Grow Gallicas!

'The Apothecary's Rose'

While ProfessorRoush is illustrating neglected roses and exposing his failure as an attentive gardener, he must take a moment to bring attention to a pair of true Old Garden Roses, the venerable 'Officinalis' and 'Charles de Mills', both of the ancient Gallica class.  I feel like I repeatedly overlook the beauty and bounty of both these old friends and horribly undercare for them.  Even roses that grow carefree and never seem to need care surely deserve some.

'Officinalis'

I grow both of these Old Garden roses, or, more properly, both roses grow in my garden, despite my poor efforts to support them.   I obtained both as suckers from plants in the K-State garden and they continue to spread in my beds as suckers.  Unchecked, unbounded, I merely stay out of their way and give them room, occasionally intervening to remove grass or native nuisances or self-seeded shrubs from their beds.  For instance, in the vicinity of 'Charles de Mills', or actually growing among a clump of 'Charles de Mills', I recently removed a clump of Roughleaf dogwood, a single Hackberry, and a self-seeded Purple Smoke Tree.

'Officinalis'

The Apothecary's Rose, or Rosa Gallica Officinalis, is a true ancient rose, known prior to 1160.  The "hot pink" color of this rose, without any blue tints in the just opened buds, is one of my favorite "wildling" roses.   Like many Gallica roses, 'Officinalis' is a low-growing, spreading by suckers, rose, and I refer to her as a wildling because she grows wherever she wants to, needing no help from me to proliferate and sometimes hiding and then popping up in unexpected places.  

She only displays these sparsely-petaled semidouble blooms once a year, but this is one of the few roses I can smell from 10 feet away when she blooms.  She's very hardy here, and somewhat shade tolerant, but, like many Gallicas, I have to watch her matte foliage for powdery mildew in most weather and skeletonizing rose slugs in the late Spring.

'Officinalis'

I allow 'Officinalis' to spread as she will over a berm in one bed and beneath some viburnums in another area.  Right now, she's brightening both areas, taking over the stage from 'Harison's Yellow'.   Thankfully, those two roses bloom at different times, otherwise they would clash terribly on the berm site.

'Charles de Mills'

I have another similarly-spreading, low-growing Gallica in my beds, also fragrant and prone to mildew and rose slugs, but the similarity of 'Charles de Mills' to 'Officinalis' ends when they bloom.  The foliage is similar, 'CDM' perhaps having  slightly darker green leaves of a rougher texture, but it bears fully double blooms in a mauve-pink-purple-putrid color with petals that are lighter one the underside. Those unique blooms must be one reason for its nom de guerre 'Bizarre Triomphante', another ancient name for this rose.   Sometimes, those blooms appear like they were cut with a cleaver, they're so smooth and flat, and they darken with age rather than fade.    

'Bizarre Triomphante'

'Charles de Mills' is also an old rose, known prior to 1786, and it's 4 inch wide blooms are slightly larger than the 3-inch blooms of 'Officinalis' and larger than 'Cardinal de Richelieu' another Gallica in my garden.  'Charles de Mills' only reaches knee-high in my garden, but he is a stalwart lad, dependable even in wet weather.  He always looks a little rough to me in this bed, however, a gentleman and a scoundrel all at the same time. 

"Grow Gallicas!" should be a rallying cry of all rose-lovers who want to free themselves from the tyranny of tending to effete modern roses.  You heard it here, again, if not for the first time.