Ugly Ducklings Shine

In the midst of an otherwise disappointing Spring flowering season, there is a gem or two popping up in my gloomy garden.   'Harison's Yellow' has won the "first blooming rose" race in my garden this year with a spectacular show that I almost missed.  I saw the first bloom over a week ago, on April 24th to be exact, and then I went out of town for 6 days:  Six long gardenless days where we had several storms and several inches of rain on my gardener-less garden.  

 I fretted away the away time, wondering repeatedly if I'd missed my yellow rose beginnings, but came back to a fully blooming bush as pictured here.  Something finally is going well in the garden.

But wait, there's more.   For the first time ever, after several attempts, I have overwintered an 'Austrian Copper' to see a bloom.  Situated in a special spot where I can watch it, with better drainage than I've given it before, and I, at last, have a healthy bush with the promise of future bounty.  There are not many blooms this year, but I'll take a healthy young bush any day. 

The surprise "belle of the ball," however, is this 2019 addition to my garden, Lonicera Trumpet Honeysuckle 'Major Wheeler'.   I planted it here to replace an 'Arnolds Red' honeysuckle that had languished and expired under the multi-year assault of an annual vine.   Coming back from my "vacation", I found this beautiful display just to the left of my front door, a bright beacon from the driveway and front approach to the house.   

I have not yet sampled the nectar from this honeysuckle, but I will when I next pass it.   One never forgets the sweetness that can be squeezed from a good honeysuckle, no matter how old and gray and wrinkled the gardener grows. 

Any...way....the garden seems to be moving in fits and starts, but at least something is blooming.  And getting green.   And we've had several inches of rain now so perhaps, just perhaps the worst is past.   The main peonies are to start soon and, warm weather permitting, I'll get the dead wood pruned out of the roses and get the repeat bloomers in a better mood to fight it out with the Japanese Beetles that will come in mid-June!

Blush Hip

'Blush Hip'

Friends, ProfessorRoush had every intention of running another beauty pageant this week, perhaps one among red roses or irises or peonies, but I'm a bit addled by all the roses blooming and wanted to show you a surprise standout this year.  Most years I would keep her hidden in a closet, tending the stove or the boiler, but this year 'Blush Hip' is the debutante of the ball, Cinderella with her slipper.

'Blush Hip'

'Blush Hip' is an old Alba that's been growing and slowly dying in my garden for 20 years.  She's a small lass for me, never over 3 feet tall, and since she is sited next to a taller 'Therese Bugnet', she has always struggled for sunlight.   She has also been out-competed by an invasive Woolly Verbena (Verbena stricta) that grew up in her center and tried to smother her.  The verbena has roots that grow up to 12 feet down and it reaches 5 feet tall so it  competes for water and light and nutrients and I have a devil of a time exterminating it where it chooses to grow in the best of circumstances.   I pull it and pull it and it just comes back from those deep roots, and glyphosate or 2-4-D is not an option in the middle of a valued rose.  I wage a constant battle on behalf of this rose and last year I doubled my verbena-cidal efforts in an attempt to rejuvenate 'Blush Hip' and ensure her survival.

'Blush Hip'

Thankfully, it seems I'm winning at present because 'Blush Hip' has responded and bloomed its heart out this spring with only a small clump of verbena still hanging on.  'Blush Hip' deserves the victory, for she is a rare Old Garden Rose of unknown provenance.  She was known to exist before 1834, but introduced in Australia as 'Blush Hip' 1864.  Her flower is as described and as pictured, nicely double and light pink with a strong fragrance, but both helpmefind.com/rose and Peter Beales in his Classic Roses describes her as a 6-10 foot tall rose, so either I was sold a pig-in-a-poke or she simply doesn't like the Kansas environment.   She is reliably winter-hardy here and free of disease, so I'll take what I have, especially when she blooms like she is this year.   Despite her name, however, she doesn't form seed hips, just the "hips" or "buds" of flowers.   My Botanica's Pocket Roses, itself a misnamed 1007 page monstrosity that doesn't fit in any pocket, says that many rosarians describe her as the best of the Alba roses.   

