Did I perhaps breed this rose?

9 Oct '06 6:42 pm

Jack , it is absolutely exciting following your Agatha Christie-like text and inquiring mind! I know how you feel, cause sometimes I happen to be obsessed myself with a plant search ... This extraordinarily beautiful Tiger Eyes Rose and adorable Ephrates , have made my gardening imagination fly to unimaginative colourful heights...

9 Oct '06 9:27 pm

In my 'garden visits' post I tell about going to look for my rose in the neighbour's garden. Here, unfortunately, photographed in the neighbour's garden, is the proof that I did not breed her - but we still don't know her name...

Other magnificent roses growing nearby are covered in that post.

9 Oct '06 10:30 pm

So! It is really intriguing , that her botanical name is still unknown!! The search is going on! And the more I see this absolute beauty, the more I find her ...irresistible!..

Your no 14 photo of Mothertjie is indeed so beautiful , like ...of a Fairy Tail...

9 Oct '06 10:34 pm

Wow, what can I say, dear Jack! You've bewitched me with all your stunning shots of your beautiful roses and led me to spend hours, delightfully enjoying Chritine Meile's site too (thanks for her link which I've added to my collection of gardening links! Very Happy

) and return here to find more awesome pics added! Thanks so much for sharing your passion! Very Happy

16 Oct '06 6:08 pm

Sunday. This afternoon I was in the nursery, selecting some plants to add to the Rosemary Borders. But first I checked on the roses to see how they were doing. There, among the ‘New Dawn’ was a strange rose, a climber in full flower. ‘And this?’ I asked old Frans. And with the phlegmatic and unmoved certainty of illiteracy and a huge language barrier he replies: ‘I don’t know it. It comes from under the trees. You asked me to pot it up.’ ‘When?’ ‘Long ago. Many years.’ I question, he answers. How did Mothertjie survive in the nursery for years without my ever suspecting her? But the original place seems right. The flower seems right. He is certain, and Frans, in his unperturbed way, is always happy to say ‘I don’t know’. He doesn’t invent things, what he remembers he remembers, what not – well: so what?

So this time I undertake not to question too deeply. This IS Mothertjie. The flowers are smaller but slightly stiffer than the other rose, as is the growth. The pink is darker on the edge of the petal, not in the centre. The blooms are smaller, only about 6-7cm across. In fact she is more like I remember her to be than the other rose is. We will plant her exactly as THE OTHER MOTHER (her name for now, I’ve just decided!) is planted, growing into a small Nuxia tree – this one on the edge of the waterlily pond, and part of the Beech Borders Axis. MOTHERTJIE has been identified. Amen.

24 Oct '06 1:46 am

‘Mothertjie’ has been planted against a Nuxia, a small fast-growing evergreen tree which grows wild on the farm. I trimmed the tree on Saturday. Hopefully the two will now grow in tandem, ‘Mothertjie’ getting enough light whilst the tree builds the strength to support her in her maturity, just as has happened with ‘The Other Mother’.

24 Oct '06 7:17 pm

Have to end this series with a pic I took last evening of Mothertjie herself in her rose garden, dead-heading – or rather: Trudy’s Rose Garden. Trudy is a great gardening friend of mine on the mountain, also in her 70s, and two years ago she offered me all her roses in return for some other plants (mainly trees); she was finding it more and more difficult to keep her roses in the condition she would have liked to, and rather than watch them deteriorate she gave them to me. I cleared our very first patch of garden on the farm, outside the side-window of the living-room of my parents’ house, and planted them there, so that in her old age my mom can admire them from inside – and as the garden is raised 40cm on two sides, she can tend at least some of the roses more easily! The bay window with the view onto the Ellensgate Garden is almost out of frame to the right. Unfortunately the netting against the deer has not been removed yet.

25 Oct '06 8:58 am

I like the idea of the raised beds, I'm sure your mother gets a lot of pleasure from seeing the roses.

Did I perhaps breed this rose?

Inquiring mind...

Mothertjie at the neighbours

Oh, Yes! She is Mothertjie!!

Fascinating!

MOTHERTJIE – finale

Mothertjie planted

Mothertjie herself