They grew roses that did well where they lived, and didn't NEED all that fuss and feathers.

Also, they weren't growing roses for rose shows, so they were, I think, tolerant of a little imperfection.

My Step-G-Grandmother, Mintice Hall Jones Cain, "always had roses." The fence, I think, was to keep the cattle out and the small children IN, and roses grew there.

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I think the roses lived mostly on dishwater, scrubwater, and occasionally bathwater, but they lived. If they had aphids, the dishwater probably took care of them.

Jeri

jeri, that's marvelous that you have that photo.

What the pioneer women DID have was laundry soap water. Soap was made from lye and lard (animal fat). Today's soap is NOT the same stuff and not appropriate for garden use! Insecticidal Soap is the modern equivalent of "grandma's lye soap" The lard (potassium salts of fatty acids) in the soap was the active ingredient. It dries out the exoskeleton of the insects so they can't molt. Instead of their old skin splitting so they can shed it and emerge larger (the way they grow), it doesn't split and they strangle in their own skin. It's much like lye soap (and insecticidal soap) dries out your skin and how they can burn your eyes if you get it in them.

Later, they had Blackleaf 40, a nicotine-sulphur compound which was used to delouse poultry. It was available until relatively recently for home use until it was found to be too poisonous to humans. If you can find it at all know, it's not in pint bottles on the department store shelves as it used to be. Nicotine is a nerve toxin, killing through nervous exhaustion or by actually stopping the heart. Sulphur is a fungicide which kills and prevents many fungi from damaging plant tissues.

Many roses were brought across the country by settlers. Comparitively, only a few actually survived, and those which did, succeeded where they found conditions suitable to their needs. A found rose here in California isn't likely to be a survivor in Tennessee because they are completely different climates with tremendously different levels of water, cold and humidity. You're much more likely to succeed with "found roses" if you can plant the ones 'found' as close to where you garden.

Grandmother's Hat is splendid in many of the California climates, but can be a martyr to black spot where it's hot and humid. Many of the once flowering, European OGRs are found in the North East, surviving for many decades with few issues and no assistance, but they aren't successful here because we can't give them what they want.

You are spot-on with the thought that finding the right rose for the right spot is precisely what you need to do to succeed easily. That's what many have preached for a very long time. I'd suggest contacting Ann in Tennessee for her best suggestions as she's very local to where you are and would have the best suggestions for little to no care roses where you are. The rest of us can suggest many things, but we don't necessarily garden with the same issues so the things we suggest may easily not be good where you are. Kim

Jeri - what a fun picture! I wonder what that rose on the fence is..

subk3 - You have figured it out - roses are not hard to grow at all if you grow roses that like your specific climate. Hopefully someone from your area will respond on here re which old roses like it where you live.

Jackie

Aimee, when we went looking for that house the first time, I had my head out the window, and as soon as I saw the front, I knew I had it. The fence and the roses are gone, and so is one of the chimneys, but it still stands.

I believe "The China From Adina," planted in the old cemetery, is one of Mintie's roses. But I have no way to know what roses were actually there. We just have the photo, and the comment that "Aunt Mint always had roses."

But it does show us that a pioneer woman with her dishwater could have roses -- and she probably knew which roses grew well where she was. HER mother came from Mississippi, where their home had been lost in The War, so her experience was all Southern, and I think her roses were typical of what has been found in Texas.

Jeri

What a great photo to have!

It is interesting to hear about what people brought with them west. We have an old and massively heavy cast iron framed mirror that was supposed to have been brought by covered wagon with the family. What a thing to haul!

I have a little ranch in N. Texas and I started growing OGR's because I thought that with their thorns, they would have a chance of surviving the horses and cows and dogs and chickens. Our house is toward the back of our property but we are surrounded by pasture on all sides. We have a pipe fence around the house and about a 1/2 acre "yard". I don't have rose beds...I dig a hole in the sod and put in a little manure compost and put in the rose and then cover it up with the dirt from the hole. When we lose a beloved pet, I bury them on the fence line and put a rose on top (I wish I could be buried the same way when it is time...) I throw a little composted manure on them every spring. I water them when they are babies. That is it. Every now and then our longhorns get in the yard and they will attack the roses with their horns. Sometimes the horses nibble on them (one old mare pretty much stripped a beautiful cane of Champney's Pink Cluster yesterday). My Zephrine will never attain her full height because the horses munch her down whenever she flings a branch over the fence. The labs sometimes grab canes and play tug of war. My chickens scratch away the grass clippings I try to mulch them with or anything else for that matter and some lay their eggs underneath (Cornelia is a favorite). I have never used any chemical of any kind and I only grow what can survive here with the wind and the sun and the critters and the clay - teas, chinas, hybrid musks, a few rugosas, a few noisettes, a few bourbons, a few floribundas. I learned a long time ago to make peace with my environment and not fight it. Our ancestors probably did the same :)

