After 63 years, Chrysler Imperial is still a glorious and very fragrant rose, with good disease resistance, 4-1/2” to 5” blooms, 45-50 petals, borne on single stems. The bush outside our kitchen window is 6 ft tall and 4 ft wide. The springs here in western Oregon are cooler, and the blooms open up bigger than in real hot weather. It’s still good for hybridizing.
Charlotte Armstrong X Mirandy, Walter Lammerts, 1952, Introduced by Germain’s.
Awards: Gold Medal, Portland, 1951, Gold Medal, ARS 1956, John Cook Medal, ARS 1964, James Alexander Campbell Fragrance Medal, 1965
It’s good to be reminded that newer is not always better. Some of the old timers are still worth a closer look, and sniff.
It’s also useful to look to the breeding:
Charlotte Armstrong (Soeur Therese x Crimson Glory) x Mirandy (Night x Charlotte Armstrong)
I haven’t seen ‘Charlotte Armstrong’ in too many years, but its legacy lives on in its fine progeny.
I bought ‘Mirandy’ this year, but it hasn’t bloomed yet so I don’t know whether it was correctly labeled. The ‘Therese Bugnet’ I bought at the same time has leaves that don’t look right. The buds are showing deep crimson, so I don’t know yet what it will turn out to be. That’s the risk we take buying cheap roses at home improvement stores.
I used to complain that ‘Chrysler Imperial’ was too thorny. But two of my old favorites, ‘Snowfire’ and ‘Intrigue’ are just as well armed.
That depends upon the criteria being used to determine “better”. Health? Absolutely. Vigor? Very often, yes. “Je ne sais quoi?” THAT is completely in the heart, nose, eye and mind of the beholder.
Too many people (excluding everyone in this forum, of course) assume that newer is better. I half-remember a story of a fine old rose garden that was “improved” by a new director who replaced all the old roses with the newest varieties. My heart aches at the loss!
It is educational to look back at old rose catalogs just to see how many of the most highly promoted, “new and improved” varieties are no longer to be found anywhere. At least not in commerce. I read that ‘Miss Clipper’ had been scientifically proven to have the best perfume of any rose. Where is it now?
Who among us doesn’t have a particular fondness for certain roses that have been “surpassed” by later developments? I am pleased that I now have ‘Paul’s Scarlet Climber’, a beauty I remember from my childhood, that was long ago displaced by ‘Blaze’ and other improved climbers. Of course, the obsession with reblooming roses is too common, even among people who love their lilacs, forsythias, dogwoods and so on. But I remember ‘Paul’s Scarlet Climber’ as a spectacular announcement of spring that could stop traffic … people really did stop to ask my mother what it was.
Sentimental attachments aside, I agree that some rose are “special” in ways that are nearly impossible to quantify. For all its flaws, ‘Sterling Silver’ still has something that is lacking in ‘Stainless Steel’ and some other mauves.
Taste is beyond comprehension. Some years ago I stopped in Belmont, CA to photograph a really fine specimen of ‘Belle Portugaise’ growing through a tree. I had come to love that plant as I viewed it through the window of my commuter train during its long season of bloom. But the owner of the house came out to ask me why I was bothering with the “ugliest” roses around. Some time later, the rose and the tree were gone.
“the obsession with reblooming roses is too common, even among people who love their lilacs, forsythias, dogwoods and so on.”
I recall hearing of a survey of “favorite roses” across the nation, whereupon the pollsters recognized some very distinct generalities beyond regional performance. While northerners still respected the one-shot deals which frequently had as many blooms in a single flush as the rebloomers might present over the entire season, southerners, in contrast, apparently felt this type of rose was a waste of the remaining 300 days of their growing season.
I could never enjoy Dr. Van Fleet in the south the way I did when I lived up north. Funny considering how much I do still love indica azaleas, camellias, and banksia roses…
Sadly I lost my 3 beloved Chrysler Imperials to rose rosette disease last year. I will buy 2 more this year. I want to breed that wonderful fragrance into new seedlings.
Firefighter is a good pollen parent, and I will buy 2 of them too.
Although I had good results from Heirloom Roses in the past, the 4 roses I bought from Heirloom this past year all died shortly after being planted, even though they were well watered and fed.
Chrysler Imperial was the first rose that I planted, in the first home I owned. The fragrance and the color were quite outstanding and when the house was turned into a rental, C.I. lived on for quite a few more yrs, through a lot of abuse and inattention. I really preferred it to Mr. Lincoln.
Healthy, really?!? We tried growing it a few years ago in our greenhouse (I was forcing it for crossing) and it got powdery mildew so bad that I threw it out.
It was really unusual, because we so rarely have the correct conditions for powdery mildew to develop.
Am I the only one who has experienced this? Perhaps I was sent a bundle of incorrectly labeled plants?
After enduring a long, garden-less winter, people want to see flowers NOW! Lots of them. I know I did when I lived in KS. I was out looking for the first crocus around the first of Feb. The explosion of ‘Paul’s Scarlet Climber’ was most welcome. But then I settled down to enjoy the lilacs, spiraea, and other flowering things.
‘New Dawn’ is not so impressive in TN, though. It’s too pale, and the initial flush doesn’t last long enough. The rebloom is not adequate, either. ‘White New Dawn’ was also less than wonderful in KY. These varieties don’t seem happy in heat.
I have often wondered what might be done with Barbier’s Luciae hybrids, crossed with a heat-loving HT, or maybe with ‘Gloire de Dijon’. Then we might have glossy-leaved climbers that rebloom better in warmer weather. I haven’t seen many Noisettes; just a ‘Blush Noisette’ in Frankfort, KY that was nothing to write home about.
Comment to Karl Kuska regarding the all-time winner “Miss Clipper,” which had the best perfume of any rose: I located Miss Clipper in Modern Roses XII. It said it was bred by Dr. Lammerts in 1942. I went through the Armstrong Nursery catalog of 1951 and found it listed on page 23. The price was $1.50 each. “Miss Clipper has the finest, most rose-like fragrance of all. The long slender buds and lovely cupped flowers of pale salmon pink, shaded orange and yellow, are mighty good to look at, too. Plants above medium height, slender, with long stems. At its best in the cooler areas.”
If we could find it, perhaps it deserves to be resurrected, if anyone knows where it is now and could send us some cuttings.
mildew…Am I the only one who has experienced this?
Was your copy VID? If not then get another that is, if you can find one now that Vintage has closed shop. You can probably order budwood from UC Davis but, if you do, be sure to also order some VID rootstock to graft it onto.
My name is King, not Kuska.
‘Miss Clipper’ looks like too many other Pernetiana derivatives: pretty, but maybe not distinctive enough. And a rose that is best in cooler areas would not like the summer here in Tennessee. I have to wonder how well ‘Miss Clipper’ resisted black spot.
At least we know the parentage. I have seen both parents (San Jose Heritage), so it should be possible to repeat the cross and get something similar if anyone is interested.
