Chuckles for Joy

'Chuckles'

I've been wrong, wrong, wrong.  Wrong about the garden worth of 'Chuckles', wrong about the breeder, and wrong about just about everything to do with this rose.  Grown on me, it has, and become one of the stars of my garden.

I believed for the longest time, right up until I began to research the rose for this blog entry, that Chuckles was a Griffith Buck-bred rose.  But it isn't a Griffith Buck rose, 'Chuckles' was, according to www.helpmefind.com, bred by Roy Shepherd in 1958.  How did I get it so wrong?  In this case, there is a perfectly simple explanation.  I swear that I'm innocent, Your Honor.  I purchased my 'Chuckles' from www.heirloomroses.com, where it is listed as a Griffith Buck rose.  It is not, however, listed as a Buck rose on Iowa State University's website or anyplace else.  Heirloom just has it wrong.  'Chuckles' was bred from a seed parent cross between 'Jean Lafitte' and 'New Dawn', and the pollen parent was 'Orange Triumph'.

She's also not a shrub rose, as I previously thought, she is classified as a Floribunda.  I can see that now, the profuse bloom and intense garden presence of the bush. 'Chuckles' is a continuous bloomer in my garden, rarely without a few eye-catching blossoms.

What I haven't been wrong on are all the parts that are dependent only on my eyes.  'Chuckles' is a low growing rose, about 3-4 foot tall at maturity in my garden, and almost 6 feet in diameter. The blooms are mostly single with 4 petals, but they are large in diameter, almost 4 inches across. The blooms are an eye-searing hot pink, a color that I did not like initially, but one that I've developed a taste for.  Each bloom also has a bit of white at the center, and they come in clusters, with new blooms, older blooms, and buds all visible in the same cluster as you can see in the picture above.  Stamens are golden on new blooms but fade quickly to brown.  There is little to no fragrance to the rose, but, then, nobody's perfect.  The bush is perfectly hardy here, in 5A/6B, and it is probably hardy far to the north since I saw it listed on a website named "LandscapeAlaska".  I never spray her for blackspot or other fungal diseases.  Look at that perfect foliage above;  glossy, dark green, and unspotted.  She's at peak right now in my garden, and has come into her own in this, her 6th year in my garden.

Most importantly of all, 'Chuckles' is one of the most aptly named roses of rosedom.  Anyone in her presence can't help but be cheered up by a single look of those bountiful bright pink and white blooms.  If I were to design a garden for a depressed friend, 'Chuckles' would be a necessity.  Heck, all of us could use one or two 'Chuckles' in the garden to cheer us up from time to time.

Allegra

Hybrid Gallica 'Allegra'

Of the several Paul Barden-bred hybrid Gallicas that are entering their second full summer in my garden, I believe that pink 'Allegra' has my vote for newcomer of the year.  She's at full bloom, right now, and I'm quite impressed by the durability of the blooms in the Kansas wind and sun.

'Allegra' (ARDjoy) was bred by Paul Barden in 2000 and introduced, according to "helpmefind" by The Uncommon Rose in 2004.  I find the bloom of 'Allegra' reminiscent of the superb 1816 Alba 'Konigin von Danemark', with a similar shade of pink and the same neat button-eyed and quartered appearance, but much larger bloom size and with a better fragrance.  'Allegra's very double blooms are every bit of 4 inches in diameter and it has an incredibly strong Gallica scent to my nose, among the strongest of rose fragrances in my garden, right now second perhaps only to 'Madame Hardy' and 'Madame Issac Pierre'.  In its second year of age, it is 2.5 feet high and around, and I expect it will reach its advertised mature height of 4 to 6 feet easily. It was fully hardy last year in my garden and has no blackspot or mildew presently visible.  Look closely at the clean foliage in the pictures if you don't believe me.

A few more blossoms of 'Allegra'

Many of my garden roses were affected by the recent cold and damp nights and left with discolored, pale, or balled-up blossoms, but impressively, 'Allegra' seems immune to the weather and has provided me with a number of perfect blossoms.  According to Paul Barden's website, I can expect four to six weeks of bloom with flowers opening sequentially on inflorescences, so a long bloom phase is yet another positive note for 'Allegra'  Paul also hinted that this rose doesn't hit its stride until it is several years old, so I can only imagine the beauty to come next year.  A cross of Gallica 'Duchesse de Montebello' and St. Swithun (a pink David Austin/English rose), 'Allegra' reportedly does not sucker like it's Gallica ancestors and for that, I'm thankful because I grow tired of rooting out Gallica suckers in my rose beds.