'Leda'

I can't agree, however, with "many rosarians", if indeed 'Blush Hip' is what I have, for although the flowers are pretty, there's just something I'm not crazy about with the color of the "blush", the pink having a blueish tinge that leaves me cold.  Or maybe I just like my pink on the edges rather than in the center.  I much prefer the blooms of  her near neighbor, 'Leda', 3 doors down, another Alba blooming well this year, although I've also had my frustrations with 'Leda', truth be told.  Wait two minutes too long in bright sunlight and those ruby-edges fade to white and she's just a gangly white double rose.   Or catch her after a rain or a heavy dew and the edges of the petals are already browning and she inspires no love at all.  But, once in a moon, if you catch 'Leda' blooming just at the right moment, usually a newly-opened bud at mid-morning when its not yet too hot and it hasn't rained and you're very lucky, then she has no equal.   Like the jewel pictured here.   Beautiful, but one of only two or three on a bush with hundreds of faded blossoms present at the moment this was taken.

November Notes

Dr. and Mrs. ProfessorRoush set out on a quick run for tacos and Crumbl Cookies® last night, a quest for the perfect Saturday night snack combination.  Well, that, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush has developed an addiction for the aforementioned establishment's iced sugar cookies and we needed to lay in a reserve stash in case she developed a craving when they're closed on Sunday.   Happy wife, happy life and all that.  Anyway, we had no more pulled out of the driveway than we saw a beautiful stag and doe framed in perfect sunlight in the neighbor's front yard.

Unfortunately we missed the chance for an equally perfect photo of the pair, but on our return home a mere 45 minutes later, I spotted this lurker hanging just around the back corner of the neighbor's house.  In the way of deer, he was probably just waiting to see if he could hang around until the cover of darkness when he would happily nibble away on the neighbor's landscaping, so I foiled him by driving down a side lane and spooking him.  Not before, however, I captured these images in the closing light of day, through the dirty windshield, but still not a bad picture.  He's beautiful and I hope his proximity to town allows him to escape the hunting season since most folks around here don't shoot into the random horizon for fear of hitting a house.  Most folks, anyway.

I've got a busy week ahead, so I'm not making it a long post today.   I've got to spend some of today preparing for a Johnson County Master Gardener presentation about Rugosa and Old Garden Roses.  Since they're all that Rose Rosette disease has left me, you can bet that I'm going to touch on that hell-borne scourge as well.  Happily, I was in Kansas City a few weeks back and, in a large outdoor mall, captured this image (below) of three 'Knockout' roses in their landscaping, right, so-to-speak, in my audiences' back yard.   Most of the 'Knockout' roses on display there were exhibiting signs of RRD, so I think this picture will drive home my point about growing and breeding RRD resistant roses.

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.

Parfumed Future

I neglected to show you one new rose in ProfessorRoush's garden this year, the Hybrid Rugosa 'Parfum de L'Hay' that I purchased as a baby early this spring.  It seems to have taken pretty well to its spot, so I have great hope for its survival this winter.  It bloomed sparingly this year, however, and my timing was never right to catch a bud coming into full bloom.  

So, you're stuck, at present, with the poor photograph here, just a tease of color and foliage to sustain you until next year, assuming its rugosa genes allow it to survive drought and cold and deer, and that it doesn't develop a case of rose rosette virus before it reaches maturity.   

'Rose à Parfum de l'Hay' is a 1901 introduction by Jules Gravereaux of France.  Even though this is a lousy photo, the bloom itself represents the mature color well, those double petals of carmine red displaying their lighter edges.  She has a strong fragrance and repeated two more times this year in my garden, albeit playing hide and seek with my camera and schedule.  Less mauve and more red than most of the rugosa hybrids, I would guess that she takes her fragrance and color from the 'Général Jacqueminot' grandparent on its mother's side, as it reminds me of that Hybrid Perpetual perhaps more than the pollen R. rugosa rubra parent.  My season-old plant is about 1.5 feet high and has three solid and prickly stems at present.  Before the cold weather moved it, 'Parfume de l'Hay's  foliage was matte medium green, only very mildly rugose, and free of blackspot.  

