'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.