Rugosa Hybrids

My rugosas are in full bloom right now. I have a hundred foot long bed of them. What a sight and what a scent. Rosa rugosa is a species rose from Japan, Korea, north east China and the Russian Pacific Coast. It ranges in height from three to eight feet tall. The flowers are single and reddish purple or white. R. rugosa was introduced to Europe in the early 1800s. There was no hybridizing done with it until the end of the 19^th century. Most of that early work was done in France. They range in height from about two feet to eight feet tall. The blossoms may be single, semi-double, double or very double. Colors are reddish purple, pink, white or yellow. Rugosa hybrids are among the hardiest repeat blooming roses. They can be used in a mixed border or as specimens. The lower growing varieties can be bedded out. They are especially useful along roads where salt tolerance is a requirement. Although they suffer in alkaline soils, they can handle poor soils. These roses do not get any foliar diseases. Japanese beetles do love them. Do not spray them though, as their rough foliage is sensitive and will burn if sprayed even with a foliar feed.

There are usually only a few varieties offered in most nurseries. I have over 30 different rugosa hybrids growing here. The biggest of them all and one of my favorite roses is Sarah Van Fleet. It was hybridized by Dr. Walter Van Fleet in 1926. This rose grows to over eight feet tall and six feet wide in my garden. It starts blooming in early June. This year it started blooming Memorial Day weekend. It will continue to bloom until a hard frost. Sarah Van Fleet has a fragrance more like an old rose. The blooms are semi-double and medium pink in color. They fade some as they age. It does not set hips. This rose is extremely thorny. Wear a canvas jacket and gloves with gauntlets when you prune it. There will be some dieback (no more than 10%) after a very cold winter. This rose could be the focal point of a mixed border. It is in my border. Sarah Van Fleet would make an impenetrable hedge. The shortest rugosa hybrid and another of my favorites is White Roadrunner. This rose was developed in Germany by Kordes in 2001. It doesn’t grow more than two feet tall and has semi-double white flowers. The yellow stamens look great against the white petals. It is self cleaning, i.e., the petals fall off on its own. It does set a heavy crop of large, bright red rose hips. This rose also looks lovely in a mixed border. You might choose to line a path or driveway with it, as the white blossoms aid visibility at night.

Snow Pavement, AKA Schneekoppe was hybridized by Baum in Germany in 1984. Suzanne Verrier, in her great book, Rosa Rugosa, says the flowers are the color of “a drizzle of blackberry syrup in heavy cream.” It is heavily scented with a mix of rose and clove. This rose gets to be about four feet tall and as wide. Plant it near the edge of a border so you can stick your nose in a blossom as you walk by.

Rugosa hybrids are low maintenance roses. Give them a bucket of compost once a year as a top dressing and mulch them heavily to keep the soil moist and weeds down. Once established, prune about a third of the old canes to the ground every spring to encourage new growth. Own root plants will sucker and spread. They can be divided and replanted in the spring as soon as the ground can be worked. They do look lovely in thickets and drifts. For a list of the ones I grow see the Roses We Grow Page (click on the green icon to download an Excel spreadsheet) on our website, http://www.derrosenmeister.com/ For in-depth information on this wonderful group of plants, check out Suzanne Verrier’s book, Rosa Rugosa.

Favorite Rose Hybridizers

When I first started growing roses, I found myself drawn to particular colors. As time went on, I developed a fondness for the roses of particular hybridizers, and set out to collect their "works." Reading about their lives, and understanding what they set out to accomplish added to my appreciation of the roses I grow.

The first rose I ever grew was hybridized by and named after Dr. Walter Van Fleet (June 18, 1857 - January 26, 1922). He set out to create what he called "dooryard roses" - cold hardy, disease resistant climbers and ramblers with beautiful flowers and lush foliage that would look good even when out of bloom. He was born in Piermont, NY, where my younger sister, another rose fanatic lives. Van Fleet started out as a medical doctor. He was a man of ideals and passions- a man after my own heart. In the 1890s he was a part of the Ruskin Commonwealth Association, a utopian socialist colony in Tennessee. After the collapse of the Association, Van Fleet worked for the USDA, not as a doctor, but as a plant hybridizer, creating new varieties of small fruits, vegetables and ornamental flowers. Van Fleet was a major force in the American Rose Society, spreading the gospel of a rose for every yard. He crossed R. wichurana, R. setigera, and R. rugosa with old garden roses. New Dawn, one of the most influential climbing rose of the 20th century, was a sport of his rose, Dr. Van Fleet. Often forgotten because they are once bloomers, Van Fleet's climbers and ramblers can still be found growing around old homes and in cemeteries across the country. They would be wonderful additions to your garden.

