Today on December 30, 2016 I planted about five dozen open pollinated seeds from my nineteen year old own root and organically grown 'Seagull' here in south Tampa. In years past some seedlings resembled early Polyanthas, or miniatures like 'Popcorn' and 'Improved Popcorn'. Most are very fragrant. Always fun!

'Ruby Voodoo' is a rose I bred in Denver in July 1998. The Mom was the Hybrid Perpetual 'General Jacqueminot' from 1853 in my front yard, the pollen was from the Hybrid Tea 'Stephen's Big Purple' from the Cranford Rose Garden in Brooklyn when author Stephen Scanniello hosted me. The rose was chosen for commerce by the Colorado Plant Select Committee and is available retail, own root, from nurseries in Colorado and a few adjoining states. In Colorado it is incredibly cold hardy with no protection each winter. I love the Victorian look of each bloom, and the fragrance is a potent "Old Rose". I get a small royalty for each plant sold. High Country Roses in Denver sells it mail order and mailed me recently one for free to test here in Florida. One leaf was damaged by shipping but it already is growing well in an 18 gallon Water Wise Container Garden, lots of new growth. I'd be amazed if it grows well here since it so loves Colorado! Pics of the blooms were taken by people in Colorado...it'd be nice to see and smell the blooms again. I love the parentage!

This was suggested to me as a likely candidate for the true ID of "Shirley's Pink".....I am inclined to agree!

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.25259&tab=36&qn=2&qc=0

The original "Fairmount Proserpine" in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery.

Just before sundown I took pics of the Mystery Rose I bought YEARS ago in Thonotossassa, before I knew this house existed, while here from Denver landscaping for my customers. LONG story so I'll just say it grew in Denver, then Tampa, then gave it to my neighbor Shirley one winter when I stayed here a few months. No thorns on new growth, BARELY blooms here, and just in spring but the fragrance is simply incredible. I also took 4 cuttings and stuck them at sundown in a pot. My best guess all these years has been 'Reine des Violettes'.....study name is "Shirley's Pink". In JUST the right conditions in Denver, 'Reine des Violettes' can be amazingly purple, but is usually a shade of pink. This own root one has been in Tampa for 15 years. I gave Shirley a gallon of an awesome organic feeding solution, and after she waters it a second time I will give it a deep mulch for better health and to see if it can bloom more often.

My favorite rose breeder hands down, Warren Millington whose breadth and imagination are vast! Check out the pics of his MANY hybrids!

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=7.19509&tab=21

New blooms on "Secret Garden Musk Climber".....unbelievable cinnamon oil perfume!

LONG story...in 1995, three years before I bought my Tampa house, I was here from Denver in a rental car to service my landscape customers. I was told to visit a very old rosarian woman in Thonotossassa, I bought this rose from her potted collection and took it to Denver. Most of her roses came from northern Georgia. It was in Denver under glass in a pot, then in a Lutz garden north of Tampa, then I gave it to my neighbor Shirley here around 2000. Each spring she brings me one of the VERY few rose blooms, each with a fragrance that is simply incredible...it blooms just once a year here in Zone 9B. It has zero thorns, greyish-green leaves, gets maybe 5 feet tall here. She cuts it back each February, gives it chemical fertilizer now and then. I just gave her a home made one gallon jug filled with various wonderful organic nutrients mixed into water. Tomorrow she will apply it and give the rose a deep watering. I have always felt it likely is the Hybrid Perpetual 'Reine des Violettes' from 1860. She left a LONG cane uncut and told me to take it for cuttings tomorrow. The fragrance will take your breath away....my neighbor Theresa was simply amazed when I gave it to her!

Bloom on the old climber 'New Dawn' today. I a few moments later boinked it with Rosa laevigata (Cherokee Rose).

New growth on my own root 'Hansa' rose I got from White Flower Farm.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.1875

Four new blooms today on the climbing rose "Secret Garden Musk Climber".

'Eugene de Beauharnas' today, a little plant in a pot.

Open blooms of 'Alister Stella Gray' and 'Eugene de Beauharnias'....the second has incredible perfume!

'Alister Stella Gray'

Today's boinks: ('Alister Stella Gray' X Rosa laevigata) and ('Monsieur Tillier' X "Secret Garden Musk Climber")

I heard of the California Mystery Rose "Secret Garden Musk Climber" many years ago in Denver, long before I knew my Tampa house even existed. Hard to get...I was on the waiting list for two years. Famed rosarian Fred Boutin told me once he feels a possible parentage might be (unknown white Floribunda rose X Rosa moschata). Mine has been growing several months.....first bloom this morning. The fragrance is just like people say.....pure cinnamon oil!!! I so hope it thrives here like it does in southern California! Kim Rupert says it is not a good seed parent, so I picked the bloom and put in a baggie in the fridge as a pollen parent.

Today's rose boinks: (Duchesse de Brabant X "Barfield White Climber") and (Crepuscule X. Rosa laevigata).

First rose boinks of 2016.....(Duchesse de Brabant X Rosa laevigata) and (Duchesse de Brabant X "Pink Cracker Rose").

