Friday, February 25, 2011

Of Roses and Stripes

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most roses are pink (or red, or white, or any other color except blue). It seems that the best roses come in solid colors, and that's also how most people like them.


Double Delight
However,  every once in a while one comes upon a rose that's bicolored...















'HRG Mottled Gallica', maybe Belle de Crecy
...or mottled (with irregular  blotches of another color)...












Handel

...or picoteed (edges in a contrasting color)...


















The Imposter
...or spotted...
















Variegata di Bologna
...or striped.



















People seem to react strongly to these unusual blooms, either loving or hating such bold contrasts of color. I confess that in my heart I find it difficult to love them because they seem a bit busy, but I appreciate them as a collector, and have found room for a few.

Camille Pisarro

A lot of striped roses originate as genetic mutations (called "sports") of a solid color rose. When such mutations are stable (i.e. consistently producing striped flowers and not reverting to the original rose), they may be named and distributed to the rose-growing public.


Rockin' Robin

Since these mutations are spontaneous and cannot easily be obtained through breeding, and sometimes even with vegetative propagation, roses with color quirks are a much rarer sight than solid color ones.

Vanity
What interests me in striped roses is that, unlike solid color roses,  no two striped blooms are exactly alike.

Camille Pisarro
 Very often, one bloom will show much more of one color while the bloom right next to it will be mostly the other color.
































George Burns
The pattern of stripes never looks the same either.

Most striped blooms I have seen age gracefully, fading gently to a nice soft color, as in the picture below, although striping is sometimes lost in an old bloom.

Camille Pisarro














Careless Love









Of all the thousands of rose images I have taken there are only two (at right and below) that illustrate a rare process of a striped rose reverting to its solid color parent right in the middle of one bloom.
Careless Love

Both of these are of a Hybrid Tea called Careless Love, a striped sport of Red Radiance, which itself is a sport of Radiance, a solid pink Hybrid Tea (sheesh, this is complicated). In these pictures Careless Love is gradually reverting to its pink grandmother, Radiance, which is probably the most genetically stable of the three cultivars.

Careless Love

Above, whole canes of Careless Love (the striped rose) are producing sold pink blooms of Radiance. If these canes are not cut out entirely, with time the whole bush will revert, and little or no striping will occur. Interesting to see Nature at work.

Candy Cane

48 comments:

  1. I love roses, all roses.
    And when they smell sweet like a rose I even love them more. They make me very happy.
    Greetings, Diny

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  2. Hi Masha
    Wat heb je dit goed uitgelegd.Ik leer hier van en kijk nu toch anders naar rozen.
    Bedankt voor je mooie fotopresentatie van de diverse kleurschakeringen.
    Lieve groetjes, Elly

    P.S. Ik heb gezien dat jij een "translator" op je site hebt. Daarom mijn reactie in het Nederlands. Hij vertaald niet helemaal goed, maar jij begrijpt wel wat ik met mijn reactie bedoel.

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  3. Kochasz roże, to widać. Mnie szczególnie podoba się Rockin'Robin. Pozdrawiam

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  4. Wow ~ what beautiful roses. I LOVE Camille Pissaro and George Burns. Love Handel too and The Imposter is a real sweetie.

    Thanks for sharing your lovely roses and information.

    FlowerLady

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  5. Dear Masha, the second one is very delicate. I'm back to Paris and ready to post again! Hope you're well.
    Gabriel

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  6. Lovely pictures! I've always liked the striped and multicolored roses. But, I think all roses are beautiful. I think I'll try to find a "George Burns" for my garden, it's so bright and happy looking!

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  7. Thank you, Diny, me too:-). If it is fragrant, I have to have it!

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  8. Hi Elly and thank you for commenting. I wish I understood Dutch a little better.

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  9. Thank you, Giga. I agree, Rockin' Robin is a lovely rose. I am glad you liked it.

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  10. Thank you, FlowerLady. I am so glad you like them. I grow George Burns for the fragrance, and Camille Pisarro is a very profuse bloomer.

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  11. Thank you for stopping by Gabriel. I hope you made more pictures on your trip!

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  12. Thank you, Shannon, I hope you find and like growing GB, good luck!

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  13. Oh my goodness...Be still my heart! That pink and yellow striped is just delish!!!

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  14. Great post, Masha! Even though I will openly admit that usually I find striped roses a little bit too restless to grow them in my own garden, I enjoy seeing them in others. There is only one exception and this is 'Variegeta di Bologna', which is one of the most beautiful roses I ever came across and it has a great fragrance, too. Unfortunately it is not supposed to grow in my warm San Diego climate.
    I always was not clear about what mottled, picoteed and spotted really means in terms of rose colorations. Now, thanks to your post, I know!
    Christina

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  15. Thank you, Darla, and I am glad to hear from you again.

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  16. Thank you, Christina, for your nice comment. I miss VdiB, but it was sick with every possible (and impossible) foliar disease, and I got rid of it. You are right not to try it...

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  17. This is an interesting post. I like striped roses. I once saw one called "Julio Iglesias", and now I want it in my garden.
    Your photos are very beautiful!

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  18. Thank you, Olga. I have heard Julio Iglesias praised by some California rose growers. It is fragrant too, so I think you should go for it.

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  19. Great pictures, Masha! Looking at them I realized how much I'm looking forward to spring and summer. To see all the beautiful flowers coloring our gardens. Right now there is only one major color in my garden - white. Everything is covered with snow and frozen. Can't wait for it to melt and get green...

