Rose Purgatory

Rose Purgatory, also known as Rose Purgatory, is a place where roses that are bad can go to redeem themselves.
Why is a rose bad for you?
I’ll tell you a tale. A double pink rose was once a fragrant plant at the house of my neighbor. She gave me a small piece, which I planted near the propane tank in our old home. It stayed there for a long time, growing very little and producing only a few flowers.

We moved and I moved the rose with some hesitation to the south of the deck, where some ditch lilies were growing. I added some composted manure from a horse farm nearby and hoped for best results.

The perfect bud from my neighbor’s rose

This sweet little thing had a second wind, and now was determined to take over the entire bed. It was evident that the rose would not stay in place. It had some flaws in addition to sending out suckers. The rose only bloomed one time, as is common with many antique and heirloom roses. The flowers would “ball” when the conditions were not right. The outer petals of the flower can become dried and act as a wrapping that prevents the flower from opening.

The arrow points to a balled-up rose.

The fragrance was amazing, and it didn’t require you to put your nose in the flower. The scent wafted in the air. It was like a perfume cloud that welcomed you and made you want to find the source. When the flowers bloomed, they looked very beautiful.

Beautiful and very fragrant

What should I do? If I planted it against the shed, I would only be able to grow it sideways because the shed would block it from growing in any other direction, and the mower would remove any shoots that grew in the opposite direction. This area wasn’t very hospitable. I had planted extra tough plants, like hardy geraniums and ajuga along with the ditch lilies, which were originally on the south deck. I also allowed my favorite weeds: jewelweed, asters, jewelweed, buttercups and dame’s Rocket to remain.

Rose Purgatory is the name given to a portion of the unrepentant rose. I tried training it against the wall like Monty Don did on Gardener’s World. The climate in Monty Don’s garden is very different from ours, so I am not sure that the time for pruning and tying the rose to the wall will be the same. But I believe this rose is resilient enough to handle any mistakes I may make. It’s already looking good. I like the way it is blooming along the horizontal stems.

The rose tied up in all its glory.

Other roses joined this one but none has done as well – at least not yet. Jenny Duval was given to my by a woman with a garden of heirlooms roses. She’s another pink rose and I honestly don’t know if she is alive or not. has banished the rugosa white that was supposed be ‘Madame Hardy,’ but it wasn’t. A rose that was given to me by a friend bloomed for the first year this year.

This rose is smaller and darker pink.

I don’t remember the name of the rose that my neighbor has. I have suspected for a long time that it is the rootstock from a grafted rosy, the place where the graft has died. It is very similar to Manetti a rose used in the 19th Century as an understock. My neighbor was a resident of a farmhouse from the 19th century. Two of the gardens I visited two hours north had the same rose. You guessed it, they were farmhouses from the 19th century. According to the few sources that describe it, ‘Manetti is hardy up to USDA Zone 6 which doesn’t fit my climate or even the Zone 4 gardens I visited. Conclusion: Either this rose isn’t ‘Manetti.’ Or ‘Manetti is harder than all experts believe! Edit Since then, I brought my rose to Leon Ginenthal at Der Rosenmeister Nursery who identified it as pink damask.