This rose species, Rosa multiflora, can be invasive in colder U.S. states where many decades ago it was planted on purpose for erosion control....I've met it in my many road trips between Denver and Tampa. I love the simple form of the bloom, and the sweetly sharp fragrance. Today I was blessed with hips of it in the mail! LONG shot in south Tampa between the lack of winter chill and nematodes, but why not at least try? IF they grow here, since it is a once bloomer, I MIGHT get blooms in 2016 for me to work with as a breeder, so I WILL be bugging a certain woman in Missouri next spring to mail me in normal envelope with one stamp a few dozen of the tiny barely opening buds so I can use the pollen on my Teas, Chinas and Noisettes, plus 'Teasing Georgia'.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.5366.5&tab=1

From two years ago when Pamela Greenewald asked Gene Waering and I and others to give talks at her spring rose festival there at Angel Gardens in north Florida. All of her roses are grown on their own roots and organically vs. on Fortuniana and endlessly sprayed. A shame the 2013 HRF Conference did not take tour goers there for a real eyeful! She is a high energy and delightful person and does SO much with just the help of her husband and with their own funding. Her curiosity about roses is insatiable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7H4JPFyCoo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_ioKCLsL0

I've started my first ever new FaceBook group! 'Sustainable Rose Growing in Florida'

https://www.facebook.com/groups/445842838861225/

'Cramoisi Superieur' entered commerce around 1834 and once was common in Florida where it thrives. For many years there was a HUGE hedge of it at the south end of the meridian for Bayshore Blvd. so people could enjoy the incredible perfume when they'd use the water fountain. Sadly, when I was in Denver, for some incredible reason the city dug it up!!! In Okeechobee where my Mom and Dad once lived there is a yard with several huge ones that have been thriving for decades, and the last time I was at Marie Selby Botanic Gardens in Sarasota there was a HUGE one growing next to the sidewalk and street, EASILY 8' X 8'! I am growing two here that my Dad rooted from the one I gave him and Mom maybe 20 years ago.....last time I was there to sell his place it still thrived with zero care.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.1355&tab=1

One of my life missions for my 60s is reminding Floridians that in the late 1900s and early 20th century, Florida landscapes boasted Chinas, Teas and Noisette roses, long before the advent of the Fortuniana root stock and modern chemical fungicides and insecticides. I used to love to curl up on the warm carpeted floor of the Denver Botanic Gardens library on snowy days and savor articles about this in old American Rose Society annuals. For sure, long term drought has very badly impacted rose growing here in central Florida, except for the wealthy and subsidized who can afford gargantuan water bills while plundering a plunging aquifer, but Floridians can grow own root and organically 'Cramoisi Superieur', 'Old Blush', 'Francois Juranville', 'Seagull', 'Leontine Gervais', "Barfield White Climber" and so many more without running up their water bills if they mulch deeply. I pee on my roses both for the water and the dissolved nutrients. Even if one prefers roses budded to R. fortuniana, they are very rarely retailed here. Some advocates of R. fortuniana bud their own as a result, an option not open to Florida gardeners and home owners who just want to enjoy the grace, beauty and fragrances of Old Roses. To me, pesticide-based, high water use rose gardening is not sustainable and discourages people here in Florida or elsewhere to even try roses. My intent is to see the iconic Mystery Rose "Pink Cracker Rose", that was common in Tampa up until the early 80s, once again widely available as it eats nematodes, laughs off fungal attacks, thrives own root and is very long-lived, plus is wonderfully fragrant.

The north side of "Barfield White Climber" is 95% pruned....I can see my fence again and repaint it! Thank goodness this monster is 99.9999% prickle free or I'd be a bloody mess! Hard to believe how LONG the severed canes are! I am almost certainly going to severely prune the south side, which is MUCH less vigorous to get light through for my street beds' winter plantings of nasturtiums, glads, white sweet alyssum and more. Now that 'Marechal Niel' is fully exposed I can that, oddly, it leaned NORTH and hence off the rebar trellis above it. It should not be too hard to prune it lightly then use a rake to push the main canes onto the rebar and lash them with phone lines I dumpster dived tons of brand new ones of at Dollar Tree. This whole project will make my property much tidier looking and the front flower beds MUCH sunnier. Its is going to take some work to turn that huge pile into mulch for the nearby Raja Puri banana but will be worth it.

I became an environmentalist in 1970, a rosarian in 1989....if I had to choose, the former is of far greater to importance to me as the world buckles under the weight of 7 billion human beings plundering its resources and polluting entire ecosystems and wiping out several species daily. As a native Floridian it has been disturbing for me to see my state go from lush wetness in the 60s and 70s to essentially permanent drought beginning in the mid 80s. Water tables have plunged. Watering restrictions are draconian and permanent. But I DO love roses too. As an organic landscaper I've planted hundreds of own root Teas, Chinas, Noisettes, Poly-Teas and Wichuraianas in clients' gardens since 1989 that thrived if kept deeply mulched, fed organically, and given a DEEP watering weekly. But I'll be the first to admit that most modern roses fail own root in Florida, likely due to drought and root knot nematodes...the ONLY two to thrive for my clients or me were 'Don Juan' and 'Abraham Darby', both of which have R. wichuraiana in their lineage. Modern roses on the Dr. Huey rootstock sold at Home Depot, etc. have the well-earned reputation of being little better than annuals unless grown in pots filled with rich compost...even then they hardly thrive. I know of a few lush rose gardens in the area based on the thirsty Fortuniana rootstock: one enjoys academic exemption from the watering restrictions that homeowners must abide by else face very daunting fines, and the others belong to VERY upscale people who can afford the Tier Three water bills they generate monthly with their elaborate watering systems. And they all rely heavily on pesticides that I could not be paid to use. So I am thinking of trying an experiment....I've not done any budding/grafting since the 70s and 80s when I was obsessed with euphorbias and cacti and had fun making chimeras.....I can't help but notice over the last decade or more that 'Seagull', "Pink Cracker Rose", "Barfield White Climber", 'Cramoisi Superieur', R. bracteata and R. laevigata, 'Mermaid' and 'Francois Juranville' all seem utterly immune to the nematodes and years of drought and my VERY scant use of water here. It might be a worthwhile effort to try using THEM as root stocks as see how modern roses budded to them might fare in the drought when not indulged in the lavish amounts of water given to most rose gardens based on R. fortuniana. A shortcoming of R. fortuniana is that it fans out an admirably WIDE root system, but it tends to stay in the top few inches of our sandy soil that holds water so poorly....perhaps those other roses that have laughed at all these years of drought send their roots down deeply? That's part of the fun of roses...always new things to learn and try if we have an open mind and don't succumb to dogma and habit.