Some Always Dependables
By MRS. FREDERICK L. KEAYS, Great Neck, L. I., N. Y.

From the 1944 American Rose Society Annual pgs. 37-42

F SOMEONE should ask what old rose of all the old roses we have grown is the most faithful, what old rose does not know how to fail, I think I would say without hesitation, the old White Rose of Parkinson (Rosa alba flore-pleno), the Rose of the House of York. It can take what comes, and give. Here it grows to nearly nine feet and nothing stops it. We grew it happily in Maryland. In northern New York State, in the mountains; it can take forty degrees below zero and suffer no harm. The old White Rose always blooms and never dies. If neglect and encroaching weeds and grass are to be endured there is no discount of its ability to beat the stress of such conditions. What more could be said for any rose?

     This is a June-flowering sort but we forgive its limited time when we see it blooming, its lovely double flowers in clusters on long sweeping branches which bend over and make a form like a lesser elm tree, or at the ends of shoots compounding its corymbs into large clusters, the opening flowers faintly touched with pink which soon goes, the many buds frilled and prettied with winged sepals. Its unusual blue foliage is an added attraction. The blue color takes on an atmospheric haziness due to the faint powdery bloom on the leaf-surface--something like the thin white mists of autumn. There is much loveliness to be found in an old white Rosa flore-pleno.

     Years ago varieties which were derived from this Alba were quite plentiful. Of these we have found at least two, one with a yellow. center and one of a soft unshaded flesh-color. Let us hope we shall find more of these roses. They are highly dependable to have just where we want something that can take care of itself and asks only a little from us.

     If someone should ask what everblooming rose is the most faithful among old roses, what rose. does not know how to fail, there would have to be two answers, the very old Rosa chinensis, Old Blush China, and the newer variety Gruss an Teplitz.

     Old Blush China is to be looked upon with a deep sense of faith. How long it had been the dependable rose of the Chinese gardens before it came to Europe and to us! It carries the concept of the strength of a long civilization; something bred and cherished. Old Blush was celebrated in painting and the decorating of vases in China for no telling how many generations.

     Here we have again a beautiful combination of pink, shaded, freely formed blossoms and foliage tinted and freshly clean. So free is this rose in blooming that the day rarely comes when there is not a flower to cut and bring into the house so the joy of roses may not be lacking.

     Old Blush China is not quite so prolific, here on Long Island, in its clustering and producing at the end of every shoot as it is in Maryland, but it does not fail. That it can take the hard blows was proved this year. Last winter we had a terrific drop in temperature in mid-December before winter cover was on. The old bushes took fourteen below zero and suffered only slight die-back. Younger plants froze to the soil-level but this spring the frozen bushes raised their fresh stalks and bloomed their gay clusters as maidens. In this last week of September every bush has done its share and is still blooming.

     Gruss an Teplitz, six bushes of it, has been on this place about twenty-five years, during which time it has had to take some tough bashes of temperature--one time when we had fifteen below for several days. Nothing daunted, the bushes took it and stayed with us.

     Gruss an Teplitz grows well as a free bush with no pruning but the removal of dead stalks. Here it reaches seven feet much of the time. Never has it failed to bloom its quota, spring to autumn, and, on some favorable occasions, we have had bunches of Gruss an Teplitz for the table on Thanksgiving Day. The rich glow of the scarlet-crimson double blooms, in clusters, suits so well the red-tinted foliage that the combination of roses and the leaves heartens one for the coming end of the rose season. Where so dependable faith can be placed in a good red rose, we can believe that another joyous summer of color and fragrance is promised us.

     In the past we have said much about the Old Blush Noisette, called Faded Pink Monthly in Maryland where we found it. It is far spread in that state and in Virginia and is faithful ever. But, the emphasis we would like to put down hard is that Old Blush Noisette is as faithful here as it ever was in Maryland. Several bushes of this beloved rose have grown to five and six feet tall and spread almost as much. Last winter's quick drop in temperature were nothing to this Old Blush. It laughed at the sudden cold, never turned a twig, woke up to charming foliage in the spring and bloomed its big clusters of pale musk-scented flowers. This last week of September little roses are there, mingled with bright pink buds, daintily winged on the sepals, promising beauty for some time to come. There is a rose which was not born to fail or to die. How far north this Musk and China hybrid could go is a question but its reputation for being tender is to this extent a myth.

     For a hundred years rose people have been placing their faith in that sweet little darling among pink roses, the Hermosa. If one were obliged to choose one rose and only one to carry along one's rose-love, it would be hard to forego Hermosa, small in size compared to modern roses, deeply globular on opening, expanding to a saucer shape with perfect regularity of petal arrangement, Hermosa satisfies a desire for beauty, even though the package be small. This precious beauty done up in the small package is pardoned. There is so much of it; a steady flow of blooms; the many small beads which make the season's string of beads. We have known many rose-lovers whose gardens did not satisfy them unless there was somewhere, tucked in among the glamorous moderns, the modest, faithful Hermosa. With them we conform. We would not wish to be without it. It keeps garden morale up and forward-looking.

     Another rose which makes for confidence and faith in the power to give rose-lovers heart is the Tea rose, Duchesse de Brabant, one of the old cup-shaped Teas, a soft rosy pink, well-balanced rose of delicious scent and beautiful foliage. A bunch of roses is here on the typewriter table. Two fragrances mingle: the scent of the Duchesse and the scent of Gruss an Teplitz. Old bushes of the Duchesse de Brabant froze to the soil last December, only to rise courageously in the spring and give their clustering constant bloom just as they can be depended upon to do. How far north one would dare to carry the Duchesse is a question. The many years we have had it here are evidence enough that Long Island is not too far. For us it is another "must have" rose. Our faith in it has never known a moment of doubt. It has not known how to fail.

     In this same bouquet of roses on the table is a bloom of the Bourbon Climber, Zephirine Drouhin, the one climbing rose we hope to have with us as long as our rose-life carries on, and the one we would choose, had we to decide between it and Silver Moon, much as we love Silver Moon. Its large open rose-red blooms are very fragrant. The deep red young foliage is as lovely as the roses are and the freedom with which the plant pushes up new stalks is a habit upon which one may pin his faith. A rose with that sort of vigor does not intend to die. The fact that the stalks are thornless does not mean so much. Thorns are a part of rose form and the absence of thorns, while an advantage in handling, gives a bush a somewhat bald appearance. Perhaps Zephirine Drouhin may not always and everywhere give an autumn flowering. It has with us. But the spring bloom, if that were all, and the gorgeous young foliage would be enough. The fragrance would be a borrowed asset.

     We said above what we thought about Rosa alba. It may be the upright habit of growing, the ability to get its foliage and blooms up into the sun and air, that makes Alba stronger and more faithful than Centifolia which bends, or Gallica which grows low or even Damascena. No one can doubt the substantial dependability of Centifolia. It has been proving its faithfulness for twenty centuries and is a rose of unquestionable soundness. One's faith in Centifolia is never open to doubt.

     Due to the shortage of labor in our vicinity, we have had to let nature have its way in a part of the place where many of the oldest and sincerest June-flowering bushes are planted. Occasional clearing of big weeds has been about all these bushes have had. Among them is a Centifolia which we have puzzled over for along time, to arrive finally at the conclusion that it is the old Childing's Provence of the English, probably a Centifolia somewhat hybridized with Gallica. This rose has no intention of being beaten out by lack of culture or competition with that lovely weed, the Queen's ear-rings or some such name. This hardy rose produced its uplifted compounded clusters made up of corymbs of blooms, grouping into fifteen or twenty or maybe more, bright pink to rosy red flowers, paleron the edges, each rose dressed for the season with the loveliest winged and spatulate sepals,--this delightful grandmother's rose bloomed in its extravagance as though it had been cultivated every week and there was not a weed within a hundred feet of it. The amusing thing about this rose is that it had a number of names, all based upon this production of immense and compounded clusters. It was called Mater Familias, La Mère Gigogne,--the old lady who lived in a shoe,--and Prolifera. The several names indicate that long life had already become a feature. A rose does not acquire a surplus of names if it is not a dependable, long-lived sort. We pin much faith in this old lady who lived in a shoe, otherwise Childing's, color-plates of which may be enjoyed in the old rose books.

     When speaking about the Centifolias and their splendid ability to hold onto life and do the expected thing, we must not omit the Moss roses. The less Moss roses are complicated by hybridizing the better they seem to be. Old Common Moss can take what comes. A variety raised by Victor Verdier in 1841 Called Malvina blooms in larger clusters and is very double; the pink flowers shaded at the edges and fragrant. This is a dependable Moss. The old red Moss found in many old gardens seems to feel its obligation to live and bloom. The red of this old Moss is a rosy red. The later Henri Martin is a richer color but not so well mossed. Old red never fails.

     In this little review of roses which do not know how to fail we should be sure to mention that old Hybrid Perpetual, Magna Charta. Among the first roses we planted on this place in 1915 or 1916, were two bushes of Magna Charta. One year some person dug up a bush and left a fine deep hole. The other of the two is with us yet and is a good old friend sure to perform every year. Recently a second plant was given to us and at this moment there is on it an autumn bloom. The older Hybrid Perpetuals have great staying power. With the infusion of Hybrid Tea into the Hybrid Perpetuals a strain of absolute certainty was weakened. The December freeze of last year gave a terrible beat-ing to Mrs. John Laing and Georg Arends and even to Frau Karl Druschki and descendants of that splendid rose. General Jacqueminot, American Beauty and Giant of Battles came smiling through.

     In these days when labor is practically out for most of us and our own time is limited in our gardens, we want the plants which are so tough, so hard to kill. No matter what the war demands of us, if we love roses, we want to be sure to have them. More than ever we must rest our hope for something beautiful upon the ones which do not know how to fail us. There are others than these few, to be sure, and each of us has his group of beloved stand-bys without which rose-gardening would be wanting in pleasure. As for me, I am happy with the old roses. We live in an old house, with old trees and shrubs, where we have grown older by more than a quarter of a century, much of it made pleasanter by the presence of old roses.

     The Reader is referred to Mrs. Keay's delightful book, "Old Roses", which may be bought from the Secretary for $3.--EDITOR.

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