Did I perhaps breed this rose?

5 Oct '06 4:01 am

When I planted this rose to grow into a tree I thought it was New Dawn, of which I had many grown from cuttings. But it wurnt! This year it is truly magnificent, growing happily through a medium sized tree. It looks like a rambler rather than a climber. What is it??

Of all my seedlings only one ever had promise, growing away dramatically, a climber obviously, and repeat flowering (well remontent anyway!) with a smallish delicate pink bloom. It was only a year old when I asked Frans to plant it out into a bag. Then it was lost, presumed dead... I had named it Mothertjie - Mother + Afrikaans diminutive - my pet name for me mum. Does anyone recognise this rose? I don't suppose you could then tell me how it ended up in my nursery?? Or might it be the long lost Mothertjie???

5 Oct '06 9:09 pm

Well Jack, whatever she is, she is very very pretty. I love pink and white roses above all others... and climbers/ramblers most of all.
cheers
Susan
OZtralia

6 Oct '06 4:27 am

I agree with Susan!! The colour is so special! Tenderly translucent, a very special light pink!

When I first saw her yesterday, two other blooms I've seen came to my mind: Moosey's adorable * Baby Camelia (: http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/garden-journal-06/spring-garden-journal-697.html), and a new David Austin Rose I planted last Autumn : Rosemoor. This Rose's extraordinary photo and description in the D.Austin's Catalogue 2005-2006 , captured my imagination and.... I just needed this plant! With these very blooms! In this very special pink , exactly the same shade with yours! But what a disappointment! Because yes, her blooms are like those of the "Roses Anciennes", "particularly those of "De Meaux"(I have no idea of this Rose...), yes, she is "a charming little Rose" --75/100cm H , yes, she smells lovely, yes, she is healthy and almost thornless, but: her blooms are a little larger than the ...Fairy's and turn into petals from the second day on of their performance (?). And she is not "continually blooming", and she does not "repeat flowering"... My plans for her are to transplant her in a pot as a patio Rose, and plant in her spot a pink Floribunda I've been dreaming for years, for his proven performance and repeated awards : Sexy Rexy !! And I, personally, love his name, too!

I'm telling all these , just in case somebody else out there is stunned like me by the Catalogue's photos and descriptions of little Rosemoor......

6 Oct '06 8:57 am

I think your rose is absolutely beautiful, Jack. I love the surprise of it cascading out of the tree. I think you should name it and claim it for your mothertjie. How do you do that? Do you just send the picture to Ludwigs?

6 Oct '06 7:34 pm

I suspected this might be Apple Blossom - went on to Google - got a reference to a certain Moosey - checked it out ( http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/rose-garden/pink-rambler.html ) - did an image search - discovered this amazing site: http://www.rosenfoto.de/LiRosenfotoFSY.html - came to the conclusion that Apple Blossom was darker on the outside of the bloom whereas mine obviously fades as it opens and is at least semi-remontant. Now I need to go walking among a near neighbour's neglected but lovely old roses and see if I recognise it as a cutting - stolen (by me? my staff? - possible!) or even given and forgotten. Exciting!

PS: remember, Liza, that the David Austin roses are notorious for disappointing in their second year! Don't give up on Rosemoor yet!

6 Oct '06 8:51 pm

I think it would be more exciting if you dont find your beautiful rose at your neighbours, at least then you can call it your very own rose and give it a special name Very Happy

, at least until you do find out what it really is.

7 Oct '06 7:56 pm

How thorny is she, Jack?
That info might help narrow the field a bit.
cheers
Susan
OZtralia

8 Oct '06 2:49 am

How does one do this? It is thorny; thorny x2; thorny cubed Question

HELP MOOSEY, OH TEACHER OF SCIENCE AND MATHS Exclamation

Perhaps I must take a few pics and stroke a few twigs... will report back

9 Oct '06 8:19 am

Tonight I pondered and looked in all my rose books… think Noisette I thought: they tend to be well scented I read, but she is very slightly so; nothing seemed likely. So I went back to the ramblers: Dèbutante perhaps? Too pink. A sport of New Dawn, happened in my nursery? Unlikely: the flower is slighter, less full, with narrower, thinner petals.

A list for Sunday morning:
• photograph ALL details
• check and describe all details botanically (that will be a first for me!)
• compare with New Dawn
• walk across to neighbours and try to identify if it grows there
• do a colour-based internet search

Think about the history: it stood in the nursery with cuttings from New Dawn. It was planted as New Dawn – when? March 03? It flowered, months later, and was a pretty but feeble pink rose. By last summer it had grown sufficiently on the north side to need additional support. It was pretty and had me wondering. This summer it is well spread and flowering beyond the host tree – cascading from it, rather than lost in it. Flowering quite freely.

Perhaps it is a seedling – now it gets exciting. Of what? What does it most resemble? I rack my brains. I know I will never be certain, as all pollination was uncontrolled, and all heps added to a pool. A lucky dip, on the whole an unlucky dip. It looks like…aha! – Souvenir de Madame Lèonie Viennot. The same rather thin looking flowers… she grew on the wall of my house in Johannesburg… I planted her next to New Dawn…aha! Theirs were of the earliest heps I harvested, even before I started planting roses on Sequoia Farm. IF this is Mothertjie, she was one of the first seedlings I produced… Could it be? Might it be?

