Lillian Gibson Revival

All right, I can't stand keeping the secret any longer.  ProfessorRoush has a blooming 'Lillian Gibson'.  Yes, I do. I first heard about 'Lillian Gibson' in a post on GardenWeb in the early Summer of 2011, and I learned more about her in this earlier 2009 post from none other than Suzy Verrier, author of Rosa Gallica and Rosa Rugosa.   When Suzy Verrier recommends a rose as "the best climbing rose for harsh climates," I sit up and listen.

'Lillian Gibson'

It seems that 'Lillian Gibson', a Hybrid Blanda introduced in 1938 by Neils Hansen, had fallen from favor and commerce.  At one time, she was, according to Hansen himself  "the sensation at the Sioux Falls Flower Show, June, 1938."  Ms. Verrier initiated a forum post because she had persuaded Bailey Nurseries to offer it again and was alerting others to ask for it so that a minimum offering could be generated.  As the forum thread developed and others searched for it and lamented being unable to find 'Lillian Gibson', one of the most delicious comments I've ever seen on the web was posted near the end of that thread; "The masses of today aren't going to go after great-grandma in flannel PJs when they can have a bimbo in a bikini with silicone, even if it is all just in the power of suggestion."  Wow, modern horticulture summed up in a single sentence.

As it turns out, Bailey Nurseries likely did create some 'Lillian Gibson' plants that year, but they didn't sell well and the remains ended up as "bagged" roses at Home Depot in 2011, where I snagged two of them.  One of those decrepit bagged roses lived, with the result that I now have a 4 foot tall sprawling rose antique in my garden.

'Lillian Gibson', 2 years old and early in bloom

'Lillian Gibson' is a pink double rose that will grow to 5-10' tall at maturity, a tall shrub or a short climber.  In her second year, she is about 3 foot tall and 6 feet around for me.  This cross of  Rosa Blanda 'Aiton' X Red Star (hybrid tea) was an attempt by Hansen to create a line of thornless roses on the prairie.  There seems to be a little confusion about the actual rose, however, for some proclaim it's strong fragrance and others state that it has little or no fragrance.  I'm in the middle, allowing that she has some fragrance but it isn't overwhelming.  Walter Schowalter believed that there are two different 'Lillian Gibson' being grown, both of which were tall shrubs, hardy, once-blooming, with red winter canes, and without hips.  One, the true 'Lillian Gibson', has a few prickles and the flowers are shell pink.  The other, which Showalter dubbed 'Lillian Gibson Sibling' was completely thornless, a deeper rose color, and not as full.  I believe I've got the true one by this description as mine does have a few prickles and is a beautiful clear pink.  Hansen himself described 'Lillian Gibson' in the 1940 American Rose Annual as "the flowers are large, double, with over forty petals of a beautiful lively rose-pink, about three inches across, and with delightful rich fragrance. The plant, of strong, upright, sturdy growth, is a very abundant bloomer in late June; sparsely thorny on young shoots, with scattered thorns on the old shoots." 

Niels Ebbesen Hansen, whose nickname was the "Burbank of the Plains," was the first head of the horticulture department at South Dakota College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts and served from 1895 until 1937.  He was an intrepid plant explorer and introduced hundreds of varieties of alfalfa, forage grasses, fruits, and roses bred to thrive in the cold, arid conditions of the northern plains.  There is a picture of him here at this site.   Somewhere along the line, most of his rose introductions have been lost, but others live on in the genes of hardy Griffith Buck and Canadian Roses. The losses of those roses are sad for rose lovers on the Plains, but I can understand it if 'Lillian Gibson's sole claim to fame was as the "sensation of the 1938 Sioux Falls Flower Show."  That's sort of like being the Squash Queen in Hog Heaven Falls, Oklahoma.  Thankfully, however, dedicated rosarians like Suzy Verrier keep singing her praises and some remnants of 'Lillian Gibson' will always survive in obscure gardens like mine.  The photo of the full bush above and to the left is today's picture, with only the central bud in each cluster blooming.  I'll update this blog in a few days with a picture of her full bloom.


Update: 06/02/13.  On this date, almost two weeks after she started blooming, I'll declare the bloom cycle of 'Lillian Gibson' at peak; feast your eyes!  Can you say "Wow"!

Trailer Trash Therese

'Therese Bugnet'

I find it odd that I have never blogged about one of first roses I ever grew; a rose that I purchased once and have grown at two different houses and in multiple places at each house.  That almost forgotten rose is the pink Shrub rose 'Therese Bugnet'.

