Rosa 'Safrano'

 

 

This is the famous old tea rose ‘Safrano’ – it dates from 1839, very early in the  hybridization of modern garden roses. I grew up being told that tea roses were not hardy in our climate. And indeed that seems to be the prevailing belief even now. But I was intrigued to read Mrs. Keays’ comments from about seventy-five years ago concerning this rose: she said it was “found…in almost every garden in our neighborhood” (her home was near Lusby, Calvert County, Maryland).

Note that it is a tea rose, not a hybrid tea rose. What’s the difference? That question is a lot harder to answer than it might at first seem, because the difference is one of degree and not a difference of kind. One way to put it into perspective is to realize that the original tea roses (there were two) were almost certainly already  hybrids and not, as was originally thought, new species. As a result, seedlings from these plants were much more variable than would have been the case had they been stable, relatively uniform species.  

Furthermore, the first European rosarians to acquire them immediately began to raise seedlings and, later in the nineteenth century, make deliberate crosses. For the rose growers of the early nineteenth century they must have seemed unbelievably sweet eye candy. They differed from the older European garden roses in prevailing flower color, habit of growth, foliage, poise of bloom and season of bloom. That so many of the old European garden roses survive is no doubt due to the one fault these new tea roses had: they lacked cold hardiness and thus they were not good garden plants in extremely cold climates. They were eventually crossed with just about every other compatible rose available, although they were hardly universally compatible for breeding purposes with other garden roses.  As a result, a new and very variable swarm of hybrid  garden roses arose. Throughout the nineteenth century these roses became bigger and more variable with respect to growth habit and hardiness.

By the second half of the nineteenth century it was becoming obvious that the tea group had become a bit unwieldy; the solution was to establish a new class of roses, the now familiar hybrid tea roses. The point of division between the old tea roses and the newly named hybrid tea roses is completely artificial and arbitrary. Basically, roses which produced larger, fuller, upright flowers with stouter canes and coarser foliage  became the hybrid teas. Several roses have been given the distinction of being the “first” hybrid tea; such decisions are a matter of opinion, not of fact. The fact is that all of these earliest hybrid teas were introduced as tea roses.  These early hybrid teas were to be subjected to a profound change at the end of the nineteenth century with the introduction of the genes for strong yellow color. Any rose with the Pernetiana roses in its background is at least as distinct from the other hybrid teas as those earliest hybrid teas were from their tea rose contemporaries. But so thoroughly reticulated has the hybridization of modern hybrid teas been that the only obvious legacies of the Pernetiana group are the bright yellow colors and blends made possible by them and the susceptibility to black spot disease.  

The tea rose shown above is Safrano, a rose which arose so early in the hybridization of modern garden roses that its identity as a tea rose has never been questioned. That’s not the case with the tea roses which were raised in the earliest twentieth century. Later in the year I hope to be able to show you a blossom of the rose ‘William R. Smith’, nominally a tea rose. The stud book, at least what we know of it, says that this is a tea rose. But the flowers, very big for a tea rose and borne on a thick-caned big and relatively hardy plant, say hybrid tea rose, and so it has been called by some observers.

My interest in this distinction between tea roses and hybrid tea roses on the one hand, and the distinction between hybrid tea roses and hybrid perpetual roses on the other hand, goes back to the earliest days of my learning about roses. The books I had were not in agreement about the placement of one rose in particular, the once very famous ‘Frau Karl Druschki’. To look at her, the Frau was a hybrid tea, and was so-considered by many rosarians. Many thought of it as the best white-flowered hybrid tea.  But there were those who waved the stud book, and the book recorded the embarrassing fact that the Frau had one parent which was a hybrid perpetual; in the beliefs of that school of thought this disqualified the Frau for consideration as a “true, pure” hybrid tea.

This sort of thing was important on the show bench, and doubtless reflected a less noble concern with miscegenation in the human population. What always puzzled me is why the Frau was considered to be a Hybrid Perpetual: if one parent was a Hybrid Perpetual and the other parent was a Hybrid Tea, it seems to me that the Frau was neither. But the rules were the rules, and it seems that they were the same for ostensibly white people who just happened to have a drop or two of black blood in the family history: they weren’t “true, pure” white. In retrospect these little social comedies seem to be just that, comedies. But there was a time when people took them seriously, both on the show bench and off.

