Antique Roses

[gja1000]

My antique rose bush is LOADED with blooms and buds!! It is a 1917 variety, Mrs. B.R. Cant. The roses are cabbage style, so not the beautiful cut roses that we see in the floral shops, but beautiful nonetheless. I trimmed the bush back severely in Feb. It will grow to about 8' X 8' if you let it, and I don't like it to get that big. It's the same bush in my avatar.

[Janet]

Very pretty Gayle. I feel like such a dork now, but when we first moved here, we were young and we took out 3 or 4 rose type bushes and 2 lilac trees. We just didn't want to spend the time mowing around them all the time. Now 30 + years later...I wish we still had them.

[gja1000]

Yep, I know what you mean! I did some silly things like that when I was young too. I wish the rose bush was not quite so big. I like it because it provides a visual barrier to the yard next door, but I (stupidly) planted it too close to the chain link fence behind it, so I have to keep close watch on it or it will grow through the holes in the fence. We have great neighbors, and they've never said a word, but they have a five year old girl and I don't want her to ever get stuck by the thorny rose branches.

Janet, antique roses are pretty common, and they are very bug resistant and very easy to grow. You should find a couple and plant them - they grow very quickly

[Blueyes]

Those are beautiful!! Do they smell pretty too?

[Marilyn]

Gayle, your bush is beautiful!! My mother loved roses, so we had some of these as well as the cut flower variety. We had a pink antique rose like yours, and another that was more of a maroon color that was really pretty. We also had a miniature pale pink rose. It was grown from a cutting from one an uncle had. His was by his front door and he would pinch off a flower and wear it in the button hole on the lapel of his suit every Sunday. We've lost those plants & hubby isn't fond of cleaning around roses. Do miss them. They are so colorful and smell sooooo good.

[gja1000]

Oh Marilyn, what a great story about your uncle and the rose in the lapel every sunday! I love it!

I know what your husband means about cleaning around rose bushes, and also trimming them. I don't like the clean up after a heavy trimming. BUT I've learned to call someone to come clean up the brush, rather than trying to pick it up myself. I don't like having to pay for things that I can do, but it beats getting scratched to pieces.