I really like that idea Christopher and will check into doing so this spring. Right now I have another rose growing next to it. It is another one that I do not have a name for. It has small pink roses. When I was growing up a next door lady to my parents had this rose. She was very special to us and like a grandmother. I keep this rose in her memory. Maybe someone can identify this rose. It also only blooms once in the spring. I don't think it has much of a fragrance. and don't know how old it is. Though I do know she had it as long as I can remember so it would have to go at least back to the 50 or 60s. This post was edited by linjon on Sun, Jan 12, 14 at 23:42

I can't say what it is, although it does look familiar and I would guess that it is a heritage variety. There are several experts here on the older roses and the Antique Roses forum would be another logical place to post your question. Here is a link that might be useful: link to your photos of the mystery rose

Thanks again for all the comments, questions and guesses. My dad has borrowed my brother's camera, and taken some more pictures. For the questions: the rose is currently in about the middle of Louisiana. I apparently had it wrong. The family did not move it from Tennessee. It was always in Louisiana, about the middle of the state. The leaves are dark green, matte (not shiny). It typically blooms all summer and into fall. Here's the story (more detail) from my dad. When my mother's Aunt Rosanna Roe Brian was forced to move because of the railroad, she had to move in a hurry and Mama was over there helping and her Aunt Rosanna (Rhode) asked her if she wanted this rose bush. Not wanting it to be destroyed by the railroad she dug it up and put it in an old slop jar that had holes in the bottom and took it home to her parents. This was 1905, just before she marred. It was late in the evening when she got home and she dug a hole and put the bush, slop jar and all, in the hole and filled in the dirt. She soon married and didn't think about the rose bush for many years. About 1940, she asked her great nephew who lived on the place if the rose bush was still living and told him where she had planted it in the former yard of the home place which had been used as a cow pen for thirty years or so. He didn't know but looked and saw there was a rose bush where she had told him. He dug it up and it still had the bail of the slop jar around it, but the slop jar had long since rusted and disintegrated. He put it in his mother's yard and it stayed there until about 1983 when Margaret and I went by and got a piece of it. It didn't like Florida but survived long enough to let me get cuttings to root and take to Louisiana where it thrived. It was so happy here that it even bloomed in wintertime until the trees around it grew tall and it didn't get much sunshine and I cleared the area accidentally tossing most of it away.

Those are black aphids. Conventional insecticides like Bayer Complete Insect Killer, famous blue bottle, at 1 T./gallon of water, a couple sprays a week apart, will kick them to the curb. Organic methods don't work effectively for me, so someone else would have to chime in on this attack method. Left to multiply and develop colonies, under leaves and at growing tips, aphids of any color can do a lot of damage. The amount of force needed to spray them off with water which is often recommended could damage leaves and tender new growth aphids frequently infest. Moses