Striped and Rugose

I have Scott Keneda of Red Dirt Roses to thank for alerting me to the fact that my lust for striped roses was missing a key player;  a striped rose that would rebloom consistently, wouldn't get blackspot, and would stand up to colder climates without blinking.  That rose is Ralph Moore's 'Moore's Striped Rugosa', a 1987 introduction with the registration name of 'MORbeauty'.

Ralph Moore bred 'Moore's Striped Rugosa' from a complex seed parent named "9 stripe" crossed with 'Rugosa Magnifica'.  According to rosarian Paul Barden, the stripes come from 'Ferdinand Pichard' four generations back in the seed parent.  It was not released until 2005, when it was introduced by Sequoia Nursery, Moore Miniature Roses Historic Archive, a long time to wait for such an exceptional rose. 

'Moore's Striped  Rugosa' is slow growing for me, about a foot high in its first full summer, but healthy, with nice dark green Rugosa foliage.  It has been an almost continual bloomer since it was just a single stick with leaves, those beautiful uniquely striped and fully double flowers popping up again and again.  The petals have a red and white striped upper with an almost completely red reverse; the red itself is slightly to the blue side, much like 'Ferdinand Pichard' in hat regard.  Blooms average about 3.5 inches in diameter for me, and have a mild Rugosa-like fragrance.  They start out with hybrid-tea form and end up a mildly disheveled cup form, and so far they stand up well to the worst heat of summer.  Most references tell me that the bush will grow 4-5 feet in diameter and the mildly rugose foliage tells me that it will be blackspot free here.  It certainly has been so far, and it survived winter unprotected and cane-hardy.

The nicest thing about 'Moore's Striped Rugosa' is that it is a welcome change from the strong Rugosa genes of mauve-rose-purplish roses and single or semi-double blooms.  I think this one will be quite a show piece when it reaches it's mature size.  Does anyone know if it sets hips?  Oh, that's probably too much to ask for, isn't it?   No rose is perfect.

Napoleon's Hat

I am the proud landlord of one Old Garden rose that you may know better under one of at least 10 aliases, including Crested Provence, Cristata, Crested Moss, R. centifolia cristata, or R. centifolia muscosa 'cristata'.  I knew it first under the more fanciful name of  'Chapeau de Napoleon', a moniker bestowed because some think that the fringed calyces resemble the tri-cornered hats worn by the famous French emperor.  The "proper"appellation, if you want to exhibit the rose in competition, is 'Crested Moss'.  In private conversation, of course, we of the bourgeois or peasantry classes can simply call it "Napoleon's Hat" and every rosarian will know the rose we're talking about.  Well, most of them will, but one should be aware that DNA analysis has shown that 'Crested Moss' is not the same rose as 'Crested Provence'.  As with any number of roses, the fact that they look alike doesn't necessarily mean that they are clones of one original plant.

'Crested Moss' is a once-blooming, medium pink, double-petaled rose that was actually not known when Napoleon was alive, but was a "found rose" discovered some years later (some authorities say as early as 1820, others as late as 1827).  'Crested Moss' is believed to be a sport of Centrifolia muscosa 'communis', the 'Common Moss Rose'.  Most sources, especially those written shortly after its introduction by Vibert in 1828, suggest that it was discovered in 1827 near Fribourg, Switzerland, growing in a monastery wall (or a nunnery wall). 'Crested Moss'  has been used extensively in hybridization by Ralph Moore and those efforts are reprinted on Paul Barden's website in an article by Mr. Moore.  He writes that the rose is usually sterile and does not set seed, but he was once able to collect enough pollen to cross with 'Little Darling', 'Baccara', and 'Queen Elizabeth'.  Ralph Moore noted that since those first attempts, he was never again able to find anthers (pollen) on any plant of 'Crested Moss'. 

In my garden, my two year old plant has the characteristic sparse foliage noted for this rose by Paul Barden, and the reputedly slow-growing plant stands about 2 1/2 feet tall at the time of this writing.  The foliage has grown more dense over the summer since flowering and the bush has achieved a more rounded form with a little judicious pruning.  'Crested Moss' is cane-hardy here in Kansas and it has withstood the current drought very well.  If you choose to grow it, you'll be rewarded annually by the strong damask-type fragrance and the clear pink color of the blooms.  If nothing else, the mossy calyx (a collective term for the sepals of a flower) creates a unique memory for visitors to your garden.  More than once, I've been near a point of failure in my attempts to excite a new visitor about the roses, but when they spy these unique buds, a connection forms and they start spewing forth questions. Questions that I usually can't answer, but at least I no longer have to search among mundane gambits to elicit conversation.  "How about this weather?", or "How about those Wildcats?" get tossed aside for a more stimulating discussion (at least to me) of Napoleon's three-cornered hat.  I am almost always able to restrain myself and stop before the visitor's eyes completely glaze over once again. 

'Linda Campbell'

One of the first Rugosa hybrids I ever grew, at my old town garden, was the crimson Ralph Moore cultivar 'Linda Campbell' (trademarked 'MORten').  I had just begun my search for hardy roses to survive Kansas and had not yet jumped on top of the Griffith Buck or Canadian Roses, but I had happened across mention of the phenomenal breeder Ralph Moore and his many unique cultivars.  My 'Linda Campbell' came directly from Moore's Sequoia Nursery when it was still in business, and the specimen that I now grow is a sucker from that original purchase.  All on its lonesome out on the prairie, it lights up the entire end of my garden bed in the hottest of summers.   

'Linda Campbell' was introduced by Moore in 1991 and named after a friend.  It's namesake was a two-term President of the Denver Rose Society, ARS Life Judge, and was involved in her husband's rose business (High Country Rosarium, now named High Country Roses and located in Utah).  A cross of the salmon miniature rose 'Anytime' and the pink Van Fleet heirloom 'Rugosa Magnifica', this bright red rose with yellow stamens lacks perceptible scent, for those who care about such things, but it is also a disease-free performer in the Northern garden.  'Linda Campbell' blooms continually with clusters of 8-15 semi-double blooms highlighted against that dark green barely-crinkled foliage, and she is entirely self-cleaning on her own. Fully cane-hardy in my Zone-5 garden, Linda stands about 3-4 foot tall and spreads around to 5-6 feet when left on her own, but she rarely suckers and is nearly thornless.  The picture of the young bush, at the left, hardly does justice to the glory that she is in mature growth.  She has a nice upright habit and never makes a nuisance of herself except to brighten up her area of the garden every time you look.

  

Ralph Moore, who is known to rosarians as the "Grandfather of the American Miniature Rose," dabbled in breeding various different rose strains for over 50 years.  Sequoia Nursery, which he opened in 1937 as a general nursery, became his center for breeding miniature roses.  His work in miniatures was monumental, but his breeding programs of striped roses and moss roses also form the foundation for much of the work still going on in those areas. Alas, the world lost him in 2009 when he passed at the age of 102 and Sequoia Nursery closed the same year.  I've since seen pictures of Sequoia Nursery as posted on the Internet only a year later and it is sad to see the disrepair that only a year has brought in this former mecca of the rose world.  There are rumors, though, that Moore's breeding stock may have been transferred into safe-keeping and that the tremendous potential of his breeding lines may not yet be lost.  'Linda Campbell' is a testament to his genius and should be grown in every rose lover's garden.