I'm always interested in the origin of the name of a rose and 'Allegra' is an excellent example of why the written notes of rose breeders are so often a treasure.  I speculated, from knowledge buried deep with my musical training, that 'Allegra' would denote a rose that bloomed or grew, as the dictionary indicates, "with a light and lively tempo", but Paul Barden's website notes that he named the rose "to honor a dear friend of mine who fell in love with this rose when she first saw it."  And thus, a rose was named.
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Stealthy Garden Ninjas

Recently in my garden, I've noticed occasional evidence left by large furry rats with white tails.  These incursions into sacred territory seem to have increased during the recent dry spells.  Although I have seen no more footprints, I have noticed an increasing frequency of tender rose buds nipped off just before they bloom, and always from the same bushes.   I am also aware, as an enlightened modern man, that special cameras, called "game cameras," exist for the sole purpose of identifying the nighttime marauders and improving, for hunters, the rate of harvesting them.  I put all these facts together a couple of weeks ago and decided that it would be nice to know exactly the who, what and when of the perpetrators visiting my garden at night.  Sort of like having a night watchman without all the overtime pay.

Alongside installing such a camera comes a little trepidation.  What if I find that some hitherto unknown creature is drawn by the beauty of my roses?  Perhaps female Sasquatch are harvesting the roses to brighten up the cave or brush pile they live in?  Such pictures could make me rich at the same time as scaring the bejeesus out of me.  What if I find evidence of a mountain lion, rumored and occasionally spotted within Kansas and Nebraska, prowling in my backyard?  Such knowledge would completely spoil my plans for a nighttime-highlighted "white" garden bed. 

All such fantasies aside, it seems that I've been punked by whatever devious creatures exist on the prairie.  If I am to believe the evidence, the only creature visiting my garden in the past two weeks is me.  Well, me and maybe the neighbor's dog.  I've got 169 motion-activated pictures taken over a span of 2 weeks and from two different locations in my garden, and I appear in almost all of them.  There are also a number that are absent of mammalian life, likely initiated by wind moving the plants, or cloud movement or, in one case, a nighttime lightning flash.  It is either that or I'd have to conclude that the deer can sneak around my garden in ninja suits, performing snatch and grab operations before the camera can activate. 


I'm going to keep moving the camera until I locate the secret path of invasion.  Until then, for those who also think this sounds like a good idea, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.  These game cameras are relatively inexpensive now and take good quality pictures, both daytime and nighttime, without flash.  They have the added benefit of adding automatic information to the picture;  date, time, temperature, and phase of the moon. There's an intense feeling of anticipation every time I remove the flash memory to view the pictures, a hope of surprise and discovery.  It might be really neat to focus this on a bird house or nest or something more dependably interesting than a random garden path.  And it would be useful to identify which garden tour visitor is taking cuttings from your treasures, or which neighborhood child is using your back yard as a shortcut from school to home.  Depending on your garden activities, you'll at least get some nice candid shots of yourself working in the garden, because you quickly forget it is there.  The latter lapse of memory could also, if you think about it, be the danger of having it around, again depending on what nongardening activities you enjoy in your garden.       

Morning Blush Bomb?

I've got a beautiful rose blooming for the first time, and these long-awaited blooms meet their promises, but I'm going to leave the jury out for deliberation on this rose: It's just too early to tell about 'Morning Blush'.

Now mind you, I've got no complaints about those blooms. The three-inch blooms, three of which are shown here, are just gorgeous. The white centers vary in diameter, but at least in my climate, there is a lot of blush pink on the ruffled petal edges, making this "New Alba" rose superior to the old bicolored Alba 'Leda' in that regard. 'Morning Blush' (or SIEmorn) was bred by Rolf Sievers in 1974.  She may, according to at least one source, have a scattered later bloom and she will grow to around six feet tall at maturity. 

 The rose is very hardy here and shows no blackspot worth noting at the present time.  I found the Internet to be a bit confusing regarding the fragrance of this rose, with one source claiming it has strong fragrance and another (the nursery where I obtained my band) saying that there was no fragrance at all.  I am straddling the fence in between those extremes, but right now I would say it has only a  moderate fragrance . A cross of 'Maiden's Blush' and 'Hamburger Phoenix' (the latter a red, climbing, remonant R. kordesii hybrid), 'Morning Blush' has very few thorns and very arching foliage. 

In fact, it is the arching foliage, and the blooming habit, that makes me question the garden worthiness of this rose.  The canes are indeed arching, and in fact are spread about in a very haphazard fashion, making it appear less like a bush than a large leafy thorny spider.  On my two season-old plant, about three feet tall presently, the blooms are only appearing on the first year's canes, so there are sporadic blooms held near the ground, but seemingly no blooms or buds on the canes that rose up higher at the end of last summer.  If that pattern holds, then I won't be keeping this bush because the low blooms are barely visible, despite their beauty.  Surely, this rose, described as a prolific bloomer, will not hold its blooms so closely to its bosom next year and will reward me for patience.