Why have I neglected her for so long in this blog?  I suppose that part of the blame lies in the fact that 'Therese Bugnet' is an uninspiring rose (someone had to say it!).  'Therese Bugnet', in short, is the trailer park trash of the rose world, in my opinion.  Her large (4 inch) medium-pink semidouble to lightly double blooms flatten quickly and are quite untidy, with an occasional white streak in a petal to mar her beauty along with the mussed-up coiffure. She blooms loosely and profusely early in the rose season, and after that initial flush she is remonant, but she blooms in a miserly fashion, never without a bloom, but seldom with more than just a few.  She has a few small small thorns, almost not noticed, but often just enough to prick the unsuspecting.   Her mildly rugose foliage is dull and light matte gray-green, and she has little to no fragrance in my yard to draw the gardener to her, although opinions about her fragrance vary widely across the Internet.   In my first garden she also had a tendency to sucker all over the place, but in my current stony clay soil both bushes have behaved themselves completely.

But she is also forgotten because she's so darned healthy and hardy.  She has a fabulous, beautiful early flush of blooms and then I never pay any attention to her until another year rolls around.  I've never sprayed that rugose foliage of  'Therese Bugnet' for blackspot, and she keeps all her leaves right up until fall.  Hardy to Zone 2, she has never exhibited the slightest winterkill in my region.  In fact, while I often find myself thinning dead canes out of other hardy roses each spring, 'Therese Bugnet' needs none of that.  I have two bushes that are 10 years old and I don't believe I've ever taken a lopper or pruner to her.  She is one of the first roses to bloom in the Spring, so despite the imperfect blooms, she is much appreciated at that time of year when gardeners are in the tight grip of groundhog syndrome.  In Fall, the leaves often turn a nice red-burgundy color, unusual among the roses, and her canes are dark red in the Winter to provide some nice color to a drab garden.  Winter, in fact, may be the best season for 'Therese Bugnet'.

'Therese Bugnet' in front of 'Harison's Yellow'

'Therese Bugnet' is a hybrid Rugosa bred by Georges Bugnet in Canada around 1941.  Like her trailer park persona, her actual bloodlines are muddied, since Bugnet used a mixed pollen of 'Betty Bland' and R. hugonis and others for pollen and the seed parent has traces of  R. kamtchatica, R. rugosa, R. macounnii, and R. amblyotis.  She grows between 5 and 7 feet tall in my climate, and her vaselike shape is loose and informal, sprawling over neighbors in a friendly manner.  When I compare what other reviews say about Therese, I feel guilty that I may be a little too hard on her.  Comments on helpmefind.com are uniformly positive about 'Therese Bugnet'.  Suzy Verrier, in Rosa Rugosa, says she thought at first that the rose was "overrated", but that it grew on her.   I tend, myself, to prefer her virginally-white and more rugose sister, 'Marie Bugnet'.  And it may be that I am just better at recognizing trailer trash when I see it.

An Enabling Y-Piece

As Readers of this blog know, I'm not in the habit of endorsing commercial products. I'm not affiliated with any company nor do I receive compensation other than personal satisfaction for this blog, but I felt I should pass on some information about a new tool that might benefit many arthritic or disabled gardeners out there.  The pictured item is named a "Push Button Tap Adaptor" and it is available from Gardener's Supply Company  in a "single tap" or "Y tap" configuration and both at a reasonable price (I thought).  This is the link for the adaptors.

I normally place Y-pieces on most of the outside faucets so that I can fill a bucket at the faucet and keep a longer hose attached at the same time, and so that I don't have to turn and turn the handles each time I want the water on or off.  I purchased these "Push Button Adaptors" for the novelty as I am not yet arthritic (as a surgeon, I don't want to jinx things up here), but I also thought this innovation might be somewhat easier on the delicate hands of Mrs. ProfessorRoush, and that it might thus miraculously even lead to a more willing garden helper. You all know how it is, there are a million quick-on tap adapters on the market (five pages of them at Amazon.com), but all involve turning some type of plastic or steel knob which is often very tight and requires some hand strength to turn.  I once, in fact, had an all-metal Y-piece that required a pair of pliers to turn the knobs.  It was a visit from a mildly arthritic friend, however, that alerted me that this simple push-button faucet might be very valuable to gardeners with disabilities or those who are aging less gracefully than others.