Suzy Verrier, in her Rosa Rugosa, noted that 'Rose à Parfum de l'Hay' is often confused with the more rugose and deeper colored  'Roseraie de l'Hay', but the appearance of my rose would leave me to believe that I received the right cultivar.  Both were introduced in the same year in France, and both were meant to honor the renowned rose garden in Val-de-Marne, created in 1899 by Gravereaux on the grounds of an Parisian commune dating back to the time of Charlemagne.   Peter Beales included it with the rugosas in his Classic Roses, but noted that its maternal R. damascena x 'Général Jacqueminot' parent confused the classification of the rose.  Me, I'm just happy she's in my garden, carrying the weight of history along with her blooms and giving me hope for her survival.  Now where, do you suppose, that I can find a 'Roseraie de l'Hay' to plant alongside my 'Parfum' next year?

Deep Purple Passions

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who's the purple-ist rose of all?  My rose garden was deliciously purple last week, plenty of purple pulchritude (I always wanted to use that word) to lure me down into the garden for a closer view of the sumptuous rich colors.     

'Basye's Purple'

I'll present each in turn, but how better to start than with 'Basye's Purple'?  I probably shouldn't play favorites right away, but this year, 'Basye's Purple Rose' is the best, in my opinion, of my purples.  'Cardinal de Richelieu' might have given it a run for it's money, but my 'Cardinal' is a year-old rooted cutting that only had two blooms this year, my former one perplexingly perishing several years ago.  Like-wise, 'Purple Pavement' didn't bloom well yet this year, though I have comeback hopes for that repeat-bloomer.  For now, however, it's 'Basye's Purple', a thorny mass of a bush with very thick and spiny stems that has captured center stage.  Those large, single blooms covered the bush this year, deeply velvet and brooding among the clean foliage.  Thankfully, unlike many of the other dark roses on this page, the petals of 'Basye's Purple Rose' seem impervious to the hot sun, only the golden stamens fading slowly as they age.

'Charles de Mills'

'Charles de Mills' is not really so purple in my garden, but this flat-formed, short, suckering Gallica has some purple tones and its color deepens with age.  My 'Charles de Mills' grows more as a thicket of blooms than a rose bush, but it persists and pushes forth blossoms even in the worst springs.  The heady fragrance can be sampled without bending down to the rose, and it is so packed full of petals that I'll give it a pass for being more red than purple.  I was most chagrined, writing this, to find that I've never featured 'Charles de Mills' in this blog so you'll see that my links here don't go back to Garden Musings.  I think I'm too late in it's bloom cycle to get some nice pictures of the "thicket" this year, but I'll keep it in mind for next year.

'La Reine'

Another purplish Hybrid Perpetual, 'La Reine' has been in my garden for almost a decade and it has been a trouble-free, if perhaps only mildly interesting, bush.  It requires little or no extra care and has been free of Rose Rosette disease despite it's placement next to my ailing and super-affected 'American Pillar'.  The violet blooms are fragile, almost dainty, but it's exposure is primarily to morning sun so it doesn't suffer from the hot afternoon sun.   

'Orpheline de Juliet'

I raved last year about my young deep purple Gallica 'Orpheline de Juliet', and this year's display was no different.  Those purple buttons are just jewels against the lighter green matte foliage of this rose and the fragrance is, yes, "to die for."   I simply don't understand yet why this rose isn't more widely grown because it was a fabulous addition to my garden. 

'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain'

'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain' has become one of my favorite old garden roses, and is one of the only Hybrid Perpetuals I've found to be healthy and unfailingly hardy in my garden. I can count on it for a nicely presented spring bloom, although I question how "perpetual" it is; followup blooms are rare in my garden.  It's deeply scented and has a nice vase-like form, and is completely sans thorns so that I can bring those blossoms inside with a risk of bloodshed.

