Survivor Again

I'll speak now of one of the most beautiful rose blossoms in my garden, not the bush itself, but oh my the flowers, perfection in red, a scarlet lady adorned with gold.  I've spoken of 'Survivor' before and told you of how she survived shaded by two large roses, neglected in my garden for a decade.  Today, she stands worshiped, worshiped for the pollen she carries by her 6-legged admirers and worshiped for her grace under fire by me.  This bee wouldn't leave her alone today, molesting bloom after bloom in search of sustenance for the family.  And little wonder, click on the photo to enlarge it and examine the gold dust sprinkled on those regal petals!


I have three 'Survivor's now, proliferating solely at my pleasure, an occasional division allowed to place throughout my garden.  What she lacks in form, in body, she makes up for in splendor.  The barely semidouble blooms start out tucked away but they open quickly to a very showy bloom.   Is she gorgeous?  Yes.  Is she tough, yes?  Is she red?  Red and then some.

She only produces one crop of these bejeweled flowers each year, but she blooms over such a long period that I simply don't care.  The blooms hang on and hang on, lust on display for weeks.  The first photo of this bush, taken on 5/24, was almost a week after the very first bloom on it; the second photo from a different angle mere days later, and the third, taken on 6/]7, still in full flower and under full sun and absolutely no fade of the scarlet in those velvet petals despite the 90ºF temperatures for most of last week.  It was only today that I noticed the petals were turning to fuchsia and beginning to drop, her peak at least over and out.

5/24/2020

5/26/2020

6/7/2020

As I said, not much form as a garden bush, but I'd put up the individual blooms over any other rose in the garden.  'Survivor', she is and survivor, she will be, sunup to sundown, spectacular and deliciously red.  As the garden pauses between roses and summer, she carries on, bridging one cycle of the garden to the next, carrying the fire in a relay until the flames reappear in the nearby budding daylilies, red forever into fall.

Moje Hammarberg

ProfessorRoush is proud to present to you, 'Moje Hammarberg', an astonishingly well-behaved Hybrid Rugosa born of Swedish origin in the same year as my father, 1931.  I planted Moje (pronounced "moyeh") two years ago as a mail order waif, wondered if he would survive the first winter here, and then fretted as he waited out the sodden swamp of solid clay where I planted my rose garden.  Despite my pessimistic expectations, however, in this instance his obvious Rugosa genes have come through and he looks like both a keeper and a survivor.  Well, a keeper so long as he continues his current healthy manner.

Moje may be a native Swede, but he fits none of the typical statuesque stereotype that a Midwest American expects from that far Northern country.  Moje is not a Viking warrior reincarnated in rose form, he is more representative of a squat little hobbit hiding behind the more heroic figures in the garden.  Of unknown parentage, the only thing for certain about Moje is that he must have some Rosa rugosa 'Rubra' in his immediate forebears, expressed in classic thick, wrinkled  and very dense foliage and a distinct tendency towards the mauve petals of the Rugosa genes.  There is, as expected, no blackspot or disease on this rose and he seems impervious to rose rosette virus as expected of that foliage.

Unlike many of the Rugosa's however, Moje is a complete gentleman and very diminutive in habit.  Rounded  and contained, at two years of age, he stands about two feet tall and two feet wide, healthy, but not overly vigorous.  His eventual size is reportedly only 3' X 4' from most sources (Peter Beales is alone in listing he could reach 6' tall), a tiny compact mass of restrained Rugosa hardy to Zone 3b.  In fact, he's shown absolutely no signs of suckering as yet, one of only two Rugosas in my garden to completely avoid that irritating tendency.  In that regard, he resembles my 'Purple Pavement', front and center in another bed only 20 feet away from Moje.  Perhaps those two polished specimens will have a good influence on the comely but aggressive 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' in their vicinity and serve as an example to repress her wanton ways.  

