I'm sure some of our found roses are self seedlings which volunteered somewhere. Rose seeds have long been available commercially, and particularly Chinas and "Fairy Roses" were distributed as seeds. R. Xanthina was brought to the US by Meyer (of Meyer Lemon fame) as seeds and raised once here. He found both single and double forms from those seeds. Slater's Crimson China, among others, was sent out as seed. It is very successful as a self seeder, too. Any wonder why there are so many variations, all identified as Slater's Crimson China? If "grandma" planted some seeds, or some came up in her garden, of course only the most vigorous, healthiest would have been selected to maintain. Those would likely have been the ones relatives passed around and even planted in the family plots. Often, selfs resemble the parents quite closely. Not exactly, but close enough for someone to look at them and proclaim they are this, or that variety. Grow them side by side and you'll see differences. Micro sports also occur all the time, altering basic traits just enough to change the rose so it's no longer the original. You might find a less, or more, double mutation. Take a look at Awakening and New Dawn. They COULD be mistaken for the same rose if you didn't know one or the other well enough, but they aren't the SAME rose. Kim

It was very interesting to learn of the pruning suggestions for RdR! I had completely forgotten that this spring I had given it a very hard pruning. This spring, the bush was about 3' tall with a lot of short canes coming up vertically through the middle of the plant. Further, it was extremely twiggy with a lot of little branches very tightly intertwined. I knew it was time for a major pruning and did just that, reducing the vertical canes to 3 or 4 and getting rid of the twiggy growth completely. Right now the bush looks great, including the foliage which is remarkably clean and the shape which is rounded and full at about 3'. I still think that the rain has contributed to the constant bloom this summer.

Marina, let me first say how happy I am that you are home and have the surgery behind you. Don`t try and do too much, but a gentle slow walk try your beautiful roses must be fine! You must have the most glorious collection of roses. It still slays me that you don`t fertilize your roses!! They are so full of blooms with lovely foliage. The B d Guillot red rose is my favorite, but they are all lovely. Thank you for sharing your roses with me and please take care of yourself. Fall roses are so special and I want you to enjoy ALL of yours. Lesley

Melissa never been to Italy in person but many times through books & movies.... I wasn't aware of the professor's death, sad, I came upon his garden's name whilst browsing François Joyaux's collection of 200 gallicas. I got to now Eleonora Garlant through this book, when I came upon this thread last year. Truly interesting lady. Though more interesting is the rose Andrea Di Robilant was looking for its identity. I communicate frequently & fluently in French living in Montreal :-) Thank you for your interest in my small garden. However being in part shade and zone 4, rose growing is a challenge, mostly experimental with roses subjected to less than the optimal growing conditions. However, I don't agree with Campanula's sole preference for words. Words while highly evocative in literature, are often misleading in rose identification. If you've had patience enough to go through the Francis Dubreuil thread many of the problems with this rose happens because of over use of adjectives, pink, cerise, dark red, amaranth..... That doesn't mean that photos aren't misleading at all but its easier to identify a pink rose visually than verbally. The ideal online ID would be a combination of both :-)