'Tuscany Superb'

'Tuscany Superb' is a delicious deep purple in my garden, but I have yet to decide if this old Gallica is going to survive Kansas.  My original plant struggles, a bare couple of feet high and of straggly form.  It has provided only a handful of blooms each of the 8 years it has lived in my garden and always looks on the verge of perishing, although it has suckered about three feet away into another small struggling bush.  I love the color, but the blooms only last a day in the full Kansas sun before they shrivel into blackness.   

So, which is your favorite?  Do you agree, with me, that Dr. Robert Basye's creation is the winner?   Is 'Orpheline de Juliet' in the running?  The Gallicas and Hybrid Perpetuals have their fair share of mauve-purple hues, but most are vulnerable to the sun and lack stature.  In fact, writing this, I'm struck that helpmefind.com/roses lists several of those roses as 3'-5' while they struggle to reach even three feet tall here in Kansas.  'Orpheline' is pretty in the garden, in a squat sort of way.  Who does the mirror choose as the most scrumptiously purple?  Who might get a chance in your garden?

Can You See Me Now?

I took Bella out the front door last night for her nightly squat, flipped on the lights, opened the front door, and followed her slightly rolling butt to the end of the concrete steps, Looking out into the breezy night beyond the lights.  As I turned around to give her some privacy in her eliminations, I glanced at the 'Stained Glass' hosta that I just purchased and planted last week, every the watchful gardener.  And then I looked closer.  Can you see it?








Now can you see it?  Just the body and one ear of a little bunny, frozen under the hosta leaves and desperately hoping that no one would see it.  I got a little closer to make sure it wasn't a pack rat, thought about picking it up, but ultimately decided not to make its little heart pound any more than I'm sure it already was and I left it alone.  I called Bella back inside, making sure to stay between Bella and the rabbit as my chubby love bounded past me to the door, and then I walked back in, plunging the baby bunny back into darkness and safety.

That bunny was hiding much better than this Gallica rose, screaming "I'm Pink!" for all the world to see.  No photo editing here, this little bright spot in my landscape is exactly as you see it, the brightest, most perfect pink you could ever ask for. 

Now if I only knew what this rose was named.  On my notes, this is the 'York and Lancaster' rose, which I obtained as a sucker from the KSU rose garden during pruning one year.  Only it isn't because 'York and Lancaster' is a striped or variably colored Damask and this rose only blooms bright pink and I'm pretty sure it is a Gallica.  In fact, my bet is that it's the Apothecary's Rose, or Rosa gallica 'Officinalis', a rose I have no written record of, but seem to recall obtaining at one time or another and must have found somewhere.  It has the right size semidouble blooms, is low-growing, and suckers like crazy.  I do have Rosa mundi, which is a candidate for the original 'York and Lancaster' rose, in another bed for sure. 

Regardless of its identity and provenance, it is certainly PINK.  And easy to care for, if I pull up the suckers from where I don't want them.  And disease free, although if you look very closely you'll see that the rose slugs started on it before I found them and intervened.  Some years it doesn't have quite the overpowering pink that it does this year, and it seems more vigorous and floriferous this year, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth.  Pink is good, pink is happy, pink is pretty.   

Perfect White Roses

'Madame Hardy'

Finally, finally, finally.  At last, in this garden year of dry winters and late freezes and cool dampness, when so many spring flowers have failed to appear or, worse, were prematurely ended in full flower, something beautiful appears.  I thought it would be the peonies, full of buds and promise, to lift me at last but three days of rain have lowered their foliage, lowered my expectations, and left sodden mopheads of their blooms.

'Blanc Double de Coubert'

No, it's my roses, timidly opening one by one, who are exceeding expectations this spring.  Ravaged by rose rosette disease, unpruned and sawfly-stricken, they are nonetheless defiant to the elements and demanding of my worship. 

