms of R. rugosa hybrids, I have just the opposite feelings about 'Robusta' (KORgosa) as I previously mentioned about 'Purple Pavement'.  I like the bright clear red color of Robusta far more than the muddy rose-pink of PP, but the 'Robusta' bush is an awkward thorny danger to man and beast.  I have two, at either pole of an elliptical bed that I refer to as my "east rose berm", but I wish they were farther inside the bed each time I snag my clothes on them in passing.  'Robusta' is the one rose that makes me wish I had chain mail gloves during spring trimming.

'Robusta' grows far less dense than 'Purple Pavement' and the form appears more like a bad Hybrid Tea with its copy of a Hybrid Tea's ungainly rigid cane spread.  'Robusta' grows about 6 foot tall and almost as wide in my garden, and in previously more Zone 5 winters, it might have a little killback on a few canes.  He is a single rose, of 5 large petals with occasional repeat, and this is one of my "indicator" roses for blackspot.  In other words, unlike many of the roses I grow, this one needs occasional spray else fungal disease will take off most of the leaves.  'Robusta' was bred by Reimer Kordes in 1979 from a seedling cross with R. rugosa regeliana.  In my experience, many of the Kordes roses (for example, 'Illusion' and 'Rugelda') have wicked thorns, so the evil spikes on 'Robusta', a triploid, are no surprise to me.  There is no fragrance that I can detect.

Between the lack of disease resistance and the thorns, you might wonder why I persist in growing this rose, but look no farther than that bright cherry-red color.  What a beacon 'Robusta' makes in my garden when he is in full bloom! Of course, if you follow that beacon you'll end up sliced into ribbons, but that is just one of the realities of loving a good really red rose.  Come to think of it, why do I grow 'Robusta'?

I can  think of only really good reason to grow a large hedge of this rose:  to limit trespass across your yard from neighborhood school children.  Or perhaps if you wanted to have a sure way to protect a daughter from an avid suitor at her window.  A few of those thorns, properly placed, would take the ardor out of anyone.



Statueholics Anonymous

I have a problem. I am a Garden Statueholic. I sometimes go to plant nurseries for the sole purpose of surveying their statues and at such times I never set foot in the plant sections. I covet large garden statues. I crave small garden animals. I lust after cement babes. I often ponder the proper garden placement for a large gargoyle. I aspire to find the perfect garden gnome.

Am I adding garden figures as accents for my plants or do the plants serve only as backdrops to the statues?  I worry that I'm overdoing my collection of small cement rabbit statues, but I will readily admit that the few times I've broken down and bought a really nice, expensive statue, I've never regretted the addition to my garden. Take the five foot tall Aga Marsala statue that sits in my rose garden. She's surrounded by white 'Madame Hardy', purple 'Cardinal de Richelieu', and is backed up by the tall pink Canadian roses 'William Baffin' and 'Prairie Dawn'.  Neither the roses nor Aga would look as good alone.  And Mrs. ProfessorRoush once made fun of my purchase of the Kon-Tiki head below, but facing east and surrounded by the yellow Kordes rose 'Rugelda', it just seems to be biding its time in luxury, patiently waiting for the 2012 apocalypse, doesn't it? 

I'm forming the GSA (Garden Statueholics Anonymous) and any afflicted gardener is welcome to join simply by adding a comment to this blog.  We're going to have to modify the traditional twelve-step program a bit, though. For one thing, no one has ever been successfully treated so finding sponsors will be difficult.  For another, none of the members will want to make amends.  Maybe we'll just make it a one-step program and we'll all just admit we can't control our addictions to stone or brass garden art and then we'll start a statue bazaar in a large Midwestern city.  We need to do something, though, for those poor gardeners who believe pink flamingos and painted plastic gnomes are the height of fashion.