I add one more item to my list:
• compare Mothertjie botanically to New Dawn and Souvenir de Madame Lèonie Viennot

You see, almost imperceptibly, inevitably, the unknown rose has taken ownership of her name…

But Mothertjie is not the only rose about which I am excited at the moment. Flowering for me for the first time is Tiger Eyes, bred from the species rose Rosa persica, which has a yellow flower with a distinct wine red spot at the base of the petal. It is a breakthrough as there are not many descendants; the buds are a strong yellow fading quickly to a beautiful soft yellow and it has lovely fine blue-green foliage and promises to be an interesting and tough foliage shrub once its season is over.

I know only one other rose with the wine red spot: I saw it in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regents Park in 1995, growing and flowering spectacularly. However it was not yellow but strawberry pink. Its name, Euphrates, makes me certain that it was also a descendant. Has anyone any experience of this rose? I found my old '95 photo of it in my copy of Graham Stuart Thomas’ “Climbing Roses Old and New” when I was researching Mothertjie tonight. Thanks to modern digital photography, and on the spur of the moment, I include it here, as well as a ditto pic of Rosa persica! In fact I got quite sidetracked, and include pictures and captions from Phillips and Rix’s wonderful book ‘The Quest for the Rose’ (aren’t their various books magnificent!) wherein I discovered that Euphrates is indeed bred from R. persica! Then I got even more sidetracked and photographed paintings from Peter Harkness’ book ‘The Rose - A Colourful Inheritance’. Now all I need to confirm is who bred Tiger Eyes, code named CHEWtingle (sounds like a breath freshener) and what Nigel Hawthorne (named after the South African born actor) looks like. Surely the web will come to my rescue (again!). Later: CHEW is the code for Chris Warner who bred the rose in 2006, I found Nigel Hawthorne on www.rogersroses.com but it won't download; it is a feeble version of Euphrates.

Sunday morning
I set off on a quest – to see if I can find Mothertjie growing amongst the neighbours’ old roses. (Under garden visits I will write a separate post on my neighbours’ gardens with photos taken today.) In a rather neglected part up a side valley I have not visited for years, but was enthralled to discover more than 10 years ago, I find the roses I am looking for. First the white rose, which is infinitely more beautiful and impressive than when I last saw it – is it being cared for, or has the weather just been right for it this year? Then – my heart sinks – a pale pink rose. Yes, this is it. And next to it grows another rose I grew from a cutting and have since identified as ‘La Folette’. I must have taken the cuttings at the same time – but where then is MY white rose? And what are they all called? Is there a clue in the information I have from the beautifully researched, photographed and produced book by the Graham Stuart Thomas of South Africa: Gwen * – “Roses at the Cape of Good Hope”? She writes of Souvenir de Madame Lèonie Viennot that in 1898 a “Frenchman , Henri Cayeux, the technical director of the Botanic Garden at Lisbon, began experimenting with the hybridisation of Rosa gigantea, the wild Tea rose from China, by crossing it with other Teas. From ‘Sounenir de Madame Lèonie Viennot’ x R. gigantea he produced the pale rose-pink ‘Bela Portuguesa’ with large semi-double flowers, ‘Lusitania’ with smaller semi-double flowers and ‘Palmira Feifas’ with pale rose, medium sized flowers. All these climbers were extremely vigorous and floriferous in the warm climate of Lisbon… I have not been able to find these hybrids growing [in South Africa]…” Then she says of finally identifying ‘La Folette’: “Unlike the other Rosa gigantea hybrids which were bred by a Frenchman in the Botanic Gardens of Lisbon from 1898 onwards, ‘La Folette’ is an English rose raised in the garden of Lord Brougham by his gardener Busby in 1903. This brilliant climber (whose other parent is unknown) is seldom seen in England, however, for it grows best in a sunny, warm climate.” On our mountain ‘La Folette’ is known as the wild rose, and grows huge in many gardens. Having identified it, I must now try to identify the others, and find out if they also grow freely around here. But it all makes sense to me – right down to my identifying the similarity with the French lady remembered so eloquently…

Might I have ‘Lusitania’ or ‘Palmira Feifas’ or one of their sisters growing so vigorously and happily in sunny South Africa?

Later: the excellent search on classicroses.co.uk didn’t show anything. Paul’s Himalayan Musk seems to look a bit like it – but is strongly scented. The odd thing is it LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE THE IDEA OF A ROSE that I can’t believe I’m not finding matches left right and centre! Lusitania and Palmira Feifas I find no further record of. Oh – and check out www.rogersroses.com, the site of the above mentioned author Roger Phillips!

To be – hopefully – continued…

9 Oct '06 8:53 am

Dear Jack,
It's a wonderful story of deep research, of puzzlement and wonderment - and, as so often, Madame Nature has the last word! I have no faith in New Dawn, but I have tried to buy a sport of hers which is called Awakening, and is semi double. There was great excitement when Awakening arrived, but she never awakened properly, and was forgotten horribly by me (smothered by shrubs, weakened by lack of sunlight and water, all those gory details which we won't go into any further...)

I like your Tiger Eyes rose - how beautiful.

Jack, you could become a wonderfully famous breeder of wonderful new roses, as well as a wonderful teacher! Love the list with its bullet points - hee hee. By the way, knowing that all New Zealanders (except Pumpkin) are sports mad, you will be kind to us about the cricket ICC Champions Trophy (starting this week), won't you. New Zealand did manage to win it, some years back. Cheers!

Did I perhaps breed this rose?

Did I perhaps breed this rose?

what a beauty

Yes, she is gorgeous!

beautiful!

Apple Blossom?

So exciting

Measuring thorniness...

More about Mothertjie