Rosa x alba 'Semi-plena'
This rose was planted on a patch of bare soil where a play-house stood for half a dozen years. A year later, a trip to Monticello inspired me to build a rustic 40 foot long pergola over this same spot and 'Semi-plena' had to make way. She found her home in a partly sunny shrub and perennial border where she has settled in nicely and grown to over 7 foot tall-- arching over an adjacent ornamental dwarf red buckeye. The mid-May bloom season lasts but four weeks and big oblong hips start forming immediately. A tough old rose that loses some leaves to black spot, but earns her keep through her fragrant, delicate blooms and her pleasing robust form. I'm a sucker for prominent stamens, so the slightly scented blooms have visual attraction as well. Clematis integrafolia was planted nearby in hopes of providing a little mid-summer cover. The hips persist well into winter and remind me of a warmer and greener season. kbk 99 AUG 4
"As with the oldest Gallica and Damask roses, the origin of the White rose is lost in what are generally called the "mists of time." the rose depicted by Parsons is undoubtedly what we grow today as Rosa x alba 'Semiplena', but just when this originated is not known. During its long life it has "sported" to the fully double white 'Maxima', which in turn has reverted to 'Semiplena' in plants under my care, and recently at Mottisfont it produced a branch with flowers of only five petals. Unfortunately the branch died before it had been propagated.
These roses are very different from the hybrid Gallicas and Damasks and their relatives, showing in their smooth green wood and the few large, hooked prickles, an influence which is always attributed to R. canina, the Dog rose, as are its hard, greyish leaves. It is generally believed to be a hybrid of the Summer Damask with a white-flowered geographical form or botanical variety of R. canina. such roses occur in eastern Europe and western Asia and are know as R. corymbifera or R. dumetorum.
R. x alba 'Semiplena' is a very vigorous, woody, stout shrub and will grow readily to 2.4m (8 feet) or more, and as wide, and is extremely long-lived. In Bulgaria it is grown as a sort of hedge around the fields of Damask roses, but does not produce such pure attar."
---an Alfred Parsons' painting and text by Graham Stuart Thomas from A Garden of Roses , 1987
The Rose in the garden
slipped her bud,
And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood,
As
she thought of the Gardener standing by --
"He is old, -- so old! And he
soon must die!"
The full Rose waxed in the warm June air,
And she
spread and spread till her heart lay bare;
And she laughed once more as she
heard his tread --
"He is older now! He will soon be dead!"
But the
breeze of the morning blew, and found
That the leaves of the blown Rose
strewed the ground;
And he came at noon, that Gardener old,
And he raked
them gently under the mould.
And I wove the thing to a random
ryme,
For the Rose is Beauty, and the Gardener, Time.
A Fancy from
Fontenelle by Austin Dobson, London, 1885
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