But back to ‘Safrano’: if this rose settles down in this garden and grows as well as I expect it to, it will be well worth having. A lot has changed in the rose world in the nearly two hundred years since it was raised, and yet this rose has many of the qualities we look for in a good garden rose. It’s a keeper! And as a tea rose it’s also a souvenir of one of the most appreciated and important early phases of the development of our modern garden roses.  

Rosa hemisphaerica

I’ve been waiting to make this entry for years, and now that the time has come, I’ll have to temper my enthusiasm with a bit of disappointment. The rose shown in the images above is Rosa hemisphaerica. The very few of you who have grown this rose probably can guess the source of that disappointment: the garden performance of this rose has not changed much in the four hundred years since it was introduced to European gardens.

Back in the late 1970s I imported two grafted plants of this rose from Hilliers in England. Although those plants survived long enough to bloom, it was apparent from the beginning that it would be an uphill effort to keep them going. They made only halting, skimpy growth and they lost most of their foliage to black spot during the summer. One survived and built itself up enough to eventually bloom, but I eventually lost both plants. I still have good Kodachrome transparencies of the flowers produced by that plant.

If there had been an easy way to do so, I would have replaced those plants. But I could not find a domestic source, and I was not up to the hassles of importing again.

Now fast forward about thirty years. While idly doing internet searches one day in 2002, I hit on a domestic source for Rosa hemisphaerica: Greenmantle Nursery in Garberville, California.  But there was a catch: I would have to make a down payment and then wait for the rose to be propagated. I jumped at the chance, in particular because this would be a plant on its own roots. Marissa Fishman at Greenmantle must have the magic touch: plants in commerce in the past were invariably grafted as far as I know. I assumed I would get my rose in a year or two.

At this point add another eight years to the quest: it was not until April of 2010  that my rose arrived in the mail. Nor was it a particularly prepossessing example: it was healthy but there was not much to it. I planted it in a large ornamental tub rather than in the ground. It did not bloom that first year (I didn’t expect it to), but it did grow well- in that first season here that little plant put on more growth than those plants I had decades ago did the entire time they survived here. 

This week, it’s finally blooming, and most people on looking at the images above will probably be wondering why in the world I ever bothered to acquire this rose. The plant produced over a dozen flower buds this year; every one has been so densely packed with petals that the flower has split and the resulting blossom is more or less malformed. This rose has an old reputation for producing problem flowers: more often than not, the flowers ball (fail to expand normally) rather than open properly. So that is the source of my disappointment. But when it performs well and produces good flowers, you'll be very glad indeed that you have it.  I don’t have a perfect bloom to show you this year, but if it continues to thrive here there might be one in the future.  

How old is this rose? No one knows; Europeans became aware of  double, yellow-flowered roses growing in the gardens of the Middle East in the late sixteenth century. Those roses were  almost certainly this rose, although the similar rose which became known as ‘Persian Yellow’ when it was introduced in the early nineteenth century also might have existed that long ago and been seen by those early European observers. The rose under discussion here, Rosa hemisphaerica, seems to have been introduced to eastern European gardens in the very early seventeenth century. It was known to Clusius at the very beginning of the century (1601): although there is no indication that he saw a living plant, he related  a description by a Viennese noble woman of a display of paper cutouts of flowers which included double yellow roses (…inter eas erant et flavae rosae plenae…)

Here is the account from the Historia of Clusius; click on the image to enlarge it: 

Parkinson,  in his Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris  (1629), and the Johnson edition of Gerard (1633) both discuss it. In their time it was a very rare plant, a sort of trophy plant likely to be seen only in the gardens of the few.

Here is Parkinson's text; click on the image to enlarge it. Anyone who has grown this rose will find Parkinson's comments familiar.

This is the double flowered yellow rose seen in the still life paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It can be seen, for instance, in this piece dated c. 1720 by van Huysum from the collection of the National Gallery:

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=56255&image=13916&c=

This rose played no part in the development of modern yellow-flowered garden roses. In fact, until the end of the nineteenth century there were no hybrid roses of garden origin with strong yellow flowers. Throughout the nineteenth century there were yellow-flowered tea roses, but those roses had a pale yellow color which generally quickly faded in bright light. I’ll save the story of the development of the modern hybrid yellow-flowered roses for another post.

