New Roses, Bright Future

'South Africa'

As this blog entry is being posted on the evening of 5/19/14, you might just try to picture me out in my garden planting this rose, 'South Africa', because that's where I'm going to be.  Last Thursday, just before Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I left for a three-day weekend trip to visit my son in Colorado, this rose and a few others arrived,  leaving me with the choice of planting new roses out into a predicted two nights of mid-30's temperatures and possible frost, or of placing them on the kitchen table in front of a bright window and hoping they would survive indoors for a few days without me.  Survive indoors, they did.

It's nice when own-root, new roses are already blooming as they arrive, and I was especially excited to see these blooms from 'South Africa', a W. Kordes & Sons floribunda introduced in 2001.  Although the spectacular color of this rose is not in question, everything else about it seems to be up in the air.  The British label it a Floribunda, the American Rose Society calls it a Grandiflora, and it is introduced in South Africa as a Hybrid Tea.  It was introduced by Kordes as 'Golden Beauty', and also carries the registration name of KORberbeni, but I've found other references that say that Kordes et alnever registered the rose.  It won the Gold Standard Rose Trials Gold Standard award in Britain in 2009, and the Golden Price of the City of Glasgow in 2006, so it has a pretty decent following across the pond. 

For the life of me, I can't find anything about why the rose is marketed as 'South Africa' here.  'Golden Beauty' seems intuitive, but there is no explanation that I can find for renaming it as 'South Africa'.  The Kordes & Sons website doesn't even list the rose anymore, on either the German or English versions of the site, and that seems a little odd too.  So, if anyone knows more, please enlighten me.

In the meantime, I've got this one and eight more roses from www.rosesunlimitedownroot.com to plant tonight.  Of the remaining, all are Griffith Buck roses except for 'Edith de Murat', an 1858-era Bourbon.   I couldn't resist another sweet-scented Bourbon.

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.

'Rugelda' Sounds Regal

In choosing a rose for my not-quite-weekly focus, I had several refined and delicate roses in mind earlier this week, but at the last minute, I thought "Hey, it's time I displayed 'Rugelda'."  And indeed, it is time and perhaps past time.

I've alluded to this somewhat little-known rose before in other posts, but I've never fully expressed my admiration of it.  'Rugelda', or 'KORruge', is a hybrid rugosa bred by the great rose breeding family W. Kordes and Sons in 1989.   While not known well in the United States, she perhaps has more recognition in Europe and she won an award of Anerkannte Deutche Rose (Anerkannte means "Recognized") in 1992,  A cross of 'Bonanza' (a yellow and red blend 1983 shrub by Kordes) and bright red 'Robusta' (a 1979 rugosa hybrid by Kordes), 'Rugelda' really doesn't exhibit the textured leaves of the rugosas, but I've always felt that it has some of the nicest glossiest mid-green foliage of all the roses I grow (next to 'Prairie Harvest'). That perfect disease-free foliage has been described as "holly-like" and it certainly has a bit of that look and indestructibility to it.

'Rugelda' is a double, bright yellow rose made unique by the unusual pink edges of the petals.  She fades to a more graceful lighter yellow and open form as she ages.  Cane hardy to at least Zone 5b by personal experience and, according to one website, perhaps into Zone 3, I've got two 'Rugelda's' that have survived now upwards of 10 years without winter protection or spraying.  'Rugelda' is trying to be a climber and annually puts out strong, lean canes up to 6 feet tall.  She is one of the roses that I cut back to about 4 feet each fall so that the long canes don't whip about in the Kansas wind.  Sge is also one of the roses I am most wary about being around; the thorns are wicked, much like the 'Robusta' parent, and really reach out to grab idle bystanders.  Fragrance is moderate in my garden, but reports on the Internet range from little fragrance to very fragrant.

 

If 'Rugelda' has a unique feature that sets it apart, however, it has to be the perfect hybrid-tea-like form of the buds in contrast to the normal blowsy open form of other Rugosa's.  That beautiful red/yellow coloring of those buds does not hurt them either.  Take a good long look.   Don't you want one in your garden?