The large blooms of Moje, however, are not nearly as tidy as the plant and are, in fact, a fairly unimpressive 17-25 petal mop head of mauve crepe similar in appearance to the larger and more vigorous 'Hanza'.  Suzy Verrier, writing of Moje in her Rosa Rugosa, charitably describes the 3-4" wide blooms as "lovely, large, and asymmetrical,"  which is a very nice way of saying that they have form, but no substance, color without sophistication.  Peter Beales, in "Roses" describes the blooms as "nodding," and I would agree that they seem to hang from the bush to some degree.  Moje does, however have a strong spicy Rugosa fragrance and reportedly forms large hips in the fall, which I have yet to see.  He repeats sporadically but always has a few blooms around to display, albeit the display is nothing to get especially excited about.

You can probably tell that I'm less than enthusiastic about Moje Hammarberg, disease-proof as he may be.  It's not that he's a bad rose, he's just...uninspiring, although the members of  helpmefind.com/rose disagrees and label him "excellent."  At this stage of my experience with him, I'd recommend him as a decent basis for a rugosa hedge, perhaps for those living in salt-prone regions, but I wouldn't expect him to be the centerpiece of a garden.  He's a workhorse, not a fancied up Dressage, prancing around in splendor.  

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.

The Eight Ex-Beetles

ProfessorRoush is NOT, of course, referring to a mythical reunion of Paul, Ringo, George, and any ex-band members who may exist, because if I was, I would have spelled the noun of the title as "Beatles."  Instead, I'm obviously referring to to the barely-visible rear end of the demonic chitinous lout on the lower right side of the white flower here (and not the other long-snouted insect to the left).  Do you see the hiney of the Japanese Beetle in the lower left of the flower?  Look closer.  Click on it to blow up the photo if you need to.  See the bristling patches of white hair along the edges of its abdomen?




I was simultaneously amused and alarmed eight days ago, when, as I visited a local commercial horticultural facility, I overheard a gardening couple asking a store clerk what they could buy to kill Japanese Beetles.  Thus alerted that the blankety-blank beetle season was upon us, I vowed to be ever-diligent over the next few days, and, sure enough, on July 1st I found the first Japanese Beetles of 2018 on 'Snow Pavement', 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', 'Polareis', and, of course, 'Blanc Double de Coubert'.  The first two victims can be seen at the left, taken moments before I squished them into beetle pulp.  In fact, I found and squished eight beetles on that first evening.  The Ex-Beetles of my garden.





In another more typical picture of the damage that Japanese Beetles can cause to a beautiful bloom, I give you the traumatized bloom of 'Earth Song' that I discovered this morning, seen in the photo at right complete with the Japanese Beetle hiding in the center of the flower (please ignore the Melyrid at the bottom.  I see the latter insects all the time and they don't hurt the flowers).  By the morning of the second day of the 2018 invasion, my total kill is now 14 squished beetles.  Unfortunately, it should have been 15 squished beetles (one male escaped this morning by leaping off the edging brick before I could lower my foot in his direction).

With a little research however, I just tonight discovered that, despite my vaunted prowess as a Japanese Beetle Terminator (Hasta la vista, beetles!), I'm winning a small tactical skirmish, but losing the strategic war.  As if Rose Rosette Disease and Japanese Beetles don't cause enough damage in my garden, the long-nosed brown insect to the left in the first picture above is NOT a harmless flower beetle.  The Internet informs me that it is a Rose Curculio Weevil (Merhynchites bicolor), another flower-eater and civilization destroyer sent to my garden by the demons of hell.  I should be just as diligent handpicking these little snouted monsters as I am the Japanese Beetles, and yet I knew not of their existence prior to this.  It seems to not be enough that I have one beetle enemy, the crunchy critters  have now enlisted allies.  Saints preserve my roses!

Ann Endt

'Ann Endt'

It is high time, I think, that ProfessorRoush shows you a rose new in his garden.  My garden where every new rose has to be a Rose Rosette resistant Old Garden Rose or a Rugosa.  At present, the rugosa newcomer 'Ann Endt' is on deck, and she will suffice, I think, for a rose-related post today.

I obtained 'Ann Endt' from Heirloom Roses last year and she bided her time growing a little bit and basking in the summer heat.  This year she is still a small plant, about a foot high and little more than that in diameter.  Because her mature size is supposed to be anywhere from 3.5 to 6.5 feet, I'm expecting much more growth from her this year.

