Lambert Closse

'Lambert Closse'

Along with 'John Cabot', another new rose to my garden that will have to "grow" to gain my full favor is the pink shrub rose 'Lambert Closse', another of the Explorer Series roses from Ag Canada.  'Lambert Closse' was introduced in 1995 (or 1994 depending on where you read about it) at l'Assomption in Quebec.  He has been in my garden only 2 years, but is already a gangly lad with sparse canes sprawling almost to 5 feet tall.

ProfessorRoush said "sparse canes", but I really should have said "cane", as in the singular form.   My specimen had an odd first growth year, putting up several weak spindly canes, and then a single long thick cane that had me worried it was a sucker from a nearby 'Dr. Huey' plant.  This year, however 2-3 other healthy canes are sprouting from the base and starting to catch up to last year's prodigy.  

'Lambert Closse' (formerly Ottawa 'U33') was a cross of bright yellow Floribunda 'Arthur  Bell' (McGredy, 1959) with pink and the vigorous Canadian semi-climber 'John Davis', an odd match if ever there was one.  The result, against all odds, is a very double flower of the clearest medium pink, borne in loose clusters and a bush reportedly hardy to Zone 3 (I saw the rose lose about 6 inches on its canes this winter here in Kansas).  'Lambert Closse' has glossy, healthy foliage and bears nonremarkable hips in Fall and Winter.

Bred by Dr. Ian S. Ogilvie and Dr. Felicitas Svejda in 1983, 'Lambert Closse' is named for a French merchant, Raphaël Lambert Closse (1618-1662), who made a name for himself fighting the Iroquois and first met his wife, Elisabeth Moyen, while rescuing her from them in 1657.  He was ultimately killed by the Iroquois only 5 years later, so we will leave judgement of the true quality of his tactical military skills to the historians.  

'Lambert Closse' open

So how do I really feel about 'Lambert Closse', the rose?   Well, he grew bigger than I expected (it is officially listed to be 0.85m tall, so much shorter than it grows for me), and the bush is more like an ugly Modern Rose than an attractive vase-form or rounded shrub.  The initially chaste tea-form buds open too quickly for my taste, in a day, to a flat form with yellow stamens.  And I probably won't like the "occasional repeat" that is reported for this rose, although some sources say it blooms continually from June through September when it is mature.  But I love the color, which doesn't "blue" on wetter, colder days, and the foliage has no blackspot or mildew here.  So, it stays.  For now.  

Seasonal Musings

'Bric-a-brac'

I don't know what your idle times are like, but ProfessorRoush has but a few minutes in his busy life to devote to random and usually nonsensical mental meanderings.   When he does, it is usually in his Jeep during the 10 minute drive to work, and that time is, fortunately or unfortunately, where the ideas for a moderate number of these posts originate (the equally long drive home is devoted to musing back over the events of the work day and transitioning back to home).

'Parfum de l'Hay'

Last Thursday morning, that thought process, just after a quick walk around the garden that morning with Bella, was "how boring  it must be to live in sub-tropical Florida"...or Hawaii, or the Caribbean islands.   Essentially anywhere without seasons.  With seasons come variety and with variety come all the real joys of the garden.  And joy in the garden is in the seasonal change (and, of course, in the floral pornography that graces this blog).

You people with your Birds of Paradise and massive everblooming pelargoniums and hibiscus and Live Oaks may think you live in paradise, but you'll never know the joys of a clump of blooming peonies, of a long line of flowering lilacs, of the seasonal transition from daffodil to peony to rose to daylily to aster.  True gardeners would trade the changes in their gardens due to the progression of seasons about as easily as a badger would give up its den.

'Buckeye Belle' 

All of the pictures from today's blog are from my own garden, Thursday morning.   The peonies and roses are about to come into full bloom and with them, the beating heart of my garden.  Iris are dotted around and accent the many green clumps of growing daylilies.   Tall Orienpet lilies wait in the wings, wait for the once-blooming roses to exit stage left, anxious to make their own debut.   

'Lambert Closse' (new rose to me)

Would I ever give up the onslaught of peonies, breathtaking in their bounty, new varieties ever expanding the color choices and contrasts and combinations with their neighbors?  Could I live without the anticipation and addition of new roses to my garden (like Canadian 'Lambert Closse' at right), roses that, admittedly, replace weaker roses lost to disease and cold, but even the latter are welcome experiments and witnesses to change?  

'Festiva Maxima'

Daylilies, with their fleeting bloom lives know not a minute's rest before their petals drop.  Roses and peonies see only a few weeks of the garden's cycle, but the gardener sees and rejoices in it all; seasons blending one into another, chill to pleasant to hot to frozen, drought to rain to snow, brown to green to color.

'Lillian Gibson'

And I, both master of and slave to this garden, wouldn't consider trading a single season for the comforts of paradise, of life in a place of never-ending moderation and temperate climate.  Wouldn't I?  Well, maybe in winter.

 

Front door view 05/08/2025.  Lots of columbines!