It has become an exercise reminiscent of the old challenge: If you were to be exiled to an island and you could bring just five books, which ones would you bring? In this case: If I were to keep only five roses, which ones would it be?

I look at each of my thirty roses and imagine it gone. Sometimes I feel regret, but I have known each rose for a long time — perhaps it is time to move on. Sometimes I feel deeply distressed and howl: “Nooooooooo! Not that one. Forget about tangerines, white passion fruits and more kinds of figs — this one stays!”

Thus, I created a list of five roses that, for various reasons, enrich my life so much I would not choose a life without them. Why I feel this way about them is the mystery of love. I can tell you what I like about them, why I think you might like them, too. However, I can’t explain why the sight of one of them cuts through the jumble of mundane thoughts in my mind (remember to take out the garbage, what’s for dinner? and so forth) and leaves me clear, intensely present in the moment and filled with joy. I concede that you may look at the same rose and not be moved at all. But this is my story and I invite you to take a look at some of my favorite roses. If I moved to a different climate zone, I would reconsider, but not while I live in the Bay Area.

“CLIMBING LADY HILLINGDON”

I just wandered out and looked at my Lady, finally filling up the space at the garden entrance. Although it is February, there is a bloom on it the color of ripe, golden apricots. The new foliage is just bursting forth and the contrast between the golden flower and the deep plum colored foliage is stunning. The fragrance is special: Classic tea, like a sniff from a bin of tea leaves (people still argue whether tea roses got their name because they smelled like tea or because they were brought to Europe on the ships that also brought tea), but the tea scent is enriched and smoothed with a sweet fruitiness. I have never been one to enjoy the pure tea scent (makes my nose tingle) but the scent found in Lady Hillingdon is very pleasing, some would say fabulous.

The Lady has been a long lasting love of mine. Before I planted my own rose garden, I used to go to Berkeley Horticultural Nursery to see their Lady Hillingdon in full bloom. It was a spring tradition for me, and it does start blooming very early in the spring. Some detractors say the Lady hangs her head too much. By this they mean instead of pointing straight up, like a good hybrid tea would do, the stem bends just as it meets the flower, causing the whole flower to droop. This is characteristic of all tea roses and has never bothered me. I find it rather nice in a climbing rose, because you get to look right into the flower when you stand below it.
It is also a tough rose that stays healthy and blooms almost all year in spite of neglect. It is often found abandoned in old gardens, looking none the worse for the lack of care.

“FANTIN-LATOUR”

I first saw Fantin-Latour as I walked through the San Francisco Rose Garden many years ago. The bush was kept quite short, but the full flowers were very appealing. One early spring day I walked through the garden, and the roses had just been pruned. Each bush had the clippings neatly stacked up in front of it, waiting for the cleanup-crew. I remembered the beautiful flowers I had seen previous spring, took a couple of twigs home and rooted them. I have carried cuttings of Fantin-Latour with me though every move I have made since then.

Unlike Lady Hillingdon, it blooms only once a year during the early summer, but what a show it is. I often bring a chair over to its corner in the garden so I can sit down in front of it and gaze in wonder. The flowers are big and full with more petals packed in there than seems possible. They are cream colored with shades of pink and often a little splash of clear red mixed into it. Some people who know me as a lover of un-adulterated wildflowers have wondered why I can be so fond of the single wild rose flowers, yet still I find it in me to gaze adoringly at a rose so clearly created by human hands. I have no answer except that it is a beautiful rose in its own right.

The fragrance is elusive, sometimes I can detect it, sometimes not. When I can, I find it very pleasing. It may be one of the roses that benefit from being picked and placed under the sun hat on your head before being sniffed (I am not kidding — the humidity releases the scent).

It was found in a English garden labeled “Best Garden Rose,” so I am not the only one to have been charmed by this rose. Its true origin and name is unknown, and it was later named for the French painter of roses, Fantin-Latour, as it resembles the roses that he liked to paint. For years, it had been sold as a classic centifolia rose, having certainly the hundred petals that those roses have. However, most true centifolia roses need a cold winter to bloom well and Fantin-Latour thrives and blooms in the mild winters of coastal California. For people who care to know, it is now considered to be a hybrid China rose that just happens to look like a centifolia rose.

While it can be chopped short like I first saw it in the San Francisco Rose Garden, it looks better if allowed to grow to its natural size of around 6’. The branches are rather lax, especially when loaded with blooms, and should either be tied to a wall or be supported by a frame built around the rose.

It is a very tough rose — when I planted my rooted cuttings, the first roots went straight down into the ground which is a sign of a rose that gets its water deep down instead of at the surface. It could do with no water what-so-ever, but it can get a little mildew late in the season — extra water keeps it cleaner.

“GRANDMOTHER’S HAT”

I used to live in the flatlands of Berkeley, and I would often stop and admire a small garden just around the corner from where I lived. Every conceivable planting space was packed with roses and every wall and fence had roses growing on it. When the house was clearly empty I would sneak into the front yard and take deep sniffs of the roses growing there. I found a pink one that was grown as a climber, and I thought the scent was incredible. I later became acquainted with the gardeners, who were very active in the Heritage Rose Society, and they told me the story of the pink rose that they knew as “Grandmother’s Hat” or “Barbara Worl”.

