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Could this be 'Old Town Novato'?

9 years ago

I was just looking through some photos on The Heritage Roses Group on Facebook. I came across an image of 'Old Town Novato' which, I think, very much resembles a rose I 'found' at our local 'old cemetery' in May.

The rose was absolutely enormous with the most wonderful perfume - on my screen the colour is true to the colour of the rose - I would call it almost a dark magenta but the reverse of the petals are much lighter.

I will post another photo of the reverse of the petals.

I should point out that the photo was taken with my phone around the middle of the day so the lighting was very harsh.

If anyone who is familiar with 'Old Town Novato' could give me their opinion I would be very grateful.

I've just taken a couple of cuttings of this rose last week and I do hope they 'take' because the mother plant has been very badly hacked about and doesn't look as if it will survive.

Cheers
Tricia

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Comments (19)

tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
This photo was taken at the same time of another rose on the same plant that shows much lighter colour of the reverse of the petals.
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Another photo taken at the same time which also shows a bud.
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Old Town Novato and Forest Ranch Pompom
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Comments (3)
Rosefolly, plant OTN nice and deep, covering the crown completely, leaving canes to emerge from the soil rather than a single stem. It will sucker moderately, making a base about 12 to 15 inches around. That will give you a vigorous plant that will eventually shoot up strong 5 foot basals. If you look at the Vintage Garden HP growth habit chart, initially it grows like #2, with new growth immediately beneath each bloom. Don't deadhead with pruners: snap off spent bloom or leave it to form hips late in the season. This rose doesn't mind pruning at all. If the canes are left long, they arch out like #4 and bloom on laterals somewhat moderately but mostly toward the ends of the canes. I prune off all wood smaller than my little finger, removing virtually all laterals and shortening all canes to stiff, self-supporting wood. As a result, it is rather upright and leafed out top to bottom. If you over-fertilize, it will produce very large clusters. I've seen clusters with 18 blooms - - not a good thing considering they are held on the cane by short little peduncles, crowding one another - - but 5 or more are common. Disbudding helps. I have a lousy picture just as the plant is beginning to leaf out, but at least it shows the new growth starting on the outline of pruned canes. For scale, the center canes are 5 feet tall. I'm not sure if you can keep it this compact in a warmer climate, where it wants to grow like an octopus. Octopi canes sunburn up here, so I don't allow it. I'll shoot the plant fully leafed out this weekend. It is now clothed top to bottom. The bi-level effect you see here has been softened to an acceptable shape. It does hide some blooms within the leaf canopy, which is a wonderful thing in hot weather. Here is a link that might be useful:
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"Old Town Novato"
Q
Comments (8)
Oooo, did you say "if you can grow any HP"? That could be me. With some exceptions, I have much better luck with HP disease resistance than Bourbon disease resistance. MIP is a foliage disaster here! I'd vote her Most Likely to Blackspot. OTN has a beautiful bloom, and HMF advertises it as disease resistant. Is its fragrance as delicious as its flower? When I run out of room in my garden, I'll ambush my friends and commandeer their real estate. Carol
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"Old Town Novato"
Q
Comments (33)
Oh dear. We have had a few days in the 100s already and Old Town Novato’s gorgeous, delicate petals are like flambé. Or s’mores roasted over the fire. I was so excited about all these buds, SOOO MANY, but now they’re all sunburnt. The other roses near it were not quite as affected. Hubner Plot handles heat like it’s no problem (cream colored, far left). The thick petals of La Rose de Molinard show no sun burn at all (bright coral pink, far right). WWII Memorial got a bit of sun burn and melting too (grayish pink, bottom), but none had as much damage as Old Town Novato. (Photos below hopefully show, Houzz has been weird lately)... The delicate, thin petals are crispy on all the blooms, but also the buds and and I’m not sure they will even open now. :-( I remember now this happened last year too. We get intense heat waves too early for this rose here. We go right into summer weather in April. It likes NorCal obviously, but i think it likes the microclimates a little milder (say like... Novato). ;-) I think I’m going to need to move it to the shade, where it gets only morning sun so the lovely blooms have a chance here. It will have to mingle with my rhodies and azaleas. Luckily it seems easily trainable and the bush habit itself is simply lovely and extremely healthy, so I think it will look great over there mingling with the rhodies too.
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"Old Town Novato"
Q
Comments (21)
I see now that the HMF description (written by??) says: ”Tall, arching, armed with thorns / prickles, bushy, suckers on its own roots, upright. Large, matte, medium green, fragrant foliage. 3 to 7 leaflets.” (In addition to the comment by Cass that you quoted, Linda.) I wonder if ”suckers on its own roots” was added after Cass‘ experience…or was it original to the text when OTN was first listed on HMF? Completely different rose, but my 18-year-old Rose de Rescht started suckering after 7-8 years while others on the forum with mature RdR plants say that they have never experienced spreading through baby volunteers popping up around the mother plant. BUT 20 years is a long time for a potentially ”suckering plant” not to sucker at all. In my experience, suckering plants sucker sooner or later, more or less, closer or farther to the main plant, etc., but they usually sucker in some way…eventually. So, Jeri your experience with OTN as a non suckering rose after 20 years matches my own experiences with non suckering roses. But not Cass’ experience with her sucking OTN. (Inserting puzzled face.) Isn’t there an OTN plant in the San Jose Rose Garden? Carol
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jerijen
9 years ago
Yes. I'd say it could. Private message me, and I'll try to put you together with the person who collected OTN to begin with.

