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?

New Purple Roses

ProfessorRoush must have been in a purple mood when he ordered roses this year because at least two of my new roses are deeply and darkly purple and others also have some murky red tones.  The large velvety single at the left is 'Basye's Purple Rose', a rose that I had grown before for a couple of years and then inexplicably lost in the first year of the recent drought.  I simply couldn't continue without 'Basye's Purple' in my garden, so I quickly replaced it.


'Basye's Purple Rose' is a Hybrid Rugosa shrub rose bred by Dr. Basye in 1968 as a cross between R. rugosa and R. foliolosa    As the photo illustrates, this is a large (2.5 inch diameter) single rose with a deep velvety texture and large orangish-yellow stamens.  I detect little or no fragrance in the rose and it doesn't seem to form hips in any appreciable number.  It is supposed to be a 5 foot shrub, but my former specimen only made it to three feet and the current one is about the same size at 2 years of age.  'Basye's Purple Rose' does bloom in flushes, but it seems to cycle slowly for me; 3-4 flushes per year seem to be the maximum.  Except for the death of my previous shrub, it seems to be a very healthy bush, with no blackspot or mildew on the mildly rugose leaves and few, if any, insect problems.  It is fully cane-hardy here in Zone 6A. This year it was the last rose to bloom during the "first flush" in my garden.

One nice surprise is that 'Basye's Purple' has new canes that are strikingly red and strikingly thorny compared to the old canes (see the photo above right).  No, folks, that's not Rose Rosette disease, it's just the way they're supposed to look.  Somewhere in development, those prickles must drop off because the overall bush is not that thorny.

My second new purple rose, pictured to the right, is the old Hybrid Gallica rose 'Tuscany Superb'.  I've lusted for this rose for years and finally found a source.  In its second year in my garden, it stands around 2 feet tall and a foot wide and these were its first blooms here at home.  This rose is a hard rose to photograph for me because I can't seem to get the color right.  In real life, this rose is darker and has more blue tones than this picture shows.  'Tuscany Superb' was bred by Rivers prior to 1837 and is said to be a seedling of the ancient Gallica named 'Tuscany', although several sources say the bushes and roses of this "father-son" pair are hard to tell apart.  Tuscany Superb' is fully double (around 60 petals) with a deep dark purple/red color and a moderate Gallica fragrance.  Once-blooming, and hardy, it is completely disease-free for me, without even the hint of powdery mildew that many Gallica's have in my garden.   'Tuscany Superb' has already ended its bloom and  receded into the green background as other roses begin their second flush, but I'll look forward to its bloom as a larger shrub next year. 

I'll have another dark red/purple rose to show you soon, a Buck rose, but I just got the first bloom from it today and I'm waiting for a good picture of subsequent blooms.  Stay tuned for a little known jewel that I hope is going to become a star in my garden.