Later this week I’ll post an image of an early nineteenth century tea rose with some yellow in its coloration to give you an idea of the yellow seen in tea roses.

Paeonia officinalis 'Rubra Plena'

The image above shows the usual garden form of Paeonia officinalis known as 'Rubra Plena'. I purchased the pot-grown plant about two weeks ago; the flower is a bit smaller and less full than those seen on well grown large plants.

Until the end of the eighteenth century, this was the common garden peony in European and American gardens. The introduction of Paeonia lactiflora to Europe at the end of the eighteenth century, and the rapid development of seed grown cultivars of that species, soon displaced Paeonia officinalis, and today Paeonia officinalis is no longer the common garden peony.

American books sometimes call it the Memorial Day peony, but here in zone 7 Maryland it blooms long before that. In most areas it is said to bloom about two weeks before the start of the Paeonia lactiflora season. The scent of peonies of the lactiflora group varies, but many have very agreeable scents, some of them distinctly rose-like. The scent of Paeonia officinalis on the other hand is usually described disparagingly as soap-like.

Notholirion thomsonianum

With very few exceptions, the images on this blog have all come from my garden. I'm going to make an exception today.

The plant shown above is Notholirion thomsonianum. My friends Bob and Audrey grew it in that copiously planted and amazingly diversified garden they care for in Simpson Park, Alexandria, Virginia.

Although I grow this plant in my garden, my plant has never bloomed. In fact,until I saw the plant shown above I had never seen a Notholirion in bloom. Seeing it yesterday evening was like adding a new bird to one's life list. It also left me momentarily confused: I had expected this species to have white flowers with a narrower bell shape. When I got home I checked out the images for this species on Google: there is a bit of variation in flower shape and color. The form shown above is more decorative than those I've seen in some pictures.

When I asked them where they got their plant, their answer, "Jane McGary, 2006" had me laughing. That's where and when I got my plant! In the future, I'll set a better table for my plant.

Peony season 2011 begins

The first peonies of the year began to open yesterday. In most years, Paeonia mascula opens the year quickly followed by P. emodi and P. wittmanniana. This year P. emodi is taking its time, but this morning both P. mascula and P. wittmanniana were wide open.

In the images above Paeonia mascula is the pink flower, P. wittmanniana is the white one.

Some sensible gardeners, notwithstanding their admiration for these beautiful flowers, will not want to give space for them in their own gardens: the flowers are fleeting. And not only are the flowers fleeting but they fade if it is warm and sunny.

Thermopsis lanceolata

When this plant first made its debut in my circle of gardening friends there was confusion about its name. Three names were suggested: Th. lanceolata, Th. chinensis and Th. fabacea. I don't remember why we settled on Thermopsis lanceolata, but a consensus for that name seems to have emerged.

This plant is valuable for its early bloom and its ease of culture.

Tulipa 'Willem van Oranje'

The tulip shown above, 'Willem van Oranje' is a member of the double early group. It's a really beautiful bit of color, isn't it?

The plant itself is rather short and squat, but this is an advantage for tulips with such heavy flowers.  

Fritillaria acmopetala

If you are just beginning with fritillaries and you garden in a climate like this one, then the plant shown above, Fritillaria acmopetala, is a good one to start with. If well sited it will persist and increase.

The flower reflects the overall poise of the plant: somewhat stiff and elongated, as if it's a bit distressed to find itself crowded in with so many uncouth companions. The open rim of the flower is glossy as if highly varnished, and in common with many other frits the interior of the flower deserves a peek, too.

Morning walk

Here are some scenes from this morning's walk.

It's morel season, and it pays to keep one's eyes open during walks along the wood verges. At least two species of morel grow here, but neither ever seems abundant. The one in the image is the only one I've seen so far this year.

The little yellow violet is Viola pubescens , a very common species here. There are places in the woods where yellow and purple violets grow together and make a lively combination.

