Hollywood Cemetery Yellow Rose . . . One More Time

16 years ago

Hi, All.

It's time for another attempt to identify the yellow mystery rose from Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. I went yesterday afternoon before my rose society meeting to see if I could locate the rose and get some photos and a better description. It took a while of me driving around in circles to find it (that place is a maze). When I did find it, I was surprised to see that the thing was in full bloom! (For that matter, so were so many other beautiful roses. I'll put some photos of the other roses in the Rose Gallery when I finish here.)

Here's the whole bush. It is about 7' tall.

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A close-up of the bottom, showing the growth habit and the massive number of thorns:

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A closed bud with new leaves:

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A half-open bloom.

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Another bloom.

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There's a sprig of it in a vase here on my desk, with a bud, an open bloom, and a past-peak bloom. (If anyone has a question or would like a photo of a detail of my sprig, just ask.) Fully open, the blooms are 3 - 3 1/2" across. They are deep gold, with a hint of a red or apricot tint. All the leaves on this sprig have 3 leaflets -- I see one leaf in the bud photo that has 5 leaflets. The bush has some blackspot, but so does just about everything else around here this year. (I hate to see it start so early. -sigh- ) I took my sprig with me to the rose society meeting, and no one there knew what it was.

With this new information, do we have anymore guesses on this rose's identity?

Thanks for looking.

Connie

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Comments (9)

barbarag_happy
16 years ago
Connie, isn't there a map identifying some of the roses at the Hollywood Cemetary? I have heard about it but haven't seen it. That's sure some rose!
jennbenn
16 years ago
Connie,
I have no idea what rose that is, but it is so pretty. I will be watching to see what folks think..
jenn
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My Maigold has very little rebloom, altho I've never given it any help, either - - I don't fertilize it or deadhead. Most of my shots are dated in April. A couple of the HMF references (including the grand old man himself, Graham Stuart Thomas) mention scattered bloom later in the season. If it is Maigold, it's easy to ID by the scent. It has plenty of that linseed oil scent. Some people love the notes that scent gives to roses, but I can't seem to smell anything past the linseed oil. Interesting that a number of the HMF references describe it as good scent. I'd say it's distinctive. Good...not so much. The foliage is shiny and very healthy. And the canes are wickedly thorny. My plant is already in bloom, and it will bloom into June. Oh, I just found one of my photos dated late August. So I guess it does have scattered rebloom, onsie twosies. October, tho...I just don't know. The bloom color is very subtle and beautiful, I think, with a reddish wash over deep yellow, great veins of color, fading clear yellow. The effect is of apricot from a distance.
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Ingrid, you have now seen that my blog is about a whole lot more than just roses. Anything in life around here is fair game for a blog post. I am an animal lover through and through, like you. I'm sorry to say, though, that we had to let Daniel go last month. He had a great year in remission, but his lymphoma came back fast and aggressive, as lymphoma can do. He was happy and comfortable till the end, thank goodness. I have a huge hole in my heart right now. Fortunately, we have sweet Ruby (Lab/BC mix) to help all of us heal. During the spring and into summer, I blog a lot about roses ... my roses, friends' roses, public roses (like the ones at Hollywood), EVERYTHING roses!! Soon I hope to show my new rose bed. Right now, it's just a bunch of pots laid out on landscape fabric ... not very exciting. All of us rose gardeners understand, though, that those pots hold a whole lot of promise of the (hopefully) wonderful garden to come. Connie
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lforro
16 years ago
What a big beauty - and a nice growth habit, too.

Lila
anntn6b
16 years ago
Take a look at Polka. The total size is right, the thorns have the right ouch factor, the leaf color about matches mine (as do the leafless bottoms of canes, and although Polka often has fatter blooms, this one has been living in a cemetary without 'modern' fertilizer regimens.

The colors of the blooms are just too modern to be from the 1800s from what I see in my garden. Back then Marechal Niel was the best yellow, and there's no hint of apricot there.
This rose almost has tangerine overtones. And I have a feeling that tangerine and salmon came in in the early 20th century with the other strong/bright oranges.
patricianat
16 years ago
I agree with Ann. It's Polka. I went out and looked at mine which is blooming now and leaves, bloom, color, etc., look right.
myloki
16 years ago
There have been a few ladies who have made heroic efforts to identify and protect the roses in Hollywood Cemetery. They have made maps for their personal use, but, to my knowledge, there is no map circulated. Also, these fine ladies do not always agree on ID's.
That is a beauty, Connie. I hope you can propogate it.
-Stephanie
hartwood
Original Author
16 years ago
I wonder whether there's a guide to some of the roses, but not others? The labels for the roses that are marked have numbers on them, as if they correspond to some sort of list. There was this sort of tag on Louis Philippe and Safrano (photos of these are in the Rose Gallery). These were the only two roses I saw on Sunday that had labels. I know one day when I was there last fall, I ran across a labeled bush of Spray Cecile Brunner. Most of the roses there, however, are unmarked.

I only have the HMF photos to go by, and the ones I see there of Polka are close, but I don't get an "aha!" feeling about them. The photos of the Polka blooms are a bit too apricot/orangy (the cemetery rose is gold, fading to yellow), Polka's stems appear to be much longer, and its prickles are a bit too far apart -- the cemetery rose is very thorny all over. When I cut my sprig apart into two cuttings this morning, and I picked lots of little thorns off the nodes before I stuck them in the soil. (We'll see how well it roots -- fingers crossed) Since Polka is a climber, would it grow as straight and upright as the cemetery rose if it didn't have any support? The HMF bush photos show it with more of an arching habit. The cemetery bush lives a fairly neglected existance, without the care and supplemental water of most garden roses. Would that take some of the 'climb' out of a climber?

Could it be something like Soleil d'Or?

Connie
jerijen
16 years ago
These were the only two roses I saw on Sunday that had labels. I know one day when I was there last fall, I ran across a labeled bush of Spray Cecile Brunner. Most of the roses there, however, are unmarked.

*** At a guess, from being around other cemetery collections, I'd suggest this may be because the identity is un-known, or cannot be agreed-upon.

Jeri
anntn6b
16 years ago

Polka was an aha moment when I saw your photos,as the color showed on my computer, BTW. Polka is a climber that isn't. Mine has never exceeded six feet. Ands vase shaped. One friend locally trains it along a fence and it doesn't go from post to post. And the thorn density is variable with some esoteric growing conditions. From what I've seen, the only truly replicable thorn style is two thorns at the base of a leaf. (and rugosa density.)(and pteracanthas and their kin.) (And I think Omar Kayaam is one of a kind.)
This business of roses being called climbers...taken with several buckets of alfalfa instead of a grain of salt.
Modern climbers don't have the vigor of American Pillar or Gardenia. (If they did, they wouldn't be wanted.)

Once you've grown a cutting from a found rose, all sorts of interesting characterisitics might pop up.

Does the foliage on your foundling remind you of Safrano?

Hollywood Cemetery Yellow Rose . . . One More Time

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