Hi Mr. Hansen, My name is John Starnes and when I lived and taught in Denver I spent 12 years teaching the board of Fairmount Cemetery just what they had there....a remarkable living treasure. I invited many rosarians to visit this great historic place, including Michael Shoup, Fred Boutin, Stephen Scanniello, William Grant and many many more to see the 77 roses I found on their 240 acres over the years. In 1997 I co-hosted the Heritage Rose Conference in Denver and loved taking nearly 200 rosarians to see and experience the grandeur of Fairmount Cemetery. I used my gardening column in The Rocky Mountain News to encourage people to visit, and sent cuttings of the very rare Mystery Roses to many rose growers, like "Fairmount Red" and "Fairmount Proserpine", year after year. I could bore you with endless details and developments, both good and bad, but instead I very deeply hope that you LISTEN to the many rosarians who are contacting you and others in Sacramento who simply want you all to just leave "well enough alone" and instead be proud of YOUR living treasure there. Many of the roses, like at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, are unique indeed and are deserving of being treasured vs. moved and/or destroyed. I am sure you are aware of the love that so many people feel for the cemetery and its Old Roses....please do not waste this opportunity to preserve it for countless generations. John Starnes 813 839 0881

These various pollens will be kept in the fridge and used over the next few months plus others, often on my favorite seed parents 'Francois Juranville' and 'Seagull'.

Tanja Vidovic did you take cuttings from the Mystery Rose I gave you, "Barfield White Climber" whose opening buds smell potently of fennel and anise? Mine is fourteen years old, own root, and has just begun its spring bloom. Zero thorns and zero diseases!

The old climber 'Marechal Neil' is blooming like crazy! It dates from 1864.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.4102&tab=1

My first bud of 2016 of my favorite seed parent, 'Francois Juranville'.

How cool to wonder what these open-pollinated seeds of the rambling rose 'Francis E. Lester' in Anne Belovich's garden will do for me after three months chilling in my refrigerator! What pollens from her other roses did the bees and wind bring the newly opened blooms?

How wonderful that I approached the delivery men across the street struggling with these HUGE cardboard boxes FILLED with MORE cardboard as they delighted in dropping them off in my driveway vs. taking them back to work to deal with. They weigh a TON! Then moments later a VERY strong man on a bicycle saw me struggling with all three and he PICKED them up and moved them for me to in front of my car! This should likely do the de-weeding of the whole front yard. I am blessed!

First official "boink" of 2016 happened today...... (Old Blush X Duchesse de Brabant)

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.2166&tab=1


http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.1661.6&tab=1

I've been growing and seeing this classic Mystery China called "Pink Cracker Rose" since the late 70s in Seminole Heights, Hyde Park and other places in older parts of Tampa. I started using it as an organic landscaper here in 1984 as it is problem free and blooms perpetually, with the fullest and most fragrant blossoms produced in the cooler winter months. But it VERY rarely produces hips...even the decades old giant hedge of it on Davis Island made a small number of hips after a few years of drought stress. My seventeen years old plant here in my south Tampa yard made a VERY rare hip I noticed and picked yesterday. But as is very often the case, it was empty of seeds (achenes). My suspicion lingers that it is either 'Burbank' or the sister seedling 'Santa Rosa'.

New open blooms on my 'Cramoisi Superieur' from the year 1832.

That rain two nights ago gave me today these two open blooms on my China Rose from 1832 called 'Cramoisi Superieur.

My main rose seed parent in Tampa, the old Wichuriana hybrid 'Francois Juranville' begins in about a month its 6 week spring bloom....a true "once-bloomer". But most of its "children" I produce with it are repeat blooming seedlings. Since 6 weeks per year is short, this year I've begun saving and drying almost open buds of various parents I use as the "Dad". I've done this for years by accident whereas this year it is my main focus. Here is the 'Francois Juranville' in full bloom some years back, as are three sacks with buds dated and labelled, each bag half open for a week or two to dry the pollen. I will also use all these pollens on my seventeen year old 'Seagull' rambler in spring.

Hopefully these new cuttings of central Florida's iconic "Pink Cracker Rose" will root to share with friends. I am making a LOT of them this spring to get this rose I fell in love with in the 70s in Seminole Heights is again widespread in our community.

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

After a very thunderous night's rain, how wonderful to wake up to this very fragrant bloom on my 'Eugene De Beauharnais' rose from the year 1838.

About ten days ago Debbie helped me to train the canes of my favorite breeder rose, 'Francois Juranville', up off the ground where they naturally grow and up onto a span of rebar on the west side of my front door. But this new shoot is what emerged a few years ago after the original, planted in 1999, succumbed to the huge (now gone) climber-from-Hell 'Mermaid' rose. I trained that original UP onto the trelis, believing the writings that it was sterile, but in 2003 I found it to be a VERY fertile seed (Mom) parent, so I trained this new shoot to span the rebar trelllis downward to encourage blooms THIS spring due to a geotropic response. It does not look like much now, spanning perhaps eight feet, but after having fed the roots with fish emulsion, Epsom salts, and a few handfuls of Dad's chemical fertilizer with trace elements, followed by a deep watering, the newly trained canes and their white clothesline training wires, should be fully clothed by abundant new growth in a couple of months. First pic is of the newly trained plant...the others are of the original some years back before being consumed by 'Mermaid'. It is the seed parent of my for-Florida climbing rose 'Gainesville Garnet'.

New bloom on my rose seedling (Blush Noisette Seedling X Spice). Quite decent perfume!