Heath is at least 1600 feet above sea level and the winters are long and harsh. The wind that comes across our hill is known as the Montreal Express. The roses that survive here are hardy souls, mostly rugosas, gallicas, albas, Canadian Explorers and nameless roses that have grown in our area for generations. They are also relatively trouble free and need no coddling. A stroll along the Rose Walk is filled with fragrance. Let me take you on a Virtual Rose Viewing; the price for all this hardiness and fragrance is one big June show, and then sporadic bloom.
Because there are so many I have arranged them in categories. I’ll add photos to each, including Gallicas and Farmgirls as they come into bloom.
Rugosas – 9 so far
Albas - 7 so far
Damask - 3 so far
Farmgirls - 2 so far
Other roses - 13 so far
Rugosas
Everyone is familiar with rugosas. They grow on the beach. In sand. With salt spray in the air. They are among the easiest roses to grow and are almost totally carefree. Japanese beetles can be a problem, but I have laid down milky spore disease and have very little trouble with them. There are all kinds of rugosa hybrids, in addition to the single pink or white beach roses. They begin blooming in early June.
Rugosa alba
Rugosa alba is the beach rose. It has heavy ridged dark green foliage, that is never bothered by bugs or disease and fragrant single flowers. It will grow anywhere. Ours is a hedge at the top of the old barn foundation that forms our Sunken Garden.
Scabrosa
As far as I’m concerned Scabrosa is just like the pink beach roses, although the color may be slightly deeper. It has the same foliage, fragrance and it spreads in the same way. Parts may die out, but lots of new shoots come up every spring.
Corylus
Corylus is a low growing rugosa and the foliage is finer and a brighter green. It has the same propensity to spread everywhere. This is a problem because I grow the roses in the lawn, not a mulched bed, which would have been wiser.
Dart
Dart’s Dash is a rose I always admired at slide lectures but it does not have the depth of color I expected. I grows low and spreads beautifully.
Apart
Apart is very double with a gorgeous fragrance. I love it because it is as close as I will ever get to growing a cabbage rose.
- Belle Poitvine
Belle Poitvine is a lot like Apart, except that the blossoms are not quite as large. Just as fragrant, and at least as hardy. Belle blooms where there is shade.
Mount Blanc
Mount Blanc is double and fragrant like Apart, but it is taller, nearly six feet tall, and it has become a big bush, increasing in spread every year.
Blanc Double de Coubert
Blanc Double de Coubert is the white rugosa that always gets mentioned, and although it has a nice blossom, in my garden Mount Blanc is a much better rose. The plant is bigger, sturdier and hardier, and the flower bigger and more double and more fragrant.
Mrs. Doreen Pike
Mrs. Doreen Pike is an unusual rugosa. The familiar ridged foliage is a light bright green and the flowers have many tightly furled petals. She is not very big, but like all the rugosas she will spread. Sometimes in unexpected directions.
Albas
Alba roses are not really all white, but they are an old and hardy variety.
Passionate Nymph’s Thigh was the first rose we planted at the End of the Road. We planted her next to the front door which sounds like a nice idea, but the metal roof sends sheets of ice and icicles down on her every winter, for nearly 30 years now. But passionate nymphs have stamina, and so she endures. Fragrantly.
- Celestial
In my garden Celestial is among the hardiest and most lush of my roses. It is about 5 feet tall with almost that much spread.
Felicite Parmentier
Felicite Parmentier was planted in what turned out to be a terrible spot. The soil is poor and really too wet. I have essentially abandoned this part of the garden, but Felicite carries on. There has been winter kill every year, but every spring she struggles back even though all I do is give her a couple of shovels full of compost and trim off the dead wood. The small tightly furled flowers are a delicate shell pink with an equally delicate fragrance.
Alba semi-plena
This white alba is what Peter Beales’ book Classic Roses calls a ‘lax shrub.’ In my garden it gets a lot of shade (and albas are generally tolerant of some shade) and I like to think of it as gracefully arching. It has been in gardens since at least the 1500s.