'Madame Plantier'

We are going to play a game my friends, you and I, a little voting game where you pick the most beautiful of the white roses blooming this evening in my garden.  I took all these photos as dusk fell, beneath brooding skies on the third day of intermittent rain that has totaled now over 5 inches.  White roses, white Old Garden and shrub roses, normally don't respond well to long periods of moisture, browning on the edges of their petals and balling up into mildew.  This year, however, their raiment is unblemished, their virginal purity perfect and perduring.

'Sir Thomas Lipton'

So which is it, your favorite of these unsoiled white maidens?  'Madame Hardy', divinely arrayed around her center pip and lemon-scented, just the slightest blush to her cheeks?  'Blanc Double de Coubert', proclaimed by Gertrude Jekyll, according to Michael Pollan, "the whitest rose known," but also a thorny and untidy jewel?  'Madame Plantier', button-eyed mimic of 'Mme. Hardy', a slightly less fragrant rose on a better-foliaged bush?  Does rugose 'Marie Bugnet' capture your soul, her ample double blooms drawing you across the garden with virtuous allure?  Or might one prefer the gentleman of the group, scandalous Sir Thomas Lipton, lanky and tall, adorned in alabaster?

'Marie Bugnet'

For me, today, the wiles of  'Marie Bugnet', a tough and suffering dame in my garden, have most captured my attentions.  What does the legendary Gertrude Jekyll know of my Marie anyway?  Jekyll was nearly blind in her gardening prime and herself planted 30 years before 'Marie Bugnet' was introduced.  'Blanc Double de Coubert' normally crumples into brown paper with extended moisture and has fewer and flatter petals.  'Madame Hardy', normally my favorite, is a close second tonight as the slight pink tone she carries when damp is unbecoming of a true lady.  'Madame Plantier', however gussied up, is still but a cheaper pretender to the throne of purity.  And 'Sir Thomas Lipton' may be a fitting companion to the likes of 'Madame Plantier', but he remains a rough scalawag, unrefined and rowdy in the garden.

It's 'Marie Bugnet', on this gloomy evening, that brightens the darkness, fans my fires and summons my smile.  I'm captured by her beauty, and enthralled by her immaculate peignoir.  Don't you agree?  Pray with me now, please, for her safety, for her glory, to shine forever in my garden.

Pink-Maybe-Alba

Mystery free rose

ProfessorRoush has been waiting patiently for several years to identify a rose that has struggled in my garden; trampled by deer, dehydrated by drought, and encroached upon by neighboring plants (including an overbearing 'Applejack' in the vicinity), it has nonetheless survived.  Before this year, this year of over-rain, she has never bloomed, growing slowly from a seedling that I protected to the current bush, about 2.5 feet tall and as wide.  Now, I ask you, what is she?

I've looked at my obviously lousy records for clues to her provenance, and there have been several roses planted in this area, mail-order rooted cuttings, in the past 10 years.  Some grew well for a season or two and then faded, or succumbed to RRD.  For instance, 'Amiga Mia' was to the left and forefront of this plant in the bed, and I well remember "my friend" and her loss to RRD.  I had hopes that this was the Buck rose 'Countryman', but now, upon seeing the first blooms, I can now eliminate that rose, a much deeper pink than my current demure blushing bush.   Similarly, 'Frontier Twirl', 'Aunt Honey', and 'Enchanted Autumn' have been in this general vicinity, do not match this rose in bloom or behavior, and all have moved on to another higher gardening dimension.

Because this rose has never bloomed before, I have concluded that it must be a non-remonant rose, since I haven't seen her try to bloom before, likely an Old Garden Rose, perhaps an Alba or even a very shy Bourbon?  The foliage, closely examined, is moderately shiny and glossy, not like a Damask or Gallica, and it is reasonably healthy, with little or no blackspot despite all the rain.  The blooms are very double, light pink, fading to cream on the outside, and they almost recurve with a button eye.  Thorns are sparse, small, and curved down on the stem. The round buds did brown up and deform like 'Maiden's Blush' often does in my garden in a wet year.  The fragrance is strong and sweet with no tea overtones .

