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Subtle Beauty- Brown And Other Odd-Colored Roses More Brown Roses: If you are—or are becoming—a fan of brown roses, you might want to check out the following. Those not (yet?) available in the United States have been marked with an asterisk. Also, check out the article Coffee Roses, by the indisputable expert on this genre, Kim Rupert. Although poised to enter U.S. commerce in an extremely limited way, for all practical purposes this 1973 hybrid tea—bred in Japan by the famous hybridizer K. Okamoto—is unavailable in the U.S. Photos show blooms to be very double, dark red with a smoky cast with color deepening and mottling toward the petal edges. It would seem that Black Tea ("Koh Cha" in Japanese) has more in common with Smoky or Hot Cocoa than most other brown roses. This comment from an American gardener who once grew it: "Black Tea…had good form, was not a large rose…grew quite well…color was more orange than brown." *Hot Chocolate Not to be confused with Hot Cocoa, this breathtaking cluster-flowered floribunda, a 1986 introduction by New Zealand hybridizer J. W. Simpson, is regrettably unavailable outside of Australia or New Zealand. Photos show it to be either a rich deep brownish-red (cool weather)—rather like Jocelyn without any of the latter’s blue tints—or a Brown Velvet-ish cinnabar-terracotta (in hot weather). The many-petaled blooms are ruffled in the mode of Angel Face. The plant is said to be a prolific bloomer with glossy foliage, reach about 4½ feet in height, and displays a slight susceptibility to blackspot in regions prone to that disease. I do hope someone will get the ball rolling and see to it that this rose is imported into the U.S.—despite the barriers to importing roses from down under! *Iris Webb An absolutely beautiful LeGrice brown rose and the only one completely unavailable in the U.S. at this time, Iris Webb is one of the smaller floribundas. It produces generous clusters of bronzy-tan flowers that are closer in color to Edith Holden than any other brown rose, but which also have a tarnished metal quality that gives them shadings of deep dove grey as well. Other Brown Miniature Roses If you’re interested in other brown minis, you might want to check out these extremely interesting varieties. All have their good and bad points, but are definitely "conversation pieces." Based on photos I’ve seen, I am personally especially drawn to Cinnamon Toast and Smoke Signals as being the most dissimilar to existing full-size brown roses, but from what I’ve seen of Latte, Chipmunk, and Suntan Beauty, they are also very interesting. Chipmunk Cinnamon Delight Cinnamon Toast Latte (see photo on page one) Sands of Time
Some Unusual Non-Brown Roses: Here are some other unusual, non-brown roses. Some I grow/have grown personally; others, I’ve observed in friends’ gardens; still others, I’ve only read about and seen photos of. I’ve indicated below which ones are which, so that my comments can be taken in the correct context. Florence Delattre When I first saw this French shrub rose (part of Guillot’s Generosa line), in a friend’s garden, I thought it fascinating. On my second and third visits, in hotter weather, I found I was less taken with it—although that’s not to say you might not find it equally charming in all its permutations. Florence Delattre is one of those roses that is never the same color. That’s a good characteristic if, as with Smoky, you like its entire color range. For me, Florence Delattre moves not from one subtle shade to another, but from subtle to blah. At its most subtle, it’s a pale, muted grey-mauve, more ghostly than Nimbus, less grey than Grey Pearl. In warmer weather, blooms can be an outright (and to my eye, rather uninteresting) "ashes of roses" pink, or even a Veilchenblau greyed violet with mauve and pink tints. The old-fashioned, very double cupped blooms are large (about 4 inches) and fragrant, and are produced in distinct, very generous flushes separated, it seems, by considerable intervals, on a disease resistant mounding shrub that can reach 4 feet or more. Aside from color, this is clearly Guillot’s attempt to out-Austin Austin in terms of an OGR retro rose, and they have had considerable success—if that is a definition of success. Grey Dawn As of this writing, I have this grey LeGrice floribunda on order, but have not grown it personally. I’m very eager to see firsthand how LeGrice reinterpreted McGredy’s Grey Pearl. Friends have described Grey Dawn—and their photos bore much of this out—as "a very fragrant grey rose producing a lot of many-petaled flowers"; "…flowers last well…"; "Much stronger and more vigorous than Grey Pearl"; "…likes warmth…"; "The soft grey tones are varied and rich"; "It really does remind me of the colors of the sky just before daybreak…just a hint of pink around the edges of the medium and dark grey petals"; "…surprisingly vigorous…" "the lavender/pink entirely disappears from the fully opened Grey Dawn…it becomes a pale grey and pale tan." Grey Pearl McGredy’s
1945 floribunda (along with Lavender Pinocchio) was the rose that led
to all the brown and grey-lavender roses we have today—and it’s a great
rose. By the time I acquired it, I’d already been warned repeatedly
about how temperamental and difficult to grow it was, so I had steeled
myself for a survival battle that actually never materialized. Grey
Pearl turned out to be everything good (with none of the bad) that
people had promised—blooms of a truly soft, pale whitish-grey (definitely
soft dove-grey, not steel-grey) with a slight taupe-like tinge
to the center petals (immediately clarifying McGredy's original name
for it, The Mouse). This touch of taupe (and complete absence of pink)
is what differentiates it from other grey roses like Stainless Steel.