But she IS blooming, her continuous single (5 petal) blooms feathery against the Kansas winds, and so she's our favorite at the moment.  Last year she bloomed, as a seedling, sporadically for me, teasing me with only a few blooms before disappearing for the winter, but in my garden and full sun, she is pretty close to a real red, with not much blue in the mix.  Each bloom has, as you can see, prominent yellow stamens that sand out against the almost-red background.   'Ann Endt' is officially a dark red or magenta Hybrid Rugosa rose, discovered by rosarian Nancy Steen in New Zealand prior to 1978.  There are those experts who believe she is the same rose as a Rosa foliolosa x Rosa rugosa cross made by Phillipe Vilmorin in the 1800's.  Her buds are long, held above soft green, matte, mildly rugose and very healthy foliage.  No blackspot on this rose!  Her listed hardiness is Zone 2A, and she came through a really tough, dry winter for me with no protection, so I will choose to believe her reputation for drought and winter resistance.  There is supposed to be a cinnamon fragrance attributed to her R. foliolosa parent, but I have yet to really sample it. 

Named after a famous New Zealand rosarian, Nancy Steen wrote about her discovery of 'Ann Endt' in a 1966 book, The Charm of Old Roses.   I hadn't run across this book yet, but I have ordered a used copy from Amazon and hope to review it for you soon. I have seen a quote from the book stating that the rose is also shade-tolerant, relating that "Even the partial shade of a tall purple birch does not seem to affect its free-flowering habit."   She is also supposed to produce hips, a trait that I enjoy in roses and will take as an advantage.  Suzy Verrier, expert on all things rugosa, wrote in Rosa Rugosa that this is "an interesting hybrid of R. Rugosa", but "neither widespread nor well-documented."  Verrier herself did not provide a picture of the rose.  ProfessorRoush didn't find much else written about 'Ann Endt', but maybe this blog will serve to help others find and grow this tough rose. 

Garden of Eden; Complete w/ Snake

What a difference five days can make in a garden!  Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I left for a trip last Wednesday (May 9th), and returned tonight (May 13th).  Before I left, Tuesday night, I took a photo of this Paeonia suffruticosa (Yellow Tree Peony), which had just opened its first bloom of the season that day.  The remnants of that first bloom are visible at about 2:00; tonight the petals of that bloom are already faded and gone, and now every other bloom on the peony is open.   Temperatures went from the 60-70ºF range last week to several days of 90ºF+ this week during our absence.  Wait all season for a brief glimpse of peony heaven, and almost miss it during a five-day trip!





For an added bonus, look closer at the bloom at the 7:00 position in the photo above.  See my little friendly neighborhood garter snake wondering who was disturbing the garden aura?  How about a closeup (at left)?  I had only seen my first snake of the season last Monday as I was cutting down a grass clump and a green snake went racing away too fast for a picture (in its defense, I was racing away in the opposite direction).  Now, already, I've run across my second snake of a still-early season.  Going to be a slithery year, I think.

The entire garden seems to have exploded over these 5 past days, and I think I'll catch up on my blogging and introduce you to the current bloomers at about two day intervals this week.  Tonight, however, I'll leave you with this tantalizing photo of 'Harison's Yellow'.  Before I left, only 5 days ago, not a single bloom was open.  Now, all of them are.  And to think I almost missed it!

For the Bees, You See

Today, I'll show you why, in photos instead of my usual wordy rambling, that I handpick the Japanese beetles off my roses. All the photos are taken the same lovely morning.

No insecticides in my garden on anything that blooms.  I eliminated the bagworms by removing the junipers.  I'm letting the melyridaes make minimal and merry damage on whatever they want.  And I'll put up with momentarily holding a few squirming Japanese beetles in my palm to hear the music of the bees in my garden.    How could anyone possibly take a chance on hurting these wholly-innocent and innocently-beautiful creatures?  Here, Mr. Bumble is visiting delicious 'Snow Pavement'.

And here, another bee almost covers the private parts of this delicately-veined 'Applejack'.  

Fru Dagmar Hastrup' entertains and feeds this street urchin.  Look at that perfectly formed bloom against fabulous foliage here in the middle of summer and scorching sun.

Fru's short, nearby gentleman friend, 'Charles Albanel' allows another bumble deep into his double petals.  Charles doesn't make as many hips as Fru Dagmar, but he shows off more while he's in flower.

