Looking for Old Garden Rose cuttings

After reading the replies to my question about single versus repeat bloom, and doing some HelpMeFind research, I have decided to obtain the following 3 old garden roses:

Stanwell Perpetual
Portland Rose du Roi
Rosa Centifolia

To my dismay, EVERY online retailer I checked this morning is out of stock on these 3 roses.

Do any of you have cuttings that you can mail me this spring? I would be happy to pay in advance for the cuttings and postage.

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

I might be able to get a R. centifolia sucker if you remind me in early April.

I don’t have a ‘Stanwell Perpetual’ anymore unfortunately. In the past I took cuttings to have a plant at UMore Park (no longer a public park) and also over the years took some to share with others. Be patient with it because it is difficult to get cuttings to root, but it is possible. Hopefully if you start with a good number of cuttings you’ll have something take.

Mine are in smallish pots, and have nowhere to sucker.

I almost made a couple of suggestions, one of which was going to be Rose du Roi of Commerce, even though I know nothing of how it breeds. The other I do have first hand experience with, and it’s Salet. It’s tolerable as a seed parent, makes a pretty good supply of pollen for its type, and could give you the fragrant, fully double sorts of flowers you want, along with the added bonus of light mossing. Though Salet itself mildews here (like almost all mosses, and many HPs do), when I crossed it with a disease resistant gallica type, I got babies which (so far) seem to be healthy. Centifolia-based mosses have distinctive foliage, with elongated, smooth and frequently shiny leaves, and Salet passes along some of this (attractive, IMO) OGR trait. Someone crossed it with an HT back in the 1930s, and got a flush bloomer from it, so it does carry enough chinensis remontancy genes to work.

Of course, if you don’t like mosses, that won’t help much, and it seems to be sold out for the season, just like the others.

If you do like mosses, Nightmoss might be worth a thought. Though it’s a once bloomer, Fara Shimbo has gotten reblooming seedlings from it, so it might work as well as anything, and RVR still has some in stock. It’s probably a bit healthier than Salet, too, and could give you some deeper colors.

Thank you, I will contact you in early April.

Cathy

Apparently, Stanwell Perpetual, and some others like Prairie Peace, are notoriously difficult to root. Has anyone tried budding them to a rootstock and then burying the union deep enough so that eventually they will become “own root”, or are they reluctant to “take” when budded also?

I have a Stanwell Perpetual, but I’m a little afraid to go near it because it is so thorny (and dies back here so there is all this thorny dead wood). I haven’t noticed any suckers, but I usually give it a wide berth and someday will grub the thing out.

This is a little bit off topic, but maybe not…

I have a few seedlings of one of my very early crosses, which was a mix of Knock Out and Morden Blush pollen onto the Apothecary’s Rose (R. gallica officinalis?), which I call Apothecary. I loved how the seedlings were so shrubby and vigorous, although in my climate the combination of dying back and being once-blooming led them to almost never bloom. Ironically I dug out the most disease-resistant of them in an attempt to grow them in pots so that I could winter them inside and get blooms with which to pollinate. Those ended up not working out, but last year two of the ones that I had left are still trucking along, despite getting some blackspot. And this summer they bloomed. So I pollinated them as much as I could. Technically 1/6th of those seeds pollinated with modern reblooming tetraploid pollen should end up reblooming. Will they keep any of that same vigorous, shrubby habit that sets their seed parents apart from other roses? It will be fun to see. I could probably get you some cuttings of these roses if they turn out to be worthwhile parents.

Cathy, I sent you a PM. I have ‘Rose du Roi – original’ from Vintage Gardens. I’ll try rooting it for you in Spring. Since we’re both in New Jersey, take a look at my “inventory” posted on HelpMeFind and let me know if there’s anything else you want me to share with you.

:slight_smile:

~Christopher

Frasier Valley has Stanwell Perpetual in one gallon pots: http://www.fraservalleyrosefarm.com/

Thank you, Kevin.

Sadly, their website says you can’t buy anything from them online. You have to visit them in person.
I appreciate your help.

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

I have decided to hedge my bet on the OGRs by buying a few modern Kordes roses, which are said to be very disease resistant.

Just bought:
Dark Desire
Purple Rain
Beverly

These will be my first Kordes roses, will see how they do here in central NJ.

Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

Cathy,
I have Stanwell Perpetual also and I could be another source for cuttings this spring. I looked for a sucker of it last fall for Rob but there were none.

Joe,
Your Apothecary seedlings suffer from being too tender to bloom that I’ve run into with OGR x Modern crosses also. Crested Jewel is “Little Darling x Crested Moss” and it never bloomed for me either. I’ve been crossing my OGRs with hardier plants and have had much better success.

Here is a link my HMF page for a Belle de Crecy x Frontenac seedlings.

Those look lovely, Paul!

I should probably use Frontenac more.

Cathy, we’ll be interested to see how your Kordes acquisitions do. I think you’ve done yourself a big favor by utilizing the resources of a huge breeder like Kordes.

Thanks Joe,
I like these seedlings a lot and have done few crosses with them. I plan on doing some more this year with them.

Frontenac has good hardiness and disease resistance which it passes onto it’s offspring. But it’s offspring also tend to have fewer petals and a more lax growth habit, so they will have to be crossed with more upright and more double plants to counter those traits.

The Kordes roses have been a mixed bag for me. Lion’s Fairy Tale and Black Forest have been pretty clean while Elegant Fairy Tale suffered from Black Spot and Purple Rain from Leaf Spot. Summer Memories was OK, not bad but not great either.

Grouse x Frontenac to recreate a Flower Carpet type rose with added hardiness…

I hadn’t thought of that type of cross but it would make sense. That’s something you could try because I don’t have any ground covers now.

Cathy - If you’re still looking for Stawell Perpertual, both High Country and Heirloom list it as available.

Rogue Valley also appears to have the centifolia in stock as ‘Cabbage Rose.’

Thank you all for the information!

Regards,
Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a

Cathy, Kordes’ German site is very good about rating their roses, purportedly quite honestly, in terms of performance in Germany. Obviously, we have different strains of disease, and different climates here in the U.S., but worth a gander when considering their plants.

Dark Desire (Graefin Diana) has very good resistance – not their highest rating, but for a fragrant deep red, quite exceptional, apparently. (I was considering getting it, but Chamblees sold out before I acted.)
http://www.kordes-rosen.com/stammrrose-90cm-graefin-diana
Fiji (Cherry Lady) is an extremely resistant red, but of course, lacks the fragrance of Dark Desire:
http://www.kordes-rosen.com/gartenrose-cherry-lady

I’d be curious to know if anyone has worked with these…

When Herzogin Christiana comes available here, I’m all over that one… :wink: