GARDENING : A Rose Is a Rose . . . but What Constitutes an Old Rose?

Since old roses seem to be coming back into favor, you’d think there would be more agreement about what an old rose is.

Oh, there’s an “official” consensus. The American Rose Society is clear enough. Old garden roses (also known as heritage roses) are ones introduced before 1867. That’s the year the Hybrid Tea arrived on the scene and stole the show. Hybrid Teas--until recently--have pretty much dominated the field ever since.

Ask gardeners for their definitions of an old rose, and the dividing line get fuzzier. What makes a rose “old” to its owner isn’t much different from what makes a desk an “antique.” If it evokes the past--regardless of its age--it classifies. That’s why blooms that tug on our sensory memories--like the flowers our mothers and grandmothers grew--are labeled as old roses, even though they might technically be moderns.

So there probably weren’t many rose devotees horrified to see Sunset magazine illustrating its November story on mail-order suppliers of old roses with a picture of Dainty Bess, a Hybrid Tea that only dates back to 1925, a comparative newcomer on the scene.

Dainty Bess may not qualify as a Dowager Queen, ARS’s title for winning roses in the pre-1867 category, but she has a way of turning up among old roses anyway because of her sweet, old-fashioned charms--a simple, five-petal shape, dainty mauve-pink shade and frilly, burgundy-colored stamens.

Likewise, Clair Martin, curator of the rose garden at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, is entirely unapologetic for including Iceberg, a Floribunda not hybridized until 1958, among his heritage roses. The pure white, double blossoms of the Iceberg are more at home among the similarly open-shaped and pastel-hued old garden roses, Martin insists, than among the high-budded, scrolled forms and Kodachrome colors of the modern Hybrid Teas. The decision may not be correct historically, but it is aesthetically.

Add modern roses that were bred to look antique to the picture, like David Austin’s English roses. These roses combine the shape, fragrance and shrub form of heritage roses with the recurrent blooming characteristics of modern Hybrid Teas and Floribundas. Or add miniature roses from hybridizers like Ralph Moore who are trying to achieve the same look on a dwarf scale, and the definition of an “old” rose gets even tougher to pin down.

Having been crossed with heritage species, many of these plants literally have their roots in history, and yet as roses go they’re rookies.

So how does a nursery like Country Bloomers in Orange, which specializes in old-fashioned roses (both true heritage roses and modern “olds” like Austin’s) decide what to carry? Owner Mike Morton looks for:

Antique forms--either multipetaled, quartered shapes or the single form of the wild rose.

Old-fashioned colors--more pinks, mauves and blushes than crimsons, sulfur yellows and oranges.

That element all too often missing in modern roses: intense fragrance.

The bottom line, though, according to Morton, is that an old-fashioned rose is whatever constitutes one in the eyes--and nose--of the beholder.

Fortunately, with so many appealing choices, there’s no necessity to be a purist. Heritage roses and modern old roses are perfectly compatible--with each other and with other moderns--as long as sizes and shades are complementary. Good thing, too, because if you have a passion for roses you’re going to want them all anyway. And if you don’t, maybe it’s because you haven’t seen old roses.

To narrow the field a little, here are some recommendations from experienced gardeners.

“One old rose that everyone should have--it’s small and does beautifully in a barrel--is Souvenir de la Malmaison,” says Sharon Van Enoo, coordinator of the Huntington Garden Volunteers Workshop, president of the South Coast Rose Society and rose garden consultant. “It’s got hundreds of petals, a wonderful rosette shape, a pretty soft pink color and incredible fragrance. It’s just a fabulous rose.”

Demonstrating that heritage roses are not prima donnas and don’t need to be segregated, Van Enoo combines in one large container her Souvenir, a Bourbon rose dating from 1843, with Reichsprasident von Hindenberg, an old, but not heritage class, Hybrid Perpetual, and Geisha, a modern Floribunda.

Another old favorite of hers is Barrone Prevost, a Hybrid Perpetual introduced in 1842, with large blooms of a deep rose color that open flat with a small button eye. Beautiful and reliable, Barrone is a frequent ARS Dowager Queen winner, says Van Enoo.

One of Mike Morton’s favorite heritage roses, Jacques Cartier, a bloom with many short petals at the center that gives it a charmingly ragged look, is also a Hybrid Perpetual (though sometimes classified as a Portland).

“It’s one of the first I recommend to people unfamiliar with old roses,” he says. “It blooms most of the year, has good, dark foliage, is easy to grow and has a wonderful perfume. When it’s really going, people tell me they can smell it all the way from the (nursery) gate.”

Another Morton favorite, also a Hybrid Perpetual, is Yolande d’Aragon, with large, double flowers in purple to mauve shades. “Whenever it’s in bloom, it sells,” he says. “It gets flowers almost as big as a Hybrid Tea’s but with that old-fashioned quartered shape. And the color’s unusual--people are always drawn to it.”