Okay, it's not a rose, it's a Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus 'Blue Bird', to be exact.  But it also has its part in feeding the bees in my garden.

One more of 'Snow Pavement'.  I'm going to write about 'Snow Pavement' more soon, as she is reaching her mature height and presentation in my garden..  In the meantime, I'll leave you with her soft pink blooms while you contemplate how you're helping the bee species in your garden.

Stalking Beetle Sign

Slowly and stealthly, the sly hunter stalks his prey beneath the searing sun.  He knows this foe, has studied its habits, sought out its secrets.  Bare hands and intellect his only, but most lethal weapons, sufficient for the moment.  Each perforated petal, each sullied sepal, mere arrows pellucidly pointing to the presence of another plump Popillia. The beast hides at night, beneath flowers folded for shelter.  At morning, the target is torpid, stuporous and stuffed by the night's chill and previous evening meal, difficult to find, but easily caught and easily dispatched.   But as the sun rises, so the creature is ever more foolhardy, warming to feast and fornicate, flinging frass over flower.  Brazenly breeding without heed to predator or voyeur in the daylight, it lives to eat, procreate, and preferentially die at the hands of the ancient hunter, the latter ever more determined, ever more skilled, at beetle genocide.

ProfessorRoush has spent several days now, morning and evening, examining the garden flower by flower, foliage by foliage, as intent to his purpose and unaware of its ultimate futility as Custer at the Little Big Horn.  After my initial discovery of the beetle re-invasion, I found more of the insects that very evening, lots more, and I've found a few every day since.  During the past few days, the beetle numbers are dwindling, and yet, my skill at finding them seems to improve every hour.  I subsequently feel responsible to pass on my hard-earned hunting skills.

Initially, I concentrated on the beetles lounging without care in the center of my flowers, swiping them into the palm of my bare hand even, as disgusting as it sounds, while they were paired in flagrante delicto.  As quickly as I could, I then dropped them onto the stones edging my garden beds and gleefully stomped them into beetle pulp.   I know it sounds barbaric, but I have to truthfully state that the crunch of a beetle shell brings a smile to my face every time, a brief moment of insectopathic glee.

But I have learned, as all great hunters before me, to stalk the dwindling prey less by sight and more by stealth.  I recognized quickly that beetles were often hiding beneath petals that had holes chewed in them.  Look at the perforated flower at the upper left.  A slight change in elevation and angle to the view of the same flower at the right, and voila, one finds the culprit hiding in the shade, easily collected and dispatched.  And I've given up beetle crunching, time-consuming and ultimately, probably, detrimental to my Karma, in favor of the time-tested method of knocking them into a cup of soapy water, to drown in silence.

I've also learned to read "sign," a polite hunting term that refers to the technique of following the   poop trail of a prey animal to its lair.  The droppings of an insect are more properly known as "frass," and Japanese Beetles leave more then their fair share behind, wallowing, eating and fornicating with glee right in the midst of it, like chitinous pigs at the county fair.  At the lower right of the picture of Blanc Double de Coubert on the left, you can see frass on the petal there. Where there is frass, there are beetles.  I have also decided that it is much more sanitary to sweep the frass along with the beetle into the soapy water of a cup, rather than into my hand.        

For the time-being, those are the best lessons for beetle-genocide that my vast experience can pass on.  I suppose I could erect a wall that reaches above their flight paths, perhaps even cover it in solar panels, but then I'd be making a social statement rather than a gardening one.  Good luck to everyone in your own beetle battles.

 I also hereby apologize for my previous aspersions against Blanc Double de Coubert and her beetle magnetism.  I've since found beetles on 7 individual roses, and so, while Blanc remains the beetle champion, she's not the only one to blame for luring them into my garden.

Blanc & Beetles

ProfessorRoush's cardiovascular health was tested this morning as I had a bit of a shock while enjoying my garden.  I went out for a "spot check" of things and got excited about how many blooms were being visited by bees, and then I saw this bloom, of Blanc Double de Coubert, that wasn't being visited by a bee.  Instead, I found the first Japanese Beetle of the season (in fact, the first of the last two years since I didn't see any here in 2016).  