My two budded plants (even proponents of own-roots agree that Grey
Pearl performs far better budded than as an own-root) are sturdier
and much more vigorous than reputed. The main problem "Little Grey Pearl" (at right) Just as this article was being completed, I found out about a new, unnamed mini, provisionally referred to as "Little Grey Pearl," (bred by P. Barden) that should be available in the 2004 season. The color and bloom form are uncannily like Grey Pearl (see above), making it an extreme rarity in the miniature rose genre-the only other mini that comes close is the icy grey-violet Winter Magic (see Café Olé, above, for a mention of that variety). Based on a photo I've seen, this unusual miniature can be described as follows: The plant reaches 10 to 12 inches in height and width, and produces clusters of up to 10 blooms at a time, each bloom measuring about 1.5-inches. The grey-lavender buds open to fully double, scentless flat blooms of a soft dove-grey with just a hint of pinkish-beige. The bloom centers are slightly higher than those of Grey Pearl, and the petals have slightly pointed tips that remind me somewhat of the camellia, Fimbriata. The color seems to be somewhere between Grey Pearl's and Ash Wednesday's-somewhat closer to the former. The glossy, slightly toothed foliage is a dark green. This will be an exciting addition to the category of unusually colored miniatures. Most Unusual Day This
Ralph Moore floribunda is indeed most unusual—unique, in fact—and I’m
completely hooked on it. The blooms are most exquisite: they carry Moore’s
signature pointed petals—accentuated by the very distinct, creamy white
"picotee" edge. Nimbus Nimbus is a LeGrice floribunda. Nominally, it's mauve, but the color is far more complex. LeGrice must have decided to take a break from the browns and "think pink"—but what a palette! Greyed, mauvey pink with a smoky, almost bologna-like cast. The buds are a dusky, greyish rose—a very "Victorian" color—which open to 3-inch blooms of a kind of slate grey with a decided pinkish underlay, aging to a true mauve—not the faded cerise that rose-growers erroneously call mauve. Very subtle. Hot summer sun, however, brings out a most unattractive cerise "sunburn" on the petal edges. Best with shade from noon in midsummer, this is a subtle rose worthy of the LeGrice name if only the blooms are given some protection from hot sun. Nimbus grows like a weed, and is tall rather than wide—if I were a rose catalogue, I’d say "statuesque," but I’m not, so I won’t. It has very odd foliage reminiscent of a miniature rose—about half the size of a normal floribunda. It produces an endless amount of blooms with a sharp, clovelike scent that I personally could easily forego. Smoky Not, strictly speaking, a brown rose, but most definitely an odd-colored one, Smoky holds a very special place in my esteem. It was one of the first roses I ever grew on my own, and I immediately adored its mahogany/pomegranate blooms that aged a rusty plum—with many color variations in between. I’m quite sure Smoky had a hand in shaping my destiny as an odd-colored rose obsessive. Introduced in the U.S. by Jackson&Perkins in 1968, Smoky had disappeared from commerce by the mid-1980s—inexplicably to my mind, but all too familiarly given the relentless commercialism of the mainstream rose industry. When I laid out my current garden, not to have included Smoky would have been unthinkable. After a lot of hunting, frustration, and the shameless exercise of bringing pressure to bear as needed, I finally got my hands on a plant of Smoky—soon to be followed by a second. I can’t think of any rose that is more changeable in color than Smoky—just a few hours can bring about enormous color changes. In my garden, Smoky often produces buds of a rather appalling, deep lipstick-magenta that—mercifully—open to an intense, dusky coral similar to, but more saturated than, Fragrant Cloud, overlaid with—dare I say it?—a smoky-violet-cinnamon haze. If the day is hot, young blooms soon turn a deep vermilion with darker veining and that classic brownish-plum cast. By evening, they may have changed to a Campbell's tomato soup color with pronounced purplish veining and an unusual velvety finish to the petals. There are some similarities to Jocelyn (see above), but there's never any doubt about Jocelyn's russet/oxblood red base—despite the bluish plum haze over the blooms as they age. Smoky is much more of a chameleon—now pastel, now intensely murky: the shadings shift almost by the hour. The high-centered, very double blooms tend to be on the medium-small side (about 3 inches), at least during the plant’s youth. For a hybrid tea, Smoky is a somewhat small plant, but I find it quite vigorous and healthy. The very dark, pine green foliage is attractive and moderately disease-resistant. Currently, only a couple of nurseries offer Smoky, but I've heard that there are others who are "working on" making Smoky more widely available. I may not be entirely objective, but I think it certainly deserves to be far better known.