The final image is of a section of Rock Creek; the water is relatively high due to recent rains. I have seen kingfishers, wood ducks and mallards here, and an Eastern Phoebe haunts the nearby bridge.

Loddon lilies

The flowers in the image above are those of Leucojum aestivum,the Loddon lily or summer snowflake. This is a plant with lots of name problems. In much of the American South they are called snowdrops. And then there is the book name "summer snowflake". The summer snowflake does not bloom in the summer, it blooms in the spring (now). But if you know a bit of Latin, you can see where that bookish name comes from: aestivum is a Latin adjective meaning "of summer". To add to the confusion, there is a related species Leucojum vernum (vernum is Latin for "of spring") which blooms not in the spring but rather in the late winter here.
The name Loddon lily, not commonly used in North America, derives from the presence of plants, perhaps native, growing along the River Loddon in England.

Notice the difference in the size of the flowers in the image above. The big one in the middle is probably the old variety 'Gravetye', aka 'Gravetye Var.' or  'Gravetye Giant'.  It's unclear (to me at least) if this name was originally used for a particularly large-flowered clone or if the name originally was used for a group of large-flowered seedlings. Plants in commerce under this name are fertile and do form seeds, although I have not grown any on to see what they produce. The flower in the image was taken from a group which seemed to vary a lot in size.

The two flowers on the right of the image are what I think of as typical in size for  Leucojum aestivum.

The flowers on the left are from plants which have been in the garden for decades. They were received under the name Leucojum aestivum pulchellum, but I don't believe for a minute that that 's what they are.

Unlike Leucojum vernum, Leucojum aestivum thrives mightily in this area. It's a familiar sight in old gardens in the city, and while there are no doubt ruderal plants in the area, for a plant so long in cultivation it does not seem to have jumped the garden fence often. It obviously is better adapted to garden life than to life in the wild. It's a distinct personality in our garden flora: nothing else looks like it. And it's well worth having both in the garden and as a cut flower.

The genus name is derived from the classical Greek words for white and violet. The usual pronunciation puts the stress on the syllable co, but since the o in that syllable is short, if you know the Latin rules for the placement of the stress it might seem that the stress should be on the syllable leu-. But there is a catch here: what looks like a j in this word is in fact an i treated as a glide (or semivowel). In the original Greek the syllabification of the word would have been leu-co-i-on, and since the i is short, the stress according to the Latin rules would have been on the syllable co - where it remains to this day. You'll raise some eyebrows if you pronounce it Latin style.  

Tulipa 'Fringed Beauty'

This is Tulipa 'Fringed Beauty'. The tomato-red, the cheese yellow and the anchovy-dark anthers have me jokingly thinking of it as the pizza tulip. It's a favorite here, as much for its appearance as for its rarity. It is still in commercial production but is not offered regularly - years will pass when it is not offered. So I try to take good care of my stock - the plant you see above has been in the garden for years.

This is an old tulip, but I don't know how old. It was already old when the Dutch finally got around to formally registering tulip varieties (as recently as the early 1930s!). It shows at least two mutations, the fringe effect and the double petals. It presumably arose (I'm guessing here) as a normal, six-petaled tulip raised from seed sometime in the nineteenth century or earlier. That tulip then presumably sported to a multipetaled tulip, and then to a fringed multipetaled tulip. Or maybe the fringed sport happened first. Other things about this tulip suggest that it might be much older than the guess above. For one thing, it produces very small bulbs - even the bulbs supplied by the commercial growers are small. It's a short and rather squat tulip - again, qualities seen in the oldest garden tulips.

Fritillaria thunbergii

I've read that this plant is cultivated as a field crop in China for use in traditional medications.

Although the flowers are small for the genus and the color not at all exciting, the plant has a nice poise and grows vigorously and reliably in our gardens -and that's something which cannot be said for too many Fritillaria.

The plants in the image above arrived here in 2003 under the name Fritillaria involucrata.

Tulipa whittallii

Tulipa whittallii is said to be a tetraploid form of the Tulipa orphanidea group. Perhaps the name should be formatted as Tulipa orphanidea 'Whittallii'. It honors the nineteenth century collector Edward Whittall. As far as I know, the plant was collected only once, and the cultivated stock is derived from the original collection.

