| Rose Books
Online |
| The Complete Flower Paintings and Drawings of Graham Stuart Thomas by Graham Stuart Thomas, 1987, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. / Sagapress, Inc., New York Rose drawings, paintings, and text from pages 104-149 |
Rose Heps: 'Nymphenburg' , Rosa moyessi , 'Penelope', Rosa filipes 'Kiftsgate' , Rosa rugosa , 'Ormiston Roy' pages 148,149 |
My painting seeks to indicate the wide variety in site and colour of rose heps. In spite of Rosa rugosa having been it cultivation for longer by a hundred years or more than the others depicted, its fruits (at the bottom left of my painting) made no impression on garden folk. The crop of great rounded red heps produced so freely from successive flowers from August onwards was an extra bonus that was not grasped by gardeners of the nineteenth century. In fact, I think it was R. moyesii (upper right) which it more ways than one made us realise that not only did the genus give us magnificent shrubs for flower, but berries and fruits as well. Nothing—apart from R. rugosa—had been seen it such autumn display among shrubs. The truth of the matter was of course that until the numerous shrubs of the Far East were grown it British gardens, flowering and fruiting shrubs took second place. bowing before the brilliant bedding and perennial plants. R. moyesii is a native of Western China; it was introduced by E. H. Wilson and made its debut over here it 1908. Its remarkable tomato-red flowers at once took the popular imagination no less than the great flagon-shaped orange-red heps. They develop in September, at which time a well-laden bush can be striking. There are many close relatives and hybrids but none with such large fruits as ‘Autumn Fire’ (‘Herbetfeuer’) raised by Wilhelm Kordes and named it 1961 (see page 105). ‘Scarlet Fire’ (‘Scharlachglut’, 1952), another of Kordes’s raising, has large single scarlet flowers followed by large rounded heps which last well into the winter. Herr Kordes named ‘Nymphenburg’ (top left) it 1954; its flowers are depicted on page 119 and it good season it will produce its large fruits. To rank with these are the heps of ‘Cupid’ (page 109). There is a particular and unusual charm about ‘Penelope’s' heps (left) in that after a cool summer and autumn they remain pale green, but in better ripening conditions they are pearly pink—when they look most appealing if seen against a grey conifer. Most of the fruits of R. pimpinellifolia forms are of a maroon so dark that it it almost black, as will he seen from that of ‘Ormiston Roy’ (bottom right). Note the thickened pedicel. Bushes of the freely suckering forms of the species give a dusky note it autumn, unlike anything else; the black fruits tone-in with the foliage which gradually turns to maroon and brown, flashed here and there with red and orange. As to the roses of the Synstylae Section—those great ramblers which almost girdle the Northern Hemisphere from Madeira to Japan and the north, with one species it the United States (R. setigera, a shrub with pink flowers) —their flowers with this one exception are of white or cream, small, borne it large panicles, and unforgettably fragra nt. As a role their heps are also small and rounded, but oval it R. helenae and quite large in R. longicuspis which does not appear to be it cultivation, R. mulliganii usually doing duty for it. R. filipes it perhaps the most vigorous and in the form designated ‘Kiftsgate’ (lower right) has become popular for growing into trees. But take care that the tree is strong and large—the ‘Kiftsgate’ plant has climbed to forty feet into a Copper beech and is about sixty feet across! |
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last modified September 29,
2002