Sorocco House Lavender

A rose that came from the Sacramento City Cemetery Open Garden rose sale. Believed to be similar to Madame Lambard (Lombard), a tea rose from 1877/78. It started the summer in my yard last year slowly, but picked up steam and quickly grew to be the second biggest bush of the roses I brought back from Sacramento.
The color changes quite a bit, and could easily be mistaken for more than one rose.

Another stroll through the Sacramento City Cemetery

I said that there would be more coming from the Sacramento City Cemetery Open Garden. Spring is taking so long to get here that I thought I would show this. 

Rosa indica major into the tree

Fortunes Double Yellow

Cuttings

Roses have been passed along from cuttings and suckers. When making cuttings, please make sure that the roses are not patented. Most patents last for 20 years, so if the rose is more than 20 years old, then it is likely to not have a patent.

Here is how I take stick cuttings.

 Start with cuttings, usually 4 to 6 inches long.

 Strip the leaves off of the base of the cutting. Dip in rooting hormone.

Put soil in a pot and stick the cutting in the pot. Cover the cuttings with some type of plastic to keep the moisture in. 

Like a mystery?

Old Garden Roses are full of them. Mostly based off  history and speculation. Granted Modern Roses date back to 1867. However Old Garden Roses' classes are older than that. And it was the old garden roses that plant explorers were paid to collect from China and other countries.
Having read lots of descriptions of roses dating earlier than 1867, a lot of roses fit in one description. Also there were multiple roses given the same name. And the same rose was often given multiple names.
Another factor in the history and speculation is names of roses were sometimes changed when the roses were introduced into other countries.
A couple of roses that could be speculated about are Bon Silene and Mme. Berkeley.
First the easier of the two, Mme Berkeley. Older descriptions of this rose states that it bears hips. Apparently in the 1970s a person found a rose that they believed to be Mme. Berkeley. Old roses faded out of popularity and many were lost. The rose was introduced back into the market as Mme. Berkeley. But alas, it doesn't have hips, so it is not the same as the original. Where did the original go, and who took it's place.
Now onto Bon Silene. Past descriptions for it describe it "seeding freely." Yet when I asked breeders now, they said that they don't get seeds. What happened? There is a recent rose that came from Bon Silene as the seed parent. Are there more than one rose that goes by the name of Bon Silene?

Bon Silene or something else?

So, if you like mysteries, history, and speculation, Old Garden Roses are the way to go.

Hubner Plot Tea

May 2018: a year in the ground. 

Pictures from 2017:

One of the roses that I bought at the Sacramento City Cemetery Open Garden rose sale. It is believed to possibly be the same as 'Rubens'. This is a young plant in my yard, I have had it for almost a year. I am hoping that the plant will bloom more consistently and grow better the older it gets. It is a nice color, and different than the normal pink a lot of roses are. For now it is a slow growing rose in my yard. It may be a good rose in a warmer climate than in the Willamette valley.

New growth from an unusual location

Quick, name where the new growth on roses comes from!
Time is up. You said from the stem or branches that are there right? Most of the time that is the case.
There are times though that the growth comes from the roots and/or the crown of the plant. These are called basal breaks and suckers, depending on their origin.
Basal breaks are a good thing. Suckers can be both good and bad. If the plant is grafted like the rose below, suckers are bad, because they can overpower the desired rose bush.

The grafted forms the knobby part where the green canes are. Basal breaks can come from it as well. Suckers, in this case are bad, would come from below the graft.

Own root roses can sucker as well, and this is necessarily a bad thing. By digging up suckers you can pass them on to other people. Some roses are easier to propagate by suckers than by cuttings.

Suckers on an own root rose

Basal break on an own root rose

The beginning of a sucker on an own root rose

Why roses?

Why grow roses?
What other plant grows for years, neglected, and yet attracts the attention of humans so frequently?
What other plant is so highly thought of that it is the name of it's own family, but members of the family include strawberries, blackberries, apples, peaches and pears?
The rose is the Queen of flowers. It was planted at loved ones graves in memory. One Rose's name translates to " in the memory of a friend". Roses are given to people. Different colors have different meanings, from love to purity to friendship. Roses get named after people.
Roses have a variety of scents. There is a whole industry built around the extraction of the rose scents.
Roses are in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. They are in folklore. There is even the Wars of the Roses in the 1400s.
There is a rose plant that is over a thousand years old. There is a rose tree that covers between 8000 and 9000 square feet.
There are a lot of reasons for growing roses. One of my favorite reasons is because of their beauty.