Need help to ID this charmer

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

I have photos of a rose that my friend Peggi grows in Traverse City, Michigan. She got it as a start from a woman who did not know its name, and she passed along a piece of it to me years ago. I liked it so much that it was one of the rose that made the cut and was transplanted to my garden when I moved 6 years ago. So I had it growing first in zone 4, where it stayed smallish - about 3' tall and wide, and then moved it to a zone 5 garden where it send out 6' canes (or longer) and threaded itself through a tall hydrangea bush planted next to it. Peggi grows it in a zone 5/almost zone 6 garden where pruning for winter die-back is never needed. It is a monster shrub, mounding on top of itself and she only prunes a bit to shape it. This past winter was a tough one in my garden with unusual repeated and extended thaws followed by sudden deep freezes below zero. This rose, which unfortunately had lost the shelter of its companion hydrangea when I dug that up and moved it last fall, suffered severe cane die back and had to be pruned to the ground. I lost canes on many roses that had up to then been cane hardy in zone 5, so I take that as an anomaly. But in any case, my rose is quite tiny this spring - about 2 x 2' overall, so these photos are all from Peggi's garden. We're hoping someone here will put a name to this rose for us. The blooms are quite small (about 1") and button eyed. There is some fragrance, but nothing remarkable. The main flush is in spring, but there is plenty of re-bloom as the shrub continues to grow and send out new trusses of blooms through the season up until freeze. The leaves are shiny and dark green. We're guessing it might be in the polyantha class? Anyone with any guesses, you're more than welcome! I've not had success adding photos into my original post, so I am going to post this and then add the photos after.
Hoping that works - and thanks for taking the time to read all this and consider.

Anne

Featured Answer

mad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

Mine was a very large shrub. I lost it to RRD a couple of years ago, and never managed to take a good photo, apparently.

This is the best I could find. Seafoam is all the unopened buds behind John Cabot. It is probably at least 5 ft high, and at least that across.

Whatever it is, it has unquestionably wichurana genes because of the appearance of the leaves.

Edit: I stopped the hunt too soon. Here is a picture of the same grouping from the other side a year earlier.

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Comments (17)

AnneCecilia z5 MI
Original Author
5 years ago
Here are the photos from Peggi's garden:
maryc_gwSoCA/USDA10
5 years ago
Sorry I can't id it but I have to say what a charmer! I don't think I've ever seen so many buds before - and that's saying a lot considering the photos people post here. Really hope you get an answer - would love to know what it is,

MaryC
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AnneCecilia z5 MI
Original Author
5 years ago
Thank you, MaryC. I have one more photo, of this rose growing in my own garden through that hydrangea, taken last year.

I've had the suggestion that perhaps it is a hybrid musk, not a polyantha, which after a perusal on HelpMeFind seems possible...except that I don't recall a musky fragrance. And I'll have to wait to take a sniff test - it's raining right now and I'm not going to go down into the mud to reach the tiny thing, LOL!
roseseek
5 years ago
Take a look at Seafoam and see what you think.
mcnastarana
5 years ago
'Seafoam' was what I thought also.
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked mcnastarana
jacqueline9CA
5 years ago
I think it looks like Seafoam too. Here is a link to the Seafoam page on Help Me FInd Roses - if you click on photos at the top, and then go back pages, you will find a picture of the hips, which are very distinctive. If yours or your friends has any hips on it, that will help ID it.

Jackie
jacqueline9CA
5 years ago
Oops - forgot to post the link. Here it is:

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.5664
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked jacqueline9CA
portlandmysteryrose
5 years ago
Gorgeous, Anne Cecelia! It does look a lot like Seafoam to me, too. Carol
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked portlandmysteryrose
AnneCecilia z5 MI
Original Author
5 years ago
Well, no hips - ever. I would say that lets out Seafoam, but thanks, all for putting on your thinking caps for me. If anyone else has an idea, I'm listening!
roseseek
5 years ago
Not necessarily. Climate and conditions can make all the difference whether a plant sets hips. In the inland, extreme Valley heat, Iceberg sets extremely few hips. Move it to cool, damp, coastal conditions and it's a bloody fruit bush. Mermaid won't set hips in the Valley heat, but it does at the beach where it remains cool, damp/wet for most of the year. Rosarium Uetersen won't set hips in that same extreme heat because the plant won't produce sexual parts, just a big "puff" of petals. I could never figure HOW anyone ever raise any hybrids from it because there was nothing to allow it. One summer, eons ago, I went to a Ventura County Rose Society meeting and observed a beautiful, soft coral, semi double climber and asked Jeri what it was. She found it remarkable I didn't recognize a rose she knew I was selling, but I had never seen it a soft color, with a cup of petals, FULL of stigma, stamen and anthers. The only difference were the climate and conditions. I'm sure there are those which won't set fruit (and that is entirely what hips are) in the cool, requiring heat to accomplish it, but those are some of the ones I have observed during my long decades of dealing with "bellows of Hades" inland valley, SoCal climates.
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked roseseek
rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
5 years ago
I'm also guessing Seafoam. I grew it for a few years in my Eastern Ontario Garden which was 4b and do not recall it setting hips there. It finally succumbed to a brutal winter. It was just a touch too tender for 4b.
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
AnneCecilia z5 MI
Original Author
5 years ago
Well, your comment has thrown the door open again, Roseseek - thank you for clarifying the presence or absence of hips not being necessarily universal.

Rick, how large did your Seafoam get? My friend Peggi is doubtful of the I.D. because her plant wants to grow like a rambler and with pruning she keeps it as a large shrub. But a member of her local rose society who does grow Seafoam reports it as a ground cover plant - completely lax and trailing on the ground (zone 5.)
roseseek
5 years ago
You're welcome. A "ground cover" rose simply means something which covers the ground. It can be mounding (to literally any height) or it can be spreading, like a rambler left to scramble across the soil. Seafoam resulted from [(White Dawn X Pinocchio) X (White Dawn X Pinocchio)] X (White Dawn X Pinocchio), White Dawn is a New Dawn seedling. There is your Wichurana, tripled! Under the most favorable conditions, it will want to climb, getting longer with age and lack of pruning. Under less favorable conditions, it will be less "scrambling", more "mounding". Most plants do get larger when let loose in more favorable conditions.
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked roseseek
rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
5 years ago
Hi Anne, mine was much like yours, though a little shorter in stature as I recall, wanting more to "scramble", out and down as Kim describes it. That was a long while ago though and my recollection is a bit time blurred.

Cheers, Rick
AnneCecilia z5 MI thanked rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
5 years ago
mag_gallica, isn't it wonderful to still have photos of roses that are long gone? Your picture is lovely, and at least you have a memento of this rose. I pulled up a photo of my long-gone Westside Road Cream Tea not five minutes ago for the thread on Jesse Hildreth to invite a comparison between the two. I regret having tossed aside quite a few roses that I might still have if only I had been patient and waited a few more years for them to mature.
mad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)
5 years ago
Ingrid, actually I do still have Seafoam :-) Before it became infected, it had suckered into 4 different plants. Two were infected, one was apparently too small to survive, but one is still out there. Seeing a lone flower on it was what reminded me that I should have photos of it before the disaster.