The plant shown above has been in the garden for a long time, probably over thirty years. This is one of the tulips which spreads by underground runners terminated by yet more bulbs. After a few years, the initial planting becomes a diffuse group of scattered plants. Tulips which reproduce this way are a good choice for turning loose in the less managed parts of the garden.

Several years ago the topic of tulips which spread by underground runners came up on one of the on-line discussion groups. I mentioned this species and its long persistence in my garden. Someone wrote to me and asked for a starter bulb. I went out to the garden to dig one, but then had a thought which until then I had not considered. The plants in my garden grew in the shade of some deciduous magnolias, and although they had spread around a lot, they had not bloomed for years. In fact, I could remember planting several tulips known to spread, and now I could not be sure that the ones I was looking at were Tulipa whittallii. So for the next two years I fed the colony heavily, and this year it finally paid off: they are blooming again and revealing their identity. Someone will now be getting a surprise package in the mail in a few weeks.

Other tulips which grow this way are Tulipa clusiana and T. sylvestris, and I have seen both naturalized and thriving (but not always blooming freely) in local gardens. 

A rose event

In a blog entry in April of 2010 I mentioned a rose of some historic importance which was once again growing in my garden after an absence of over twenty years:
http://mcwort.blogspot.com/2010/04/gardeners-need-patience.html

The rose in question is not a particularly vigorous sort, and it did not bloom last year (nor did I expect it to). But it did grow well, perhaps because finally I have it on its own roots. As it began to leaf out a few weeks ago I kept a very close watch on the new growth. The plant was growing very well, but there was no sign of flower buds developing - that was a big disappointment. The other day I took another look: there are flower buds, lots of them. With luck, I'll be posting an image of the flower in several weeks.

For now I'm not going to tell you what it is. Can any of you guess from the image above? I'm willing to guess that only well-read rosarians even know about this rose, and fewer have actually seen it in bloom. The only hint I'll give is that it is ancient (just how ancient no one knows) and was introduced to European gardens at the beginning of the seventeenth century. So if it goes on to bloom successfully here, it will be a big event for me. I still have a few good slides made in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I last grew this rose, but it will be great to get digital images.

Batrachian chorus

The local common toad, Bufo americanus, is now singing from the garden pond. At this time of year they sing in broad daylight and seem indifferent to the presence of potential predators. Or do they somehow know that there is no way I'm going to eat a toad? The air temperature when the photo was taken was over 85⁰ F and there was a breeze now and then, but otherwise it was quiet and still.  Today there were at least four toads at the pond, probably three males and one female. In the past, on peak nights, I've counted over thirty.


Toads have been singing from a neighbor's house only a few doors away for about two weeks. Each year the toads there begin earlier that they do here. That site is probably no more than 500 feet away.


The toads are not the only ones spawning in the pond. The goldfish are also spawning. If you didn't know any better, you might think the spawning goldfish were trying to get out of the pond. They form groups of four or five fish and thrash,flop and splash at the very edge of the pond.


In the image above you see a pair in amplexus.


I recorded the males singing today: take a listen:

A mystery peony

 

The botanical nomenclature of the wild peonies has been dicey for decades as each generation of new botanists takes yet another look at these plants and comes to different conclusions. With that in mind I should not have been surprised when, about forty years ago, I received a big healthy clump (said to have been imported from England) from a then well-known grower under the name Paeonia peregrina, a clump which when it flowered proved to be something else. That's the source of the annoyance here: the "something else" factor. The plant itself is big, healthy and beautiful. I've always been glad to have it. But what in the world is it? If it's an unhybridized peony of wild origin, it might be Paeonia arietina. But then it might not be. It might have been grown from garden seed of that species, and the seed might have been the result of an accidental hybridization. Or it might not have any connection with P. arietina at all.

Believe it or not, the two lower pictures above show the same plant in bloom, in bloom in different years when the growing conditions during peony season were very different. I'm sure many an armchair botanist might make them different species.

The top photo shows the new growth emerging bud-first from the ground. With this one you know where you stand bud-wise as soon as the new growth appears. This plant typically produces one big flower per stem. When the flowers first open and the dome of stamens is fresh it's a very beautiful sight.

This plant sets abundant viable seed.