Early on in my rose collecting, my younger sister, Cheri, gave me a plant of Rosarium Uetersen. She had grown it in her garden but hated the color, a salmon pink. I was wowed by the continuity, mass of bloom and flower form- it has between 100 and 140 petals! And so, I was exposed to another hybridizer, Wilhelm Kordes II (March 30, 1891 - November 11, 1976). Like Van Fleet, Kordes was a major force in the development of climbing roses in the 20th century. Born in Elmshorn, Germany, he learned his trade working in Germany, Switzerland, France and England. Like Van Fleet and the ARS, Kordes became influential in the German Rose Society. He established a nursery that is still in existence, run by his descendants. Kordes used what would later be called R. kordesii, a seedling of Max Graf (a R. rugosa and R. wichurana cross) to create his line of climbers. Cold hardy and disease resistant, these roses took the world by storm in the 1950s. R. kordesii was as invaluable as New Dawn in the development of 20th century climbers.

To see the range of roses developed by these two seminal hybridizers, go to www.helpmefind.com/rose/breeders.php and type in their names. If you have a favorite rose and want to find out more about the person who hybridized it and other roses they developed, go to www.helpmefind.com/rose/plants.php and type in the name of the roses. Please consider becoming a contributing member of Helpmefind. It is the best site, bar none, for information about roses.

Why grow roses?

Hi! Welcome to Thorny Issues, the blog of Der Rosenmeister’s Nursery.

I am Lee Ginenthal, owner of Der Rosenmeister, a small, family run specialty nursery in Ithaca, NY offering the best in cold hardy, disease resistant roses and all the information needed to grow them.

Renate Schmitt, my wife, and me, the first year we were in our new location on 190 Seven Mile Drive, Ithaca, NY.

There is not much to do out in the rose garden at this time of year. There are cuttings to tend to under the lights. There is the latest issue of Rosa Mundi, the journal of the Heritage Rose Foundation, to read along with piles of rose books, old and new. Winter provides the luxury of time to reflect on the past year in the rose garden, as well as, to dream about and plan for the coming year. Roses are a large part of my life.

Why do I grow roses?

My initial is response is that roses connect me with special people in my life. My grandmother, Sadie Wheat, loved growing roses. When she died, my mom, Audrey, rooted a cutting of one of Grandma’s favorite roses, a once-blooming rambler, Dr. W. Van Fleet. This was the first rose I grew. It was while trying to identify it that I got hooked on old roses. I cannot see or smell that rose without thinking of my grandmother or my mom.

What is the first thing you do when you see a rose? Smell it, right? Well, scent is another reason I grow roses. The scent of a rose is as complex as the flavor of a good wine. Each variety has its own distinctive blend of scents. More about that in a future blog. Whether I am just walking through my roses or working in the rose beds, I am compelled to sniff and savor the scents they offer. That simple act impacts my thoughts and feelings.

Another reason to grow roses is the color of the blossoms. Roses come in a wide range of colors except for blue. Some varieties are blends of colors, while others are picoteed, striped or mottled or freckled. What is my favorite color rose? Well, that depends on what is in bloom at the moment.

Another reason I grow roses has to do with their history and stories. On my hillside here in the Fingerlakes of NY, I have roses grown by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, roses grown in Europe in the Middle Ages in cloistered gardens, roses grown by the Empress Josephine in her garden at Malmaison, roses from many countries throughout the northern hemisphere. I have over 300 varieties at last count. Some roses are named after people –famous and infamous- historic as well as literary. Like people, every rose has a story.

Why do I grow roses? They bring me joy. I love to share my roses and this passion with others.

Why do you grow roses? Please feel free to tell your story.