An article from my old St. Pete Times gardening column that ran eight years until the paper hit hard times:

http://www.sptimes.com/News/121501/Floridian/Roses_for_noses.shtml

Susan Johnson all those panty hose you gave me to train my rambling roses are coming in very handy.....I use half an entire leg to attach main canes to the rebar, thin strips for thinner canes plus my tomatoes. Thank you! My 'Francois Juranville' is now retrained to its rebar arch using them and scavenged telephone wire.....I'm re-doing it from a young runner that survived after my monster rose 'Mermaid', which was magnificent for ten years, choked out the original and consumed my front yard to the point that I could not get in for two years! In the 90s a Florida rosarian announced that 'Mermaid' does poorly here but his plant was on Fortuniana and given vast amounts of water and chemical input. So in 1999 I planted an own root one here and it took off and for about 6 years it was manageable, a real show stopper that made people hit their brakes when they'd see the vast number of lovely yellow 5-petaled flowers. Then I simply lost control no matter how much/often I pruned due it suckering maniacally. It was useless as a breeder for me whereas 'Francois Juranville' gives me great seedlings so a friend and I used power tools to cut dowm 'Mermaid' and take a few truck loads to a local brush dump. I am still re-creating the front rose gardens ravaged by 'Mermaid, so it does my soul good to see that surviving cane of 'Francois Juranville' back up on that rebar.....attached is a pic of a portion of it before 'Mermaid' began to encroach on it....the salmony pink blooms smell of Granny Smith apple skin and Old Rose. Thank you!

I've neglected the poor thing for years yet it grows and blooms non-stop, thriving in a buried 4 gallon Water Wise Container Garden in my hot DRY west street bed. But the blooms have gotten much smaller and with far fewer petals. But now that the autumn cool down is here I'll give it a 50% cutback, a lush feeding of fish emulsion, chicken poop and Epsom salts plus a couple of deep waterings per month...by late winter/early spring the blooms should be lovely again. Of course I will try to root cuttings to share as this rose deserves to be in plenty of Florida landscapes. I agree....it really IS a drought resistant Tea Rose.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.3967

"Jo An's Pink Perpetual" from Denver's Fairmount Cemetery is budding up even more, with this new bloom open this morning. The fragrance is intoxicating Old Rose. On one of Fred Boutin's two visits to Denver the parent plant was in bloom.....he agreed with me...best guess on the ID was 'Champion Of The World'. This own root organically grown plant is 5-6 years old in an 18 gallon Water Wise Container Garden on the north side of my home. Lovely Victorian form. I'll be sure to use its pollen on 'Seagull' and 'Dr. Grill' and 'Teasing Georgia' next spring. This and other roses of mine are enjoying the autumn cool down...55 tomorrow night!

Kim Rupert just e-mailed me that Burbank himself gave plants of 'Burbank' to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford for their Florida homes! This along with Jack Holmes selling for Mother's Day 1933 a pink rose that it time got the nick name "Cracker Rose" could help explain why it was once so common in Florida! Kim likes the idea (as do I) of DNA mapping of 'Santa Rosa', 'Burbank' and "Pink Cracker Rose" to try to sort all this out.

NOW I see why some folks say there is confusion about 'Burbank' and 'Santa Rosa', both of which came from the same hip. BOTH remind me a GREAT deal of "Pink Cracker Rose".

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.5615



http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.872

My hyper-vigorous Mystery Rose "Barfield White Climber" has never been eager to set hips, either open-pollinated or from controlled pollinations, which is one reason I had stopped breeding with it. But maybe because of the first rainy summer in south Tampa in eight years it set quite a few this fall....it will be fun seeing what seedlings come from these, especially since 'Seagull', "Maggie" and 'Abraham Darby' are very nearby. Maybe a dozen years ago, Patty Barfield called me from her nursery in Dover, Florida to say she'd bought unknown unlabeled roses from a travelling plant salesman who said they made white blooms. Long story short...was initially a once blooming rambler, in year three became a remontant climber I named with her consent. Fred Boutin says it is thriving out his way, but Bill Grant's plant and Lee Sherman's plant in Albuquerque sulk...here it grows SO well I jokingly refer to it as Rosa kudzuensis! 99.999% prickle free, and opening buds teased open exude a POTENT anise/fennel scent that reminds me of David Austin's 'Proud Titania'.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40593&tab=1

Way back in the mid 70s when I was an art major at the Ybor campus of HCC and I was not into roses at all (though nuts about other plants) I noticed stunning specimens of this beauty here and there in Seminole Heights where I lived and elsewhere. I used a bike vs. car for seven years and so really got to know yards well .While I am overwhelmingly an own root man when it comes to OGR in most climates, here in Florida it seems that most moderns DO languish then fail own root. But Fortuniana is a VERY thirsty rootstock and this has become a very dry state since the 1970s. So I will root some Pink Cracker Roses and try budding moderns to them as this enigmatic China I have been looking into since 1982 utterly thrives for many decades even in conditions of total neglect. It can become a pillar rose or made into a dense hedge. It VERY rarely sets hips, has been a VERY poor parent for me (dammit!), is very remontant and disease-free, seems to FEED on nematodes (lol!) and I learned years ago was introduced to the area by Holmes Nursery for Mother's Day of 1933. Investigating it is what, literally, turned me into a rosarian. I have bought MANY pink Chinas over the years to compare, and after MUCH research I feel it is very likely either 'Burbank' or its sister seedling 'Santa Rosa'. It is very much NOT 'Old Blush'.Here is a link to my page about it at HMF.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.40071&tab=1

Half the fun of rose breeding, which I began doing in 1993, is the anticipation....while emasculating the blooms, choosing the pollen parents, applying the pollen, tagging and bagging the boinked bloom, watching the resulting hips enlarge and ripening, and, like today, sowing the actual hybrid seeds that result. Today I sowed into 4 inch pots the seeds from the 5 remaining hybrid hips of 'Seagull'....the pollen parents (Dads) were: 1 unknown, Louis XIV, unknown red Hybrid Tea, Duchesse de Brabant, Easlea's Golden Rambler. They were watered, have drained, now each 4 inch pot goes into a clear produce bag for 3-4 months in my fridge to induce cold stratification. If all goes well I'll have my first blooms on hybrid seedlings of 'Seagull' by late spring or early summer. The anticipation is delicious!

My rambling rose 'Seagull' continues to ripen a very large number of open pollinated hips whose seeds I'll be germinating playfully these next several months. With this batch I'll sow the seeds directly into a flat and skip the usual couple of months in the fridge to see what germination rate I'll get.