Konigin von Danemark
Konigin von Danemark or the Queen of Danemark is supposed to be five feet tall. Mine is barely two feet tall, but the flowers seem to match the description of quartered pink, very double flowers with a button eye. A mystery.
Madame Plantier
According to my book, Classic Roses by Peter Beales, Madame Plantier can grow to be 20 feet. Not here in Heath! Planted last year she came through the winter and seems sturdy but so far has not gotten beyond 2 feet tall.
Mme Legras de St Germain
Mme Legras de St Germain survives in my garden, but she has never become ‘medium sized’ much less a ‘climber with support’. She is very beautiful and fragrant.
Damask Roses
- Belle Amour
Belle Amour is sometimes considered to be related to the albas. It is very difficult to identify and classify some roses. She is at least 5 feet tall and forms a large shrub.
Leda
Leda is also called Painted Damask for the red red markings at the margins of the petals, and the crimson shade of the buds. She is about 4 feet tall and becomes as wide.
Ispahan
Ispahan or Rose d’Isfahan is a rose from the Middle East and I always think it sounds like it should be growing in a Persian garden, but it blooms sturdily right here in Massachusetts. Occasionally there is a fair amount of winterkill, but it always recovers to bloom. She is about 6 feet tall.
Farmgirls
Rachel
Rachel is the largest and hardiest of my Farmgirls. These are the roses that have been given to me by neighbors in town, each nameless variety given the name of the donor. Rachel Sumner was one of Heath’s grande dames. The year before she died she invited me over to dig up a piece of this rose, which has not only thrived but survived twice on our hill.
Buckland Rose
I’ve put the Buckland rose here because she came from a Buckland farm, and it is a rose that grows all over Buckland. She is a strong grower, but easily controlled.
I recently realized that the mystery rose growing next to Rachel is the same as the Buckland Rose. I bought it from a nursery but immediately lost the record of the name. That means I also lost the opportunity to identify the Buckland rose. Alas.
Mabel
We had lived in our house for several years before we noticed this small rose bush growing underneath the vigorous ’snowball’ bush at the corner of our house. We transplanted her to a slightly better spot, but she continues to send up shoots at the corner of the house. I have also noticed that Alli’s Pink, given to me by a friend who has lived in Heath for at least 50 years is the same rose. I like to think of these women, long ago, passing roots and cuttings along to each other to add a bit of loveliness to their utilitarian gardens.
Other Roses
The Fairy
The Fairy is a wonderful, hardy, dependable rose that will bloom most of the summer. This polyantha is low but can become a sizeable shrub.
Applejack
Griffith Buck hybridized roses for hardiness. Applejack has come through more than 20 Heath winters, often with almost no care. It is planted at the head of our drive; a great welcome to those who come to the Rose Viewing.
Carefree Beauty
Carefree Beauty is another hardy Griffith Buck hybrid. I planted it last year and the low plant hardly seems big enough to hold the large flowers that are so different from the old fashioned roses on the Rose Walk. Carefree Beauty has more the form of a florist’s rose. Without the long stems.
Rosa glauca
Rosa glauca, formerly known as R. rubrifolia, is a showstopper on the Rose Walk. Not because of the flowers which are small and shatter easily, but because of its size and grace, the beautiful unusual color of the foliage. This was one of the first roses I planted, in 1984 or 85.
Rosa glauca
Here is a closer view of the foliage and flower.
Harrison
Harrison’s yellow is a thorny yellow rose with small leaved foliage. Yellow is not a common rose color and yellow roses tend to be less hardy, but Harrion’s Yellow is an exception.
Mystery rose
For years I have been calling this Rosa trigintipetala. It is tall and lax and sends out runners in every direction. To say it is a strong grower would be an understatement. However, I was just looking up information about trigintipetala, sometimes called Kazanlik, and found my rose is someone else altogether. Any suggestions?