Sadly, I think the solution to this particular mystery lies in a rose band I planted in 2011, obtained as a "free rose" from Rogue Valley Roses.  RVR used to provide a free extra rose or two with their orders, depending on the size of an order, unsaleable roses that they had mislabeled or managed to lose the label or overstocked roses they had on hand.  Usually they would pick a rose for you that would survive well in that customer's particular hardiness zone.  My notes show that my free rose that year was planted in this area, and although 8 years seems a long time to have this struggle in my garden, I really can't remember how long this particular plant has been here. So, if it was my "free rose," I probably never will know exactly who this rose is.

Still, it has a beautiful bloom, relatively healthy foliage, and seems to be resistant to RRD, so I'm hardly in a position to really care about calling it by its given name.  I'll just christen it "Pink-maybe-Alba" and enjoy the show when I can.

Purple Wow Factor

'Orpheline de Julliet'

I think this blog is far past due for a rose update, don't you agree?  Old Garden Roses are nearly always beautiful and generally healthy little floral critters, but even these time-selected varieties seldom bring me to my knees with awe.  This particular new rose in my garden, however, 'Orpheline de Julliet’, is certainly making me sway on my feet if only just a little.

I planted 'Orpheline de Julliet' in 2017, a small band without much substance at the time, but a lot of promise.  She survived the drought of last year, growing a little but not spectacularly.  This year she has grown to approximately 2 feet tall and wide, and is finally giving me a show that I hope will only grow over the years as she reaches her advertised mature height of 6 feet tall.

'Orpheline de Julliet', whom I'll nickname "Orphie" here, is a Gallica rose of unknown heritage.  Some sources trace her to William Paul's The Rose Garden published in 1848, while others claim she was listed in Vibert's catalog in 1836 and give her a pre-1836 birthdate.  According to Brent Dickinson, the name translates to "July (female) Orphan," so named because she often blooms later than most once-blooming roses, an orphan at the end of the rose season.  Here, in Kansas, I wouldn't call her particularly late, as she is blooming along with 'Madame Hardy' and right at the tail of the main rose bloom in my garden.  Officially, helpmefindrose.com lists her as "crimson and red", with a strong fragrance, full quartered bloom form, once-blooming, and with a Zone 4 cold tolerance.

'Tuscany Superb'

The lure of Orphie, however, is in those deep crimson blooms.  I've seldom seen a rose with such deep color, similar to 'Tuscany Superb' but with more full flowers and even deeper tones.  My 'Tuscany Superb', seen at right, struggles in the garden, while Orphie is drawing my attention right from the starting gate and is much healthier and more robust. Set off against a light green matte foliage, the blooms fairly pop from the bush across the garden, don't they?  Yes, 'Orpheline de Julliet' will be a keeper in my garden, with proven survival power and the ability to make Mrs. ProfessorRoush gasp as she comes round to her corner.

Old Friends and New

'Topaz Jewel', risen from the muck

While ProfessorRoush's exterior surfaces are a bit "dampened" by all the rain we've been getting, he was still overjoyed today to see the little bit of "sunshine" to the right, re-entering his garden on a cloudy day after so many years of absence.  This is 'Topaz Jewel', planted in 2009, a nice rose in a lousy spot. Blasted by winter, forage for Japanese beetles, she has survived all that and risen again.  She has not bloomed in my garden for the past two years, and in 2017, in fact, I wrote her off as extinct when I found nothing but a dry corpse of stems in her stead.  Then, last year, among the weeds and the Rosa Mundi that I let spread a little too much in this area during my drought-garden ennui, there was some rose foliage here that looked slightly different than R. mundi, a little lighter green, and a little rougher leaf texture.  This spring there was a start of a stronger growth, now more visibly rugose, and I've been holding my breath for months as this bud grew and grew and matured during the rain until two days ago, the sepals began to spread and showed this brilliant yellow hue, confirming that 'Topaz Jewel' had survived against all odds.  In the midst of all the death from Rose Rosette Disease in my garden, one small bit of rugosa resistance is all I really need to lift me as high as the storm clouds around central Kansas.