Crocus reticulatus

My starter corm of Crocus reticulatus arrived in the late summer of 2005. It must have bloomed at least once since then, but there are no photos to prove it. And when it started to bloom this year, I had the unmistakable feeling that I was looking at something I had never seen before. Plenty of unusual crocuses are making the rounds now, and since I've never seen a crocus I didn't like, quite a few have been invited into the garden over the years.

If you are just getting started with crocuses, save your money and stick with the readily available named ones. Many of the less commonly grown ones are less commonly grown for a reason: they really are not that exciting. That's not to say that there are not some rare and very beautiful crocus out there; but most of what the genus has to offer in terms of beauty can be experienced in a carefully chosen collection of standard named cultivars of the misleadingly named chrysanthus hybrids. If you can, grow at least some of them in pots so you can easily pick them up and examine them at close range - or enjoy the pleasant companionship and fragrance they lend to a reading or bedside table.

Sempervivum 'Fame Montrose'

I know that there are those who take the attitude "if you can't grow anything else, there are always sedums and sempervivums". Some gardeners regard them as beginner's plants, hardly worth the consideration of serious gardeners - the sort of plant you would give to some kid in the neighborhood to nurture an interest in gardening. Others simply don't like the vaguely creepy, rubbery, fleshy leaves and dull, leaden colors. Our summers make their culture problematic. As it turns out, many sempervivums are not exactly care-free plants under our conditions. If you think you can plant them and forget them, you might have an unpleasant surprise coming.

And then, among gardeners who like to keep fastidious records,  there is the problem of the names. Pictures in catalogs or from on-line sources are not necessarily your friend when the time comes to match a nameless plant with a name: sempervivums are at their brightest and most colorful in the spring, but later most assume more quiet, duller tints - I've given up on trying to identify them during the summer when so many of them seem to look alike. The bright colors you see in the image above will fade during the summer.

Luckily there are a few which are so distinctive that you are not likely to confuse them with other varieties. The one shown above, 'Fame Montrose', is one such. The oddly truncated leaves are not unique among the garden forms, but you'll search a while before you find others like it.

I first saw this plant several years ago while judging a rock garden show in the Pittsburgh area. Our judging team awarded the plant a blue ribbon; only later did we learn that the plant had been exhibited by Carl Gehenio, one of the best rock gardeners in the Pittsburgh area. My friend Paul was on the same judging team, and when he was back in the Pittsburgh area earlier this year he obtained plants of 'Fame Montrose' and kindly gave me one. Thus it joins the ranks of those plants in this garden which serve as reminders of pleasant days among friends and their plants and gardens.

I don't yet know the history of this cultivar, but the name 'Montrose' suggests that another famous garden might be in its background. Does anyone know?

And here's another idea: a bit of checking has revealed that this cultivar spontaneously reverts back and forth between a typical sempervivum form and the form shown above with the tubular, truncated leaves. Hmmmm...In the old days, teratological forms were also described as being monstrous.


Is 'Montrose' supposed to be 'Monstrous' or 'Monstrosa'? Was there a sempervivum called 'Fame' before the ones which sport to the distorted form were discovered? If so, then 'Fame Monstrous' or 'Fame Monstrosa' make sense to me.

Asarum maximum 'Ling Ling'

This is a widely distributed cultivar of Asarum maximum named 'Ling Ling'. I have two accessions of this species; the other one was mentioned in this post:

http://mcwort.blogspot.com/2008/02/cold-frame-treasures.html

Here they are grown in cold frames, but I've seen them in other local gardens out in the open.

If the only asarums you know are the local Asarum canadense or the garden forms of A. europaeum, you will probably want Asarum maximum the first time you see it. The striking color combination is fetching enough, but the size of the flowers is what really does it. And the foliage of this species is evergreen.



Cardamine quinquefolia

This little charmer is Cardamine quinquefolia, and it made its debut in the gardens of my circle of friends only several years ago. I don't think any of us had seen a pink-flowered toothwort before that. When I first saw it I assumed that it was a pink-flowered form of the native toothwort, Cardamine concatenata (aka Dentaria laciniata). But no, this is a Eurasian species.

I obtained my start only last year (thank you, Dixie), and it's off to a good start.