Double Red Knockout
The Knockout roses are everywhere. I first saw them when visiting our daughter in Texas. After learning that they are supposed to be hardy I planted three last spring (‘08). They all came through the winter without too much trouble. This spring I added one to the two on the new Rose Bank where I hope they will make a good clump. The other is on the Rose Walk. They do not grow more than two feet tall, but the beautiful shade of red flowers bloom all summer. I don’t have much in the way of real red roses.
Champlain
Champlain is a real red rose. It is a marvel when the sun is shining on it. This is one of the hardy Canadian Explorer roses, but Champlain has been struggling ever since I planted it sevral years ago.
John Cabot
John Cabot is another of the Canadian Explorers. It is taller than Champlain, but not very lusty yet.
Mary Rose
Mary Rose is the only David Austin rose I have managed to keep alive. Heritage and Graham Thomas did all right for a while but finally succumbed to the wet. Abraham Darby which I love didn’t survive in even a good site. Othello and the Wife of Bath didn’t make it to a second season. But Mary Rose, one of Austin’s earliest hybrids described as the hardiest of his introductions has been fine in the Shed Bed for at least five years now.
Ghislaine de Feligonde
Ghislaine de Feligone is listed as a multiflora rambler. It is easy to see the multiflora part, but she hasn’t rambled much in three years. She is still quite small and low. I bought her because of the unusual apricot color shading to pale yellow. The photo does not do her justice.
Betty Prior
Betty Prior was born in 1935 and was an extremely popular repeat blooming rose for many years. She came through her first Heath winter with substantial damage, but has recovered nicely. She forms an upright bush with pink flowers blooming in clusters.
De la Grifferaie
Peter Beales says this sturdy rose is ‘not of great garden value’ but I hadn’t read that when I bought De la Grifferaie. She is one of my earliest roses, just over 4 feet tall with no ambitions to spread.
Heath is at least 1600 feet above sea level and the winters are long and harsh. The wind that comes across our hill is known as the Montreal Express. The roses that survive here are hardy souls, mostly rugosas, gallicas, albas, Canadian Explorers and nameless roses that have grown in our area for generations. They are also relatively trouble free and need no coddling. A stroll along the Rose Walk is filled with fragrance. Let me take you on a Virtual Rose Viewing; the price for all this hardiness and fragrance is one big June show, and then sporadic bloom.
By Mr. McGregor's Daughter, June 22, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
Lovely! I particularly admire those old Rose forms, although ‘Belle Pointvine’ is making me think I might need a second Rose.
By admin, June 23, 2009 @ 6:42 am
MMD – If you give her some sun she will be a substantial Grande Dame. If only she bloomed all summer.
By peter bremer, August 3, 2009 @ 5:48 am
Now i know too choose
By Paul, September 20, 2009 @ 9:37 pm
very nice roses, but what about Blackspot and Deer?
By admin, September 21, 2009 @ 6:58 am
Paul, Blackspot is not a problem at all. These roses are very hardy in every sense. I use no sprays. The milky spore disease I spread has almost eliminated Japanese beetles. The few who arrive usually do so after bloom season. I do have deer, but I am out in the country and they USUALLY have enough to eat elsewhere, although they did a job on my Brussels sprouts the other night.
Pat
By FlowerLady, December 12, 2009 @ 8:09 am
Your roses are beautiful! I love roses but cannot grow a lot of them down here in the sub-tropics, with our heat and humidity. I love your Rosa glauca, really neat seeing it growing like that.
FlowerLady
By stephanie, January 29, 2010 @ 12:52 am
i love your virtual rose viewing. This will be my second year for planting roses and I am still attempting to absorb as much knowledge as possible about all the care and information involved in growing plants. It is so hard to find roses that will grow in zone 5. My tried to grow roses many times, but we had many failures as well. So thank you so much for all the pictures and information about your roses. I look forward to all the good information to come.
By Kelly@LifeOutOfDoors, February 1, 2010 @ 10:50 am
Pat – what a great collection! I love hearing about non fussy roses that will survive the Montreal Express (brrrr….that does not sound fun). I can’t wait to try out a few in the spring. Thanks for visiting my site – great to know you.
Kelly