This tap adaptor is metal, but my initial impression was that it might not be too sturdy.  The body seemed to be made of that light zinc-like alloy and I was worried about its durability.  I also found out very quickly that I needed to throw away the plastic tap washer it came with and substitute a more supple rubber washer so to be able to tighten it to the point that it didn't leak. Then I learned the simple joy of it.  Push.On. Push. Off. On. Off. OnOffOnOffOnOff...  I've had it two weeks now, with pressure on it the whole time, and it hasn't leaked at all and the buttons push easily with a loud snap.  The water from the hose shuts on and off very fast,  just like I close an electrical switch rather than a water valve.

If you are in need of an easy access faucet, you might want to give this one a try.  Be careful where you buy it because some sites sell the identical unit for up to $20.00 as I discovered during a Web search.  Talk about gouging the unsuspecting!  At the more common price of $7.95 or $11.95 for a one or two tap adaptor respectively, you can hardly go wrong.   In fact, if mine lasts out at least the length of the summer, I'm happy enough with it to pay the $11.95 to replace it on a yearly basis.  It's that handy!

Purple Leaves Me Crabby

Please listen to ProfessorRoush:  you MUST plan your garden carefully rather than submit to the whims of spontaneous plant purchases and spectacular momentary blooms!  Science suggests that in an infinite number of parallel universes, almost anything can happen.  I'm almost sure, therefore, that somewhere out in the gardening universe, there exists a gardener who plans everything on paper, circles and borders and hardscapes each perfectly sized, and that mythical gardener later proceeds to shop for that clump of 'Stella de Oro' or that purple barberry planned to provide just the right size and color blob for each spot on the plan.  It's even conceivable that in one of those infinite parallel universes, there is a ProfessorRoush who plans his gardens before he plants.  In the rest of those infinite gardens, however, there is a crabby ProfessorRoush who planted too many purple-leaved crabapples.

Like many great artists and gardeners, I have evolved through a number of creative periods; my bedding plants phase, my daylily extravagance, the iris collection mania, the weeping evergreen saga, and my ornamental grasses affair.  My most notorious fleeting passion, however, was a "purple-leafed tree" period, which resulted in an entire front landscaping dominated by dreary dark-burgundy blobs, all individually beautiful, but collectively presenting a distressing and depressing display.  You all know how it happens.  In early Spring, you are seduced at a local nursery to purchase a 'Royalty' crabapple by the perfectly beautiful pinkish-purple blooms as seen above right.  Those claret, delicately-veined blooms are gorgeous, aren't they?  The fact that the plant will have burgundy leaves throughout the summer only adds to its theoretical interest and garden usefulness.  Price doesn't matter, we must have it!

Unfortunately, those burgundy leaves serve as an uncontrasting backdrop for the burgundy flowers and from over a few feet away, the flowers disappear into the foliage. Witness the tree in full bloom pictured at the left.  Now you've just got a dark, dirgeful blob in the lawn, and you're never sure when the plant is in bloom from a distance.  Deep in your addiction phase, now add in a similar 'Red Baron' crabapple purchased before you've learned your lesson, and a 'Canada Red' Prunus candedensis tree with purple leaves, and a Fraxinus americana 'Rosehill' Ash whose leaves turn burgundy in the Fall, and you've accidentally created a doleful landscape in purples.  Thankfully, a copper-red 'Profusion' crabapple died under my care as an infant tree and the 'Canada Red' has since enlisted the Kansas wind in an assisted-suicide pact, both proof that God exists and is attentive to foolish gardeners. 

A little variety, friends, goes a long way in a garden, and so does a little hard-won wisdom.  We've all done it, and those who missed their purple phase likely just substituted a white phase centered around Bradford Pears or suffered some other colorful catastrophe of their own making.  Although I later succumbed to a minor "shaggy-bark" tree infatuation that caused a smaller area of my landscape to appear as if massive dandruff had afflicted all the trees, I learned a substantial lesson during my burgundy fiasco and have since added maples and oaks, magnolias and sycamores, and cottonwoods and elms to the garden.  Given age and actuarial tables, I may never see the mature outcome of these efforts, but perhaps, someday, my landscape may look more like a planned garden and less like a watercolor scene created by a two-year-old with a penchant for purple.  I still don't have a garden plan, and I'm still subject to spontaneous purchases, but I persevere with the knowledge that time and nature will help correct my mistakes.