I did some promising rose pollinations today, including pollinating the big pink Tea Rose 'Bon Silene' (good hip setter) with pollen from my white rambler 'Seagull'. I also pollinated 'Seagull' with my light pink Tea Rose 'Duchesse de Brabant'.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.788&tab=1


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Hard to believe I have these ultra rare roses in my life again! Not only does 'Louis XIV' boast that decadent, saturated purple maroon color, the scent is incredible. I've since the late 80s been baffled as to why it is classified as a China Rose when it is a seedling of the red Hybrid Perpetual 'General Jacqueminot' from 1853 that created exactly 100 years before I was born. Here are pics of my original pre-drought plants. I love the golden apricot tones of 'E. Veyrat Hermanos', a wonderful climbing Tea Noisette.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.2047&tab=1

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.1692

In my Denver yard my 'Seagull' rambling rose went WAY up into my cedar tree and spilled out of openings in the boughs. My 14 year old plant here in Tampa happily consumes a rebar trellis and has endured drought and neglect remarkably, and has broken dormancy, with HUNDREDS of buds emerging all over it. The sweet perfume is entrancing. Due to its extreme toughness, and because OP seedlings are almost always repeat bloomers, it will be central to my effort to breed own root roses that thrive in the drought that is now perennial in Florida and across the southeast. The pic is of a cluster a couple feet above my head this morning. I am crossing it mainly with large flowered repeat blooming roses, Old and Modern.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.5667

Woo Hoo!

I've tried for YEARS to get this rose, never could....Carol Meyer is mailing me her potted one!!!!! That tangerine toning blows my mind! THANKS Carol!

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"Barfield White Climber"

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First bloom of the season on my old Tea Rose 'Dr. Grill'

For many years now, my favorite yellow rose has been David Austin's breakthrough rose 'Graham Thomas'. In a stroke of genius he used 'Iceberg' in part to breed it for remontancy. I put a bud of GT in a coin envelope today to use this weekend as a "Dad" on 'Seagull'.

In 1989 in Denver I bought my very first Old Rose, 'Baronne Prevost' an Hybrid Perpetual from the year 1842...my neighbor Cherrie says it STILL thrives there. What a treat to have an own root, organically grown one here in my Tampa yard a second time for three years now, but THIS time in a buried 5 gallon Water Wise Container Garden. This bloom was from yesterday in the midday heat. Lovely perfume, buxom form.