Curses.  A brief panic ensued and then I settled down and looked the bush over closely, finding around 6-7 beetles in all, lounging in the blooms, creating holes in the petals and depositing frass all over those virgin white blossoms.  I took great pleasure in knocking all of them into the ground and grinding them into the hard prairie clay.

Those who have read my past statements about Blanc Double de Coubert are aware that she is far from my favorite rose, and not even my favorite white Rugosa.  In the past,  I've found it nearly impossible to get a perfect picture of her; petals are always browned by rain or dew, blossoms don't last long in the Kansas sun, and the bush is just generally a mess, as you can see in today's impromptu photo at the left.  She's short and squat and has been a prima donna in my garden, demanding close supervision and extra care unbecoming of a Rugosa.  And now, to top it off, she is the Japanese Beetle Magnet of my garden.  Today, out of about 30-35 roses currently in bloom, along with some early Rose-of-Sharon and among scads of blooming daylilies and hollyhocks, she was the only plant with Japanese Beetles on it.  The only one, and believe me, I scrutinized every other bush in my garden for signs of a second stealth attack.  Why Blanc?  Something about the degree of whiteness that is attractive while nearly-as-white Sir Thomas Lipton (also blooming and without beetles) isn't?  Something about the fragrance that is different from all the other roses in my garden?  All in all, this is just another reason for me to really not like this rose.

I will remain vigilant for the next few weeks and make sure to watch this rose and others for any further Japanese Beetle mischief.  I'm trying very hard to keep these blasted bugs from establishing a breeding colony in my back yard and I may have to go back to the traps I previously employed.  Squeezed between beetles and rosette disease is a hard place for a rose gardener to keep his chin up.

Applejack

Applejack w/ bumblebee

I'm going to describe a rose today, one that has always left me with mixed feelings.  The bumblebee sitting deep in this blossom, however, does not seem to share my ambivalence, so perhaps it is time to give this rose its proper credit and decide that it has a place in my garden.

'Applejack' was one of the first releases of Dr. Griffith Buck, bred before 1962 and introduced by the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station in 1973.  Although Heirloom Roses nursery describes it as one of Dr. Buck's most popular roses, I fail to understand why.  It is also disconcerting that Heirloom's current online photo of Applejack is not Applejack. 

Applejack grows in my garden as a large, lax bush, with 6-8 foot long canes that drape over neighboring plants, so I can't recommend it in a small garden.  In fact, I've moved it several times myself, although I now actually have two large specimens, the second formed by regrowth from roots left behind at the last move.  And common descriptions of its blossoms, as "large 4-inch semidouble rose-pink blooms with crimson streaks" doesn't really match what I see here in Kansas.  Yes, the first blooms of the season are semi-double and have some mild streaks, but later blooms are 5-petaled and lose their streaks to the summer sun.     

Applejack individual blossoms

Another discrepancy between what I see and what some sources describe is the bloom period of this rose.  Helpmefind/rose.com describes this rose as "blooming in flushes throughout the season," and Peter Beales says it is "very free-flowering."  Iowa State, presumably from Dr. Buck himself, described the rose as "intermittent flowering from late May to killing frost." I find that Applejack has an extremely long first bloom season (now going over 6 weeks), but I rarely have seen bloom later in the season.  And, in fact, many of the member comments about this rose on Helpmefind.com also suggest that they don't see any rebloom.  Is this rose just that variable in bloom depending on its climate or is the great, late Mr. Beales wrong about this one?  I believe that Rogue Valley Roses has it right, describing it as a first bloom of a month or more, "sometimes followed by autumn flowers."  (07/04/2017 addendum;  Well, I was wrong.  My two specimens are fully grown and both have had blooms almost continuously since early May, albeit sparse at best, but they're still there.  I guess this rose does bloom throughout the season, at least once it reaches a mature span.  The photo at the bottom is a photo of one of the bushes on 7/04/2017).