In fact, my entire rose garden area is a swamp, a clay-based water basin of pure ooze.  It is placed on a slight slope behind the house, but still, this morning, after an inch of rain Saturday and another 3/4's inch last night, you can see the water standing next to this bed right in front of 'Topaz Jewel' in the photo to the left.  I planted a couple of new roses yesterday in a bed near here, slipping and sliding them into their designated spots, and found that if you dig a hole 6 inches deep anywhere in these garden beds, it will fill instantly with water.  I will probably have nightmares tonight of all the rose roots screaming for oxygen in the yard while I helplessly listen to the storms forecast to visit once again.  'Topaz Jewel' and her immediate neighbors are at least in a raised berm, probably their only salvation at present.


New roses are beginning to bloom this year, however, to fill in the gaps from RRD and to keep my hopes "afloat."  The striped rose pictured at the right, in keeping with my switch to RRD-resistant Hybrid Rugosas and Old Garden Roses, was planted just last year, and today was the first bloom in my garden of Mr. 'Georges Vibert'.  Mr. Vibert, or Georges as I will affectionately call him, is an 1853 Gallica bred by M. Robert of France.  You all know my weakness for striped roses, and this one seemed like an obvious choice to fill in a gap in both my garden beds and in my soul.  I'm hopeful for Georges continued health and vitality in my garden, especially since helpmefind/roses states that the Montreal Botanical Garden rated it as one of it's most disease resistant roses in 1998.

I should finish by apologizing for being unable to resist the water-referencing puns I've "sprinkled" through this entry.  Puns, though painful to the reader, are often, in my opinion, just one manifestation of a tormented writing soul, or, more specifically in my case, one "drowning" in an unusually wet season.

Camaïeux Grand Funk

♫I'm in love with the girl that I'm talking about
 I'm in love with the girl I can't live without
 I'm in love but I sure picked a bad time
 To be in love
 To be in love♫   Grand Funk Railroad

That song is stuck in my head, an "earworm" that I can't get rid of whenever I see this rose.  I've never followed Grand Funk Railroad, couldn't name a single song they wrote before I researched them today, and barely knew that they were (are?) a music group, but this tune still leaps right out of my ancient memories.

I'm smitten, today, with a new rose in my garden. 'Camaïeux' is a planting made last year as I began my search for Old Garden and Rugosa roses that might be resistant to Rose Rosette Disease.  Combining that search with my weakness for striped roses, the descriptions of 'Camaïeux' seemed like she would be a natural addition to my garden, so I made the purchase hastily online with trembling fingers hurrying the keyboard, so as not to miss its window of availability.

And then, last week, she opened for the first time, 'Camaïeux', the newly risen princess of my roses.  She's so young yet that I have only a few blooms to show you, so young that a picture of the bush wouldn't be representative of her ultimate form, but I just have to share her now with the world.

'Camaïeux' was bred, in France of course, by Gendron, and introduced by Vibert in 1830.  She is a violet-striped Gallica who blooms once in the summer and is said to mature at 3' X 3'.  These three-inch blooms have a strong Gallica fragrance for me, and are very double, ultimately opening flat with a button eye form.  The foliage seems healthy at present, with no signs of the mildew that Gallicas' seem to fight in my garden, and even as a baby she survived cane-hardy in a winter where other long-established roses have been nipped.  I have high hopes for 'Camaïeux'.

As it turns out, by expanding the Gallica contingent of my garden and blog, I'm now also going to increase my iTunes library.  My brief glimpse into the background of Grand Funk Railroad has opened me to the possibilities of this band known best for  We're An American Band, and The Loco-Motion.  It is Some Kind of Wonderful that I never realized that I knew and loved so many of their songs, but their tracks are evidently carved along the neurons of my childhood memories as strongly as the sunshine days of my youth.  At least, for a mere $7.99 purchase in iTunes, I now have new earworms to play over and over in my head, providing variety down the lonely path to insanity.  