subk3,
Tennessee suffered a bad spell of weather back in the 1980's. There were three days and nights of temps down to -28F. That spell acted as a plant killer and many, many roses that were growing here for over a century were lost. Just because it's not growing wild here NOW, doesn't mean it can't. It just couldn't thirty years ago. Some of the really wonderful survivors had really odd 'mulch'. A china near me survived because it's roots went under a big piece of granite that was twelve inches thick- redefining mulch.

The gardener at Williamsburg tells a story that is also important when we think back on the Empress Josehpine. This gardener is charged with growing the plants that were used in Williamsburg's "time". Records are good, and plants can be traced down. Williamsburg's soils are the same. But there's something different. All the wonderful plants, imported from elsewhere in the world did really thrive in the new world. (Wait for it.) They don't thrive effortlessly now. What has changed? Their diseases didn't travel in with them; it took a bit longer for the diseases to catch up to their original hosts. (Example: the first year I grew roses in hot and humid Houston, I had no black spot. Then neighbors started growing some roses. Then black spot caught up with all of us.)

Thanks for all the great responses so far! Jeri I have a deep and abiding love affair with old farmhouses, so your wonderful picture literally took my breath away. Thank you so much for sharing it!

It is fascinating to think about what chemicals were available. My initial thought was that they would have been more benign compared to today's choices. Obviously, I was way wrong on that! Having dealt a bit with livestock myself it makes sense that some of the old tonics could be multipurpose like the poultry delouser.

For those of you that suggested Ann I'm sure it would be no surprise to know that she has already been most helpful. My first selections from her suggested class of Tea Noisettes arrived this week to begin my project of a "most bodaciously beautiful" fence line. Since that suggestion I've expanded my desire to include roses in the perennials gardens around the house, so definitely I need to keep finding more information.

Ann once again thank you for insight I could get nowhere else. Of course, I remember that incredible cold snap in the mid 80s. I wonder what type of historical records might be around that discusses early rose selections for the area. It also makes me think I need more introductions to some of Nashville's grand old garden matrons who were gardening before that record setting snap. Out of curiosity what effect does that temperature anomaly have on the current USDA hardiness zoning for the area...if any?

There was a book by Polya called something like "How to lie with figures" I think it is on every USDA statisticians' desk. The current zones totally depend on which years are chosen to average. And, IMO, averages are meaningless when it comes to survival of woody plants.

There are restrictions in the deep south on citrus plants grown north of where I-10 is now. That might include ten citrus plants in protected spots in collectors gardens. The odd thing is that I found a reference from the 1890s to Mobile Bay freezing solid in the northern part. A coupld of weekends ago in Louisville KY, we found a reference to the same year when the Ohio River froze solid.

Those years were the determinants for what survived back then.

Re Nashville, there a few scattered reports back in regional newspapers from local hobbyists talking about what roses were doing well, that year in Nashville. The on line version of the Atlanta Journal Constitution has those tantilizing snipets, and then.......nothing more from someone who I'd really like to read more from.

There was an Alabama Rose Company, a major wholesaler, who bought roses from a California supplier and sold throughout the southeast. But I can't find a list of what they sold- from stuff at the Nat Ag Library, there is a list from them as to the cost per hundred of groups of roses. But no specifics.

I've heard a rumor of a huge garden out in the boondocks east of Nashville. But the guy who told me about it was lost when he stumbled on it. He wasn't even sure what county it was in.

You do need to talk to the guy at Burgess Falls Nursery who did have a fair collection of found roses but was having trouble selling them because they were once bloomers.

Many of the people I've met who gardened through the Freeze gave up roses after that half week. Most of them were strictly HT-centric gardens, because "That's what everybody grows." (Learn how to smile when you hear that, without showing that you're gritting your teeth.)