Given my current RRD issues, and the extremes of Kansas weather, I really should make myself focus on the positives of this rose.  It does indeed have a really long first bloom season, and it is extremely hardy here in Kansas and drought-resistant as well. A tough rose, I've never seen blackspot affect it, and so far, the Rose Rosette Disease has left both of my specimens unscathed.  The offspring of 'Goldbusch' and a cross of 'Josef Rothmund' X Rosa laxa, its genes are now spread throughout several lines of roses, chosen for procreation because of its extreme hardiness and disease resistance.  And, really, if the bees like it, so should I.  

And, of course, I haven't touched on the most redeeming feature of Applejack.  'Goldbusch' and 'Josef Rothmund' are both sweetbrier hybrids (R. rubiginosa), and they have passed on the sweetbrier-scented foliage to Applejack.  Walk around this rose on a rainy day, and if you don't melt from the rain yourself, you'll find the scent of green apples everywhere in its vicinity.  Despite this, however, Applejack is always planted on shaky ground in my garden.  Perhaps if I quit moving it, it will settle in and bloom more to its billing.  Or perhaps it would repeat bloom if I was mentally disturbed enough to actually want to deadhead this rose as it blooms.  I should give it more of a chance.

2017-07-04 bloom

Mossy Barbara Oliva

Barbara Oliva

I'd like to introduce you to 'Barbara Oliva', or at least to the rose namesake of a reportedly lovely lady.  'Barbara Oliva', or 'ARDoliva' as she is registered, is a Moss rose bred by Paul Barden in 2004 and introduced in 2005.  This is her second year in my garden and I have pretty high hopes for her.

'Barbara Oliva is a very double (70-120 petals), mauve or carmine pink rose with lighter reverse on her petals.  She has an intense old garden fragrance and those mossy buds open to quartered flowers that are around 3 inches in diameter in my garden.   Once blooming in early summer, the young bush was fairly prolific for me this year, with an exceptionally long bloom period,  The flowers tend to remain on the bush for long periods compared to many roses, and hold their shape and form well over several days, displaying a button-eye when fully open.

She is short, at present, around 2.5 feet tall and gangly with long lanky stems.  I expect that this is just an awkward teenage thing because she will get taller, reportedly 3-6 feet tall and wide at maturity, and those lanky stems become "arching" at maturity.   I don't know if I want her to reach 6 feet, but I do hope she fills in a bit.  The medium green foliage is matte and the leaves are relatively small.  'Barbara Oliva' was cane hardy here in Kansas in a tough year and she is reported to be hardy to zone 4B in her entry at helpmefind.com.

'Barbara Oliva' was named after a retired teacher and California rosarian who, in her spare time, cared for a nearby cemetery and planted hundreds of old garden roses in it.  Mrs. Oliva died in 2015 and her obituary and a description of her rose legacy can be found in The Sacramento Bee.  Paul Barden reported that 'Barbara Oliva' arose from a open-pollinated seed of an unidentified, once-blooming pink Moss rose he once encountered.  In my opinion, she's a pretty good old gal for a seedling from a random cross.  Thank you, Paul, for another great rose for the world.

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.  

Banshee & the Brown Thrasher

'Banshee'

Visualize this, my friends.  You are strolling through your garden on a warm spring evening, calm breezes and quiet murmurs from the growing grasses, harsh sunlight making harsh shadows and long shapes on the ground, squinting your eyes against the glare of the setting fire as you stop to admire the delicate beauty of a shy new blossom.  Blushing, it peeks from within a shadow, luring you closer for a moment of admiration and lustful indulgence.

Suddenly, an explosion occurs from inches away, a brown blur bursting from within the branches, startling you into instant flight, survival and safety foremost in fright.

All this, and more, I experienced when I stopped to admire 'Banshee', a Damask shrub rose traced back to 1773 by some sources, but listed as 1923 in Modern Roses 12.  My particular specimen came via a purchase from Hartwood Roses a number of years ago.  Once believed to be an older Gallica, she is now thought on helpmefind/roses to be a turbinata known under a variety of other names.  'Banshee' is, in fact, known as "The Great Impersonator" among roses.   'Banshee' is a 7 foot tall shrub for me, nearly as wide, with long lax stems and few or no thorns.  She is extremely healthy and completely cane-hardy in my climate, strongly and sweetly scented, with loosely arranged double (17-25 petals) white blooms blushed strongly with pink.  She blooms once a year over a long period of spring, and although most sources suggest that she balls up in wet weather, I haven't noticed her do that nearly as badly as 'Maiden's Blush' does in my garden.  Since the "balling" seems to be mentioned so ubiquitously, could it be that I've got an impersonator of 'Banshee' here?