Both Morton and Van Enoo also recommend China and Tea roses for gardeners new to old roses. “I think both Teas and Chinas have been overlooked for far too long,” Van Enoo says. “They bloom far more than any hybrid teas I know of. They don’t have that classic high-bud shape people have come to associate with roses. They’re a softer form. But many are outstandingly beautiful.”

Chinas and Teas are also particularly appropriate to Southern California, Van Enoo says, because they are the roses most likely to have been carried West by our forefathers. Proving her statement, many of the Tea and China Roses in the Huntington Botanical Gardens (which has the largest collection in the country) were collected from the Gold Country, California Mission gardens and old ranchos in Mexico.

Archduke Charles, a China dating from 1837, rates high with Van Enoo. “It changes color from light pink to dark red on the bush,” she says, “so you get different colors on the same plant. And it’s always in bloom.

“I also love Duchesse de Brabant. It’s extremely disease resistant, stays in a nice round shape, and is a pretty pale pink.”

Favored Chinas at Country Bloomers are Eugene de Beauharnais, a rose-purple flower, heavily petaled, clearly quartered and intoxicatingly fragrant; Hermosa, bearing small lilac-pink, cupped flowers (“Great for color in the garden,” Van Enoo says.); Old Blush (“It does very well in containers.”), and, if you have the room, Mutabilis.

Mutabilis grows to about seven feet tall in Morton’s garden, though the shrub can be pruned back to about five feet without damage, he says. Mutabilis’ copper-flame buds open to honey-yellow blooms that turn pink, then crimson. “If you’ve got the room, it provides excellent background color,” Morton says. “And great cut flowers too.”

Mutabilis is exceptional for a China, according to Morton; most tend to be short and compact--3 to 4 feet high and 2 to 3 feet wide. If that’s too big for your garden, consider Polyanthas, which are smaller still and, for that reason, particularly good for low borders and container use.

The most widely known and loved Polyantha is Cecile Brunner, first distributed in 1881. This old sweetheart has pale pink buds no larger than a thimble, which open into perfectly formed miniature Tea Roses.

While Van Enoo likes Cecile, she thinks Perle d’Or (1884) deserves equal attention. Perle is a pale apricot-yellow version of Cecile.

Clotilde Soupert (1890), a densely petaled pale pink flower with dark pink centers in cool fall weather, is another winner in her book. “And everyone ought to have The Fairy. It produces a solid mass of white flowers and makes a fabulous border.”

When it comes to modern old roses--particularly English Roses--there’s more disagreement.

Though Charles Austin began experimenting with repeat-flowering Old Roses more than 30 years ago, his roses have only become available locally in the last several years. Even Roger’s Gardens, always in the forefront when it comes to gardening trends, has only had Austin roses for three seasons. Nurserymen, as well as gardeners, are still learning their growth habits and disease tolerance in the local climate.

David Austin’s are more prone to mildew, some say. “But not all of them, and not inland,” Van Enoo says. The plants also tend to grow much larger in our Mediterranean climate than in the cool English weather they were bred in. Dark red Lordly Oberon sprang to 11 feet in one season at the Huntington, and Martin is not certain yet how severely the rose can be pruned back. It’s learn as you go, he says.

Among his recommendations for gardeners willing to experiment, however, are English Garden, which bears large flowers with numerous small petals in a buff-yellow, paling towards the edges; Tamora, one of the shorter Austin’s, with deeply cupped, soft apricot flowers in the Bourbon style; and Graham Thomas, which has a pure deep yellow coloring, rather loose petals in a deep chalice shape, and a strong Tea fragrance.

Van Enoo’s favorite Austin is Prospero, a crimson-colored Gallica-like rose with numerous small petals arranged in a rosette shape, which shades to purple with age. She also likes Belle Story with its pretty, silvery-pink, peony-like, incurving petals.

Phil Miller, manager of Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach, has also had good luck with Belle Story. He also likes Dapple Dawn, a very large single of delicate pink veined with a stronger shade. And Mary Rose, a large cupped flower, loosely filled with clear rose-pink petals, has been reliable too.

Moving to modern miniatures with an antique flavor, everyone seems to like Popcorn and its larger brother, Gourmet Popcorn. Both roses look old-fashioned, says Paul Green of Green’s Flowers, a Buena Park-based miniature rose specialist, because of their fully petaled, reflexed shapes. A similarly petaled flower in a pale pink that Green is also fond of is Chelsea, hybridized by Ralph Moore.

Herbie, a classic Hybrid Tea shape in miniature, looks old-fashioned because of its lavender-mauve color, Green says. As does subtle lavender-gray “Always a Lady” and “Black Jade,” a very dark red with prominent golden stamens.

But his favorite just might be My Sunshine, a pale yellow single from Dee Bennett of Tiny Petals which blushes pink in the sun.

When there are even miniatures with antique airs on the market, there’s no garden too small for an old-fashioned rose. But experienced rose gardeners like Van Enoo strongly urge everyone to find room for at least one heritage rose.

“The reason these old roses are still around is because they’re wonderful roses,” she says. “They’re good flowers, good bushes, good plants, period. They’ve already proved they’re survivors.”