Barbara Worl lives on the San Francisco Peninsula and found this rose in an abandoned garden in San Jose. She was impressed, took cuttings of the rose and through her it became famous within the circles of people who love heritage roses. No one could identify it as a known rose, thus it became known under the name Barbara gave it: “Grandmother’s Hat.” She thought the pink full flowers looked just like the hats our grandmothers used to wear. Others called in “Barbara Worl” in her honor. Through the years, Barbara traveled intensively to study roses, and she was always looking for a match for her rose, a match that had a name tag on it. She eventually found it in a rose garden in Germany and the rose was named “Cornet”, a French hybrid perpetual rose from 1865 (the hybrid perpetuals were very popular during the Victorian age). It is not a name to get charmed by, so the other names have stuck.

It is a very floriferous rose and one of the few to bloom as early as February (if you don’t prune it too hard). It is actually hard to get to prune this rose because it is always covered with buds. It can be made into a climber, but I grow it as a free-standing shrub and shorten it once a year. The scent that originally attracted me to the rose is spicy and rich. You have to sniff it just as the petals open to get the concentrated scent, and I often present a bloom in this condition to people just to see their reaction. After collecting themselves they generally say: ”Now, that smells like a real old-fashioned rose!”

Tough rose, though it can get a bit of black spot later in the season. It responds well to a little extra water and fertilizer (all the blooming takes energy), and that is why I planted near the water faucet. After I watered vegetables and new plants I would throw the hose at the base of the rose while I walked around it to turn off the water. That extra water made a difference. It is now on drip.

I love it because it is always blooming, it has a wonderful scent and because Barbara Worl found it in San Jose, thus making it a Bay Area rose. I was very pleased when Barbara herself visited my Open Garden last year and came up to me beaming with parental pride: “I see that you have MY rose — and it is looking good, too!”

“LYDA”

After I became involved with the Heritage Rose Society, I would go on their garden tours to see roses. Thus I encountered “Francis Lester”, a hybrid musk rambler bred in California. It is hard to explain why this rose always stopped me in my tracks, it seems so simple compared to the roses I have previously praised. The flowers are single, white and presented in clusters — sounds like many other wild type roses. Yet the simplicity of its beauty could render me breathless. I never dared to let it loose in my garden because Francis Lester is a HUGE rose and my gardens have always been small.

One year I visited a rose gardener in Corallitos named Kleine Lettunich. Her garden is quite wonderful and her breeding efforts (mainly by keeping an eye on volunteer roses coming up in her yard), have produced some very nice roses. Lyda is one of them, and it has the magic of Francis Lester (one of the parents), yet is nice and compact, growing to 3-4’. The first year I planted it in sun and it was very disappointing, the colors all washed out. But when I replanted it in the shade, it suddenly developed the nice pink and red edges. A good shade rose is hard to find, but this is it. It blooms continuously, has been completely free of diseases, does not appear to need any additional water and has very pleasant light honey scent just as it opens.

I highly recommend it.

“SO-CALLED”

The last rose on my list never dazzled me as much as the previous roses did, yet I found myself refusing to let go of it. Perhaps it is because I don’t really know what it is. How would I ever get it again if I lost it? “So-called” is more subtle, yet a real trooper and the best landscape rose I know of.

I got the original cutting on the same trip to the San Francisco Rose Garden that also brought me Fantin-Latour. Next to the pile of prunings was a tag declaring it to be ‘Blush Noisette.’ I had noticed the rose earlier in the season, it was pretty and I took note of the scent. A clean and strong scent of green apples.

I took it home and it rooted very easily. Soon I had a nice little bush, covered in blooms almost all year. But ‘Blush Noisette’ it was not, leading to the present name “So-called (Blush Noisette).” Some have thought it to be the bush form of Aimee Vibert, but I have not been able to confirm its identity.

Whatever it is, it is a great landscape rose, very healthy and it maintains a nice compact form. By this I mean it does not throw out awkward branches that have to be trimmed. My plant is now five years old, about 5’ tall and 4’ wide, and it finally looks like a little pruning might improve its shape. Until now I have occasionally deadheaded clusters of hips, but otherwise not touched it. It has never been watered or sprayed and does not look like it needs any care at all.

The flowers are double and in clusters, light creamy pink, and the buds are as suitable for button holes as the classic (but less manageable) Cecile Brunner. I sometimes bring a little bouquet to the office at Annie’s Annuals, and it is universally applauded by the staff for its delicateness and fine scent.

Overall it has been the easiest of all my roses to grow. It grows itself.

There are of course several roses that were close contenders, but such is the nature of the game I was playing: I had to choose. If you wish to see a full list of the roses I grow, I am preparing a “A History of Roses — as expressed though the roses in a little yard in Richmond, California.” You will find it on the Annie’s Annuals website.

If you want to grow any of these roses, there will be a few available at the nursery this spring and summer. Some of them will be from cuttings taken from roses in my own yard, at the moment rooting nicely in their pots in the greenhouse. Some of them will be from Vintage Gardens in Sebastopol, and I encourage you to patronize their business if you don’t find the rose you desire at Annie’s.

Anni J