Sources The following mail-order nurseries (in alphabetical order) are good, reliable sources for brown roses and others mentioned above. I have used all them with considerable satisfaction. I would caution you to order well ahead as they often sell out fairly quickly. Ashdown Roses (The only source for Kim’s Cream) P.O.
Box 308, Landrum, SC 29356 9759
Elder Creek Road, Sacramento, CA 95829 Roses Unlimited (currently, the only source for Brown Study) 363
N. Deer Wood Dr., Laurens, SC 29360 2519
East Noble, Visalia, CA 93292 The Uncommon Rose (a source for many of the roses in this article, they carry Smoky and the Ernest D. Williams minis Space Walk, Smoke Signals, and Suntan Beauty among others) 3333
SW Brooklane Dr., Corvallis, OR 97333 Vintage Gardens Antique Roses (Currently, the only source for Tom Brown and Amberlight, and one of only a few nurseries to sell Smoky and Grey Dawn) 2833
Old Gravenstein Hwy. So., Sebastopol, CA 95472 Note: Currently, Terracotta is only available from Wayside Gardens and J&M Nursery in Mississippi (grafted on fortuniana rootstock); Climbing Butterscotch (JACtan) is only being grown by Armstrong’s, although local nurseries may stock it; Irish Crème is fairly easy to find. copyright Fredrik Liljeblad 2003
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*Black
Tea (at right)
with
Grey Pearl—shared by Brownie (see above)—is that it will
keep producing blooms way beyond the capacity of the root system to
support them. This means that, at least for the first year, a maximum
of only one out of three buds should be allowed to mature. The others
should be removed before they reach the size of a peppercorn. Grey
Pearl’s growth habit is spreading, but not prostrate, which makes
for an architecturally interesting plant—especially when grown in containers,
as it ideally should be. For all its reputation as a "limp lady,"
however, Grey Pearl has proven remarkably disease resistant.
I’ve seen perhaps two spots of powdery mildew on a few leaves over several
seasons—and in my climate, even a piece of plastic will get that much!
The foliage, incidentally, is a lovely shade of dark apple green.
If
given some afternoon shade—a good idea in general for this rose—and
a bit of extra iron, the edge can take on a greenish tint. The main
flower color, for me at least, ranges over the season from the warm,
deep flamingo color of Condésa de Sástago, to a
true coral-salmon only slightly more pastel than Fragrant Cloud.
Friends have remarked that in late autumn or very early spring, the
color is closer to watermelon pink. Without becoming too fanciful, I
might say that the blooms remind me of watermelon tourmaline, a semiprecious
mineral with a pink center surrounded by a green edge. Whatever the
color, the long-lasting blooms are small—perhaps 2 ¼–2 ¾ inches—keeping
them somewhat in proportion to the plant. Even when they're spent, they
tend not to shatter but sort of soften and dry up. Although its blooms
are striking, Most Unusual Day is not a strong grower. In fact,
if it weren’t for the size of the leaves, it could almost be mistaken
for a large mini. With devoted care, though, Most Unusual Day has done
quite well for me over the last two years. I don't mean to imply that
it's weak or sickly—decidedly not, in fact—but it's a smallish rose
and just not a pedal-to-the-metal kind of growth producer. Frankly,
though I know it's not a universally popular stance, I think it would
do far better budded. Like Grey Pearl and Brownie, Most
Unusual Day is an extremely enthusiastic bloomer that overestimates
its own strength—I was very vigilant about disbudding in its first season,
and yet it still managed to produce about 10 blooms—often "hiding"
the buds among the leaves until they were too big to be worth nipping.
This is still a youngish plant, so I can't comment reliably on its final
shape, but so far it has tended to spread in the manner of a prostrate
juniper. The foliage, which has completely resisted all diseases, even
my endemic powdery mildew, is a fresh, sharp apple green—a slightly
more intense shade than the mini, Café Olé, and
of a similar "linden leaf" shape. The leaf color, however,
is a far better complement to Most Unusual Day’s blooms than
to the cool, enigmatic shades of Café Olé. I would
absolutely recommend this rose to those who like the unusual and are
willing to give it good care.
Vesper