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.

Morning Vistas

A "Vista" is defined as "a pleasing view, especially as seen through a long narrow opening."  This morning, ProfessorRoush was simply content to take Bella on a walk around her garden, and taking photos of the broad pleasing views of his garden through his narrow (phone) camera lens.  I'm not going to write a lot about these pictures today, I'll just note a few of the particular roses visible in them and leave them to speak for themselves.  Before you blow them up to look closer, you must promise not to feel smug about all the unpruned deadwood in the roses and the weeds at their feet.  A gardener only has so much time and Spring came at me fast this year.

Roses, from left to right, are tall 'John Cabot', crimson 'Hunter', pink 'Konigan von Danemark', and fading 'Marie Bugnet'

The irises are spectacular this year.  You can see Bella running ahead to the right, sniffing the ground.

Peony 'Buckeye Belle' sits maroon-ly at the feet of bountiful 'Blizzard' Mockorange

One view of a rose bed looking east as the sun rises.  The near border, left to right, is 'Leda', 'Rosalina', and 'Blush Hip'.  The nearly red rose just behind those is 'Duchess of Portland'.

Front to back, these roses are pink 'Duchess de Montebello', bright red 'Survivor' with 'George Vancouver' to it's left, and behind, tall, and pink 'Lillian Gibson'.

I have been hacking around and reviving this bed and 'Lillian Gibson' looks about as poorly as I've ever seen, but I still think she deserves a photo all to herself.

As does this second 'Survivor' specimen, with mauve 'Hanza' and single 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' following behind it.

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!

Yellow World Domination

This week is the peak bloom of Hybrid Rosa spinosissima 'Harison's Yellow' on my "rose berm", the latter a slightly-raised (domed to about 2 feet high) area of transplanted soil that was a birthday gift from my mother in the early days of my garden.  According to my notes, it was planted there in 2003 from a sucker of another earlier transplant from my first garden in town.  'Harison's Yellow' is easy to root from suckers, at least if you treat it right, although my early attempts to gain "wild" suckers of this rose were failures.  I'm trying not to wonder if those previous failures reflect on my talents as a gardener.

Honestly, who could want, or even dream, of a sunnier or more vibrant yellow rose, bright in the shadows and brilliant, nearly eye-searing, in full sunlight?  The blossoms are nearly perfect, never fading until the petals fall to the ground,  unblemished by rain earlier this week, and each with fragrance to rival the finest efforts of professional perfumers.  In case you're wondering, "perfumer" is the correct English term for such experts in fragrances, and it is so much more appealing than the French term, "Nez" (nose).  

If 'Harison's Yellow' has a flaw, a snag in its character, it is its quest for garden, or perhaps even world domination.   Although I found it difficult to transplant in my first few attempts, it suckers and spreads just fine if left to its own merits, crowding out less vigorous plants to form a vast impenetrable hedge if you allow it.  In this bed, it has, over time, smothered a 'Souvenir de Philémon Cochet' and, more recently, an 'Adelaide Hoodless', and currently it has a young 'Roseraie de l'Haÿ' surrounded and threatened.

This, a view from the other side of the berm, better shows its unchecked spread, the mass of the previous photo extending out of the picture to the right.  Four feet high, thorny and straggly and sparsely-leafed this early in the summer, at times it seems that only a true rose-aficionado could really love it.  The bush is crude and its manners are rude, but then it blooms and all is forgiven.

But, I ask, why not (love it)?  It's extremely winter hardy, drought-resistant, and the hailstorm, just 6 days ago, pictured at left, didn't seem to damage it at all.   'Harison's Yellow' was first blooming on April 23rd this year and now, over 10 days later, it is the eye-catching focal point of my garden.  Really, who cares if it takes over the world and drapes the hills with yellow?  Not me, not at this moment.   There's no room in my world for any other rose than 'Harison's Yellow', at least for now, and it can grow anywhere it chooses.  I can move the 'Roseraie de l'Hay' if it isn't up to the fight!  

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?