Can you post a whole leaf, with all leaflets and stipule? Also, I'd very much like to know where you ran across it (which might indicate a connection to OTN).

If you guys get some decent rain (you are in NoCal?) the old girl might yet survive.

Jeri
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Deleted duplicate post

This post was edited by Tuderte on Mon, Oct 27, 14 at 17:07
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Sorry I can't find a photo of a leaf with stipule, however, I did find an out-of-focus shot of a bud with foliate sepals - the colour of the petals is completely bleached out - I'm sorry for that but, at least, you can see the shape of the receptacle.

Tricia
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
I found this photo - I think it's clearer that the previous image of the bud.
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
And lastly, this is a photo of a bloom I cut ( last May).

To give an idea of proportion, the vase is 25 cms (10 inches) tall, so you can see how large the bloom is.

Tricia
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
9 years ago
What a gorgeous rose! I love the color and the way the petals swirls around each other, and of course the size of the bloom. The picture of the flower in a vase is really dramatic.

Ingrid
User
9 years ago
Very beautiful- I'm hoping your cuttings take, and also that the mother plant survives.

Virginia
jerijen
9 years ago
The sepals are right -- that's for sure. And the pale reverse is right, too. I need to go out tomorrow, pick some leaves and compare them to your photos.
jannorcal
9 years ago
Berndoodle has posted detailed pics and description of OTN on her website.
You can click on each thumbnail at the link below to enlarge the photo.
Might help with comparing the roses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Details for Old Town Novato
odinthor
9 years ago
The waviness/undulations of the individual petals in the photos posted by Tricia are (a) beautiful, and (b) different from what I'm seeing in pix of 'Old Town Novato'.

Do I understand correctly that OTN is supposed to be the same as '[Jay's] Hudson Crimson'? I've had the Hudson rose for many years--I'm very fond of it--and no way could Tricia's "undulating rose" be the same as the Hudson rose: Both are beautiful, but in different ways.

Tricia's foundling deserves to be distributed . . .
jerijen
9 years ago
Brent -- Opinions seem to wax and wane -- but the last I heard, Cass ("Berndoodle") was of the opinion that "OTN" and "Hudson Crimson" were the same.

Jeri
jerijen
9 years ago
I hope the op's cuttings strike, because the possibiities are so intriguing.

I will send your pix on to Berndoodle.
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you everyone for your comments ... and Jannorcal thank you so much for the link to 'Details for Old Town Novato' - I'm finding so many interesting articles on that website (www.rosefog.us) but, particularly, the one called 'Found Roses: Collecting & Identifying'.

I realised that I had never posted an image of the rose 'bush' (which is really stretching the definition of bush) - here it is - I apologise for the quality of the image - taken at 1pm on 10th May with my phone so the sun was pretty much directly overhead.

Tricia
jerijen
9 years ago
Tudserte -- Sorry -- been out of touch. But really, that plant looks A LOT better than many I've seen! (And the photo is actually lovely, too.)

Jeri
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Oh Jeri - that photo is how the rose looked last May! This is what it looks like now -

I don't know how why they decided that 'maintenance' means you should strip the plant of any remaining leaves!

Tricia
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Some more information ... I went back to the cemetery today because I wanted to check out the commemorative stone in the wall next to the rose - the plaque is white marble and the inscription is almost indecipherable now, however, I was able to make out the date of death 'MDCCCLXV' which, if my memory serves me well, is 1865. I find it hard to believe that the rose would have lived so long, given its present state but I guess nothing's impossible.

I've also noticed that a lot of the roses in the cemetery seem to have been grown from cuttings of older roses there. I think I have now found a very young, fourth plant of this rose. I'm not sure because I've not seen the original bloom other than fully open.

I found this plant today, in a completely different section of the cemetery - I smelled the bloom and its perfume is wonderful - it's what I remember of the original flower. However, perhaps because I saw the original flower in May and it's now November, the bloom seems quite different. I'm attaching an image taken today (once more, with my phone)
-

and yes, the hole in the cement in which the rose is growing has a diameter of about 6 inches!
tuderte
Original Author
9 years ago
Here's a closer shot of the bloom in the last photo -

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