The aforementioned "brown blur" was a Brown Thrasher, Toxostoma rufum, presumably a female of the species.  Once my heart rate slowed down from the adrenaline rush, I looked closer and found that I had disturbed her incubating a clutch of  five pale blue-speckled brown eggs in a delightful, but rough, little nest of twigs.




Brown Thrasher's are abundant east of the Rockies, and I'm pleased to make the acquaintance of this otherwise nondescript little bird of my prairie.  They are said to have the largest song repertoire of all birds, over 1000 different types of song, but since I have never taken the time to learn bird identification by song (except for the "Bob White" of quail), I don't know how many of the early morning choir outside my bedroom windows may be Brown Thrasher's, but I suspect they may represent a large portion of the chorus.  An omnivore, it will evidently eat anything and it is fiercely territorial around nests, even attacking humans.  I'll give this nest a wide berth in the next few weeks since I don't want to initiate a mini-replay of Hitchcock's 1963 The Birds here in Kansas, even less with myself in the starring role of frantically-pecked-to-death human.

That's life in my Kansas garden today, a rose that might-or-might-not be 'Banshee', harboring a perfect little potential family of avian Von Trapp's.  And lots of sunshine and, finally, more normal summer temperatures than the recent and long cool spring.  If you need me, I'll be in the garden.

(Fru) Dagmar Hastrup

When a gardener is pressed by misfortune, by weather, illness, or insect, he or she will sometimes stoop to admiration of the unadmirable; to false flattery of the faulty.  Thank heavens, for the salvation of my sanity and reputation, 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' is performing at her nondeplorable best this year in my garden and I can be honest about her virtues.  Perhaps in a normal year, she would be and has been outshined by gaudier specimens, but this year she is the rugose Belle of the Spring Ball.



She's about a three-year old plant in my garden, this simple Danish maid, and just now reaching early adulthood and nearly mature growth.  Standing at approximately 3 feet tall, she's short for a Rugosa, although she already shows a middle-aged spread, wider than her height.  Suzanne Verrier, author of Rosa Rugosa, suggests that she "is usually larger on its own roots than on an understock. "  For me she has been, in the past, a not very ostentatious lass for most of the year, although the exceedingly excited bee in the photo at the upper right might disagree.

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' was discovered by Knud Julianus Hastrup at the Hastrup nursery in Vanloese near Copenhagen, Denmark in 1914.  Herr Knud is said to have likely named the quiet lass after his wife, Dagmar Henriette Vilhelmine, and according to Marianne Ahrne, writing on helpmefind.com/roses, she has always been known throughout the Scandinavian countries as simply 'Dagmar Hastrup'.   "Fru" is the older Scandinavian equivalent to the English Mrs. or Mistress, an older formal title dropped by the 1960's Swedish population  in a wildly du-reformen fit of familiarity.  In the interest of political correctness, I should probably also bend to the winds of conformity, since Modern Roses 12 also lists her as merely 'Dagmar Hastrup', but as a married gentleman, I'm going to stick here to the formal address out of respect to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  

A silvery pink, single Hybrid Rugosa, 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' blooms freely and often, forming beautiful scarlet hips each fall as I've previously described.    I haven't yet noticed, but she is also reputed to don attractive foliage in the fall, trading her flawless rugose medium green foliage for new and more warmly-colored attire.  Verrier gave an extremely flattering review of her, stating she "ranks as a classic among the rugosas."

Until this year, however, when she finally reached my waist, I did not know that this single rose packed a huge punch of fragrance, the clov-iest spicy clove fragrance that I've ever experienced.   I suppose that sauce for the bee is also sauce for the gardener.  'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' is completely cane hardy, drought-resistant, and, best of all, disease-free.  If there were a Tinder for roses, everyone would be swiping "up" for 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', intent, like this bumblebee, on an easy hookup.   Like most Rugosas, I'm sure 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' would be happy to use her thorns to oblige.