Friends, Old and New

'Fantin-Latour'

At a certain stage of life, gardeners begin to notice that their connections with childhood friends are intertwined with rare reunions and increasingly frequent funerals.  While their qualitative value seldom changes, those friends seem to quantitatively dwindle at each successive reunion or wake, until at last the gardener is forced to acknowledge that he is old and nearly alone.  Old enough that lost loves are rekindled only from memory.  Old enough to compare present with past and wistfully remember better times.    

'Konigin von Danemark'

My recent hail hellstorm put a significant damper on the number and quality of roses that are blooming this year and has left me with the feeling that I'm attending a diamond reunion of old friends and classmates, many of them missing due to illness or death.  Some lost most of their blooms.  The survival of the new little ones is still questionable.  I have, however, taken some comfort in greeting a few old friends and precious new ones who persevered through the pummeling to provide me their pleasing presence.  Take, for example, 'Fantin-Latour,' photographed above, a fifteen year survivor of the Kansas prairie, yet as delicate and refined as a society debutante.  Or 'Konigin von Danemark' (seen at left), mine a cutting from a plant on an 1850's Kansas grave.  If this rose could tell me stories, I'm sure it could keep me entertained for hours with tales of its world travels and of pioneers and death and struggle.

'Marie Bugnet'

'Marie Bugnet', the purest white angel, bloomed second and sparsely for me this year, beaten to the garden by the bright sunshine of Harison's Yellow, as I noted earlier, but 'Marie Bugnet' is cherished all the more for its few perfect blooms.  I never understand why this rose goes unnoticed by most rose fanatics, because it would be one of my "must-haves" in any future garden.  She's a little sparse, but I have placed my dreams in several new basal breaks on the bush.

'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain'

'Souvenir du Dr. Jamain' added his deep red hues again to my garden, his foliage stripped away from naked canes, but each tall cane topped with a masculine carmine bloom.  I'm planning to cut him way back as soon as he finishes, in an attempt to strengthen and fill him out for a better season next year.  In fact, a number of my Old Garden Roses are overdue for rejuvenation and they're about to be given some help from my pruners.

'Due de Fitzjames'

Newcomer-to-me 'Duc de Fitzjames,' perhaps a Centrifolia and known before 1837, certainly lived up to his class, the blossom tightly packed with "red" petals and strong fragrance.  Why, I wonder, do we persist in labeling dusky pink Old Garden Roses as red when they are barely more than pink?  And is it really a Centrifolia or is it a Gallica as some sources claim?  Are there two different roses living under this name, one a deep magenta Gallica, the other a lavender Centrifolia?  This rose is young, but tough and I hope it will continue to survive.

'Gallicandy'

'Gallicandy', in contrast, flashed off its neon-candy-pink blooms to perfection against the rough dark green foliage that survived the hail.   In fact, it seemed brighter than ever, perhaps taking advantage of the paucity of neighboring blooms.  The vibrant color of this Paul Barden introduction pleases me so much more than 'Duc de Fitzjames."  Or am I just biased for brighter modern dyes and colors rather than accepting of older norms?

'Snow Pavement'

One rose that I'm sure is going to be a keeper is my one year old 'Snow Pavement.'  I watched this rose for years, straggly and struggling in the shade of a large elm in the K-State Gardens, and I was underwhelmed.  Last year however, it was yet another "impulse buy" for me and I'm very impressed by the compactness of this rose in full sun.  I'm also coming to appreciate the light lavender-pink tones of 'Snow Pavement' more every day, especially when other roses aren't stepping up this year to steal away the limelight. I'm also becoming quite fond of the Pavement Series of rugosas and I plan to write more about them soon.







I'd love to have introduced you to more old and newer friends if space and time permitted, but yet another storm was on its way and Bella was wanting to move inside, her bravery under assault by the low-lying clouds trying to envelop the garden.  At least you know that my garden is a shadow of its former self, but there are treasures still to be had.