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  20. The fragrance in your garden must be heavenly Masha! Lovely photos of your roses!

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  21. Thank you, Olgochka, and nice to meet you. I miss snow:-). But spring is coming to you too!

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  22. Thank you, Carol, and so nice to hear from you again. I garden on a much smaller scale than you, but always go for fragrance. I don't have lots of berries, but I do grow lots of spiky plants that hummers love.

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  23. I am not too fond of stripped roses but your images are lovely and my favorite way to see them.

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  24. Thank you, Donna. I understand the dislike but thought it would be interesting to write about how they come to be.

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  25. Great post, Masha. Your roses are beautiful and unusual. I don't think I ever saw a rose with freckles like Imposter before!

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  26. Thank you and nice to meet you!

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  27. So interesting, Masha, and lovely as always. I have a weakness for 'Variegata di Bologna' myself.

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  28. Thank you, Sherry, me too. It is a good thing I managed to crop out all the rusty leaves:)

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  29. I sort of feel the same way you do... I like to see these type of roses (a neighbor up the block from me has a fantastic one I believe is Joseph's Coat), but I can't actually bring myself to pick a rose thats more than one color. Same for camellias. There is something of the feeling that someone got caught midway through "painting the roses red, someone will lose their head!"

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  30. Thank you, Jess, that was so funny! I just dug out my Joseph's Coat because it clashed so badly with everything around it (but it was such a profuse bloomer and so healthy I really tried to keep it...). I have a friend who likes bright roses, so hopefully she will enjoy it more than I did.

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  31. I admit they're not the most subtle of flowers, but I've always enjoyed striped roses. In my teen years I planted one of the striped moss roses and Honorine de Brabant. Both were terrible growers but striped roses were terribly rare in the marketplace back then. I enjoyed viewing your gallery of some of the more recent introductions. It's interesting how some are fairly subtle, while others...well, there's George Burns....

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  32. I'm amazed at the striped ones. Totally amazed. I want some for my collection of unusual plants but sadly, roses do not fare well in our climate.

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  33. Masha, How many varieties do you have? I haven't seen so many beautiful roses all at one go. I like them all but if I have to only choose one, it'll be the Double Delight!

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  34. I will admit I love the striped and dotted roses for contrast, although I don't have any. Just rugosas and Chinas that have a few white streaks at their hearts. I love the mottled Gallica. Yum. As always your photos are gorgeous!

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  35. Thank you, James, and I am so thrilled to hear from someone who likes striped roses! I have seen Honorine de Brabant and apparently it is good for some people and bad for others. I am not sure if it depends on climate or if there are different "clones" of this rose around... I think older roses are generally more subtle in coloring, a taste for bright contrasting colors is fairly recent.

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  36. Thank you, Bom, andI am sorry roses do not do well for you. There has to be something else with stripes.

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  37. Thank you, One. I have about 120 give or take a few, but I live 15 minutes away from the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, the biggest rose collection in the Western Hemisphere. I need to be more specific in future about which are my roses, and which are pictures from the Heritage.

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  38. Sweetbay, thank you. You have good taste, lots of rosarians are fascinated by mottled and striped gallicas. Rosa Mundi should be pretty easy to find, and the mottled Gallica is probably either Belle de Crecy or Boulle de Nanteuil. Gallicas are often striped and mottled due to virus (like camellias) but still grow vigorously.

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  39. Wow, what a beautiful collection of roses. I remember swooning over "Handel" in a catalog when I first started getting interested in roses. Oddly though, I never got it. "Double Delight" has always been one of my favorites. I had "Variegata di Bologna" for a while but finally ditched it because it got blackspot so bad after it bloomed.

    Not familiar with Camille Pissaro but it is beautiful. What kind of rose is it? Another one for my wish list.

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  40. Thank you, Phillip. I am about to get rid of my Handel because it is too old and I get a lot of rootstock suckers... VdiB was sick here too, with blackspot (and we don't have blackspot in California), mildew and rust. The leaves were very colorful, just not at all green:-).

    Camille Pisarro is a floribunda from Delbard, they developed a whole series of striped florries and hybrid teas named after impressionists. I know there is Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Henri Matisse, probably others...

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  41. Beautiful pics as always, Masha. I planted my first striped rose this fall. I have always liked looking at pictures of them, but wasn't sure they would 'go' in the garden. Guess we'll see when spring roll around! I do have a speckled rose - Gee Whiz - and I love it but visitors seem a bit confused by its looks!

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  42. Thank you, HolleyGarden. What is the name of the striped rose?? I haven't seen Gee Whiz, but it looks gorgeous on HMF.

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  43. dear Masha,
    What is the name of the beautiful roses of your banner?
    MC

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  44. Wow! Some beautfiul roses here. Love the Double Delight. Def in my top 10!

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  45. Merci, Marie-Claude, it is Soupert et Notting, a moss.

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  46. Thank you, the Redneck Rosarian. Double Delight is not a demure rose:-), and very fragrant.

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  47. A very interesting post. I agree that roses with different colouration can be difficult to place but some are lovely and worth a place in any garden. Rosa mutabilis is a good example - it starts as a bud opening yellow/cream/orange (difficult even to describle) changing with time and heat to deep crimson pink. In hot weather this change is very rapid in spring and autumn much slower. they flower for me for about 9 months of the year. Christina

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  48. Thank you, Christina. I am glad you grow Mutabilis, it is such a beautiful rose.

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I am so glad you have stopped by!