The Origins of Our Garden Roses

by Colonel Richard Gilbertson

Health Warning

A passion for Heritage Roses is strongly addictive and no remedy short of poverty is available

The Rose is a flower of great antiquity. Many species of roses are native to Europe and Asia, though none are known from south of the Equator. In China the formal garden cultivation of the Rose is thousands of years old. A rose from which Chinese garden varieties may have been derived was found growing in the wild in Western China by a European botanist, Dr Augustine Henry in 1884, and recently a Japanese botanist has found it in several locations in Yunnan and Sichuan. To distinguish it from the newer, probably hybrid variety already known as R chinensis, it was named by botanists as R chinensis spontanea. It displays some variability in the wild (just as do our native dog roses), being found as white, buff, yellow, pink and even red, and some varieties have a rich scent. A few plants from Chinese seed are growing in Britain now. This rose has the characteristic of flowering continuously, which was lacking in the mediaeval roses of Europe, most of which flowered only once in the year.

In Europe, the cultivation of roses was known to the Greeks and the Romans. The Red Rose, R gallica, developed in the wild and can be found throughout Europe and as far east as Persia. It was grown in commercial quantities from the earliest times, because the petals of this rose retain their perfume when harvested and dried. When any plant is grown in vast numbers, varieties will appear by natural mutation from time to time. Some will be of more use than others, and these selected varieties will be propagated in preference to their wilder parents. In the early Middle Ages, R gallica varieties were grown extensively for their petals in France round the town of Provins. The Red Rose of Provins is now known botanically as R gallica officinalis, the 'Apothecaries Rose'. It was the raw material for the manufacture of Rose Water, much used in mediaeval cookery, and of oils and perfumes. The Empress Josephine had about 130 varieties of R gallica in her garden at La Malmaison at the turn of the Nineteenth Century.

If you have room for only one old rose, choose 'Rosa Mundi', a rose with pink and white stripes which has been known at least from the Sixteenth Century. A popular belief is that it was named for the Fair Rosamund, the mistress of King Henry II. Plant it deeply, mulch with compost or dung, and it will reward you by spreading over the years. Prune vigorously after flowering.

The Damask Roses. The gallica varieties flower only once during the year, in early summer. In the early Middle Ages a cross betwen R gallica and the Musk Rose, R moschata, appeared in the Middle East, probably in the wild. Legend says that a variety of this rose, R damascena bifera, the 'Four Seasons Rose', was brought back to Britain by knights returning from the Crusades. With careful pruning, they will produce a second small flush of flowers in the autumn. Double varieties of the Damask Rose are grown in very large quantities in Asia Minor and the Balkans, and particularly in Bulgaria, for distillation of Attar of Roses from their petals. Turkish Delight is flavoured with this Attar, and the annual crop of rose petals may be thousands of tons. 'Ispahan' and 'Kazanlik' are well worth growing.

Until the end of the Eighteenth Century, therefore, most European garden roses flowered only once in a year. From about 1760 onwards, roses with China ancestry began to appear in Europe; the first of these being a perpetual flowering rose from Bombay brought home by a Dutch merchant. It was at first thought to be a hybrid from R indica and was named the 'Old Blush'. A red form from Calcutta a few years later was named 'Slater's Crimson China' and from 1790 onwards merchants of the Honourable East India Company were allowed by the Chinese at Canton to bring home specimens of perpetual flowering roses developed by Chinese gardeners over many centuries. The four China stud roses, 'Slater's Crimson', 'Parsons' Pink' (now more generally known as the 'Old Blush China'), 'Hume's Blush Tea Scented', and 'Parks' Yellow Tea Scented', all introduced between 1780 and 1824, are the ancestors of most of our perpetual flowering varieties today. The 'Old Blush China', treated very generously, would be my favourite for a small garden, perhaps planted against a south-facing wall.

The remontant character of the Damask 'Rose du Quatre Saisons' encouraged European gardeners to breed from it, and a cross with 'Slater's Crimson China' in Italy is said to have produced 'Duchess of Portland' about 1790. This rose is said to have been named after the 3rd Duchess of Portland. This ascription is doubtful as an English catalogue of 1782 refers to a rose by the same name, in the time of the 2nd Duchess. Peter Beales sees little evidence of China characteristics in it, and definite Damask traits. He suggests a Gallica as the second parent. The 2nd Duchess of Portland is known to have been a keen rose grower and her gardeners may have produced it for her. 'Slater's Crimson China' was available in Holland about 1780. A puzzle! However, several garden varieties of The Portland Rose were bred and some are useful garden shrubs today, in particular 'Comte du Chambord', a short, bushy rose with 'old fashioned' pink flowers for many months.

During the Napoleonic War, the international nature of science, and in particular botany, was well recognised. The Empress Josephine, (of whom Napoleon was tiring), established a famous garden at the palace of Malmaison, and ships carrying plants for her were allowed through the naval blockade. She was particularly keen on roses, and encouraged their development from the new Chinese varieties then coming into Europe.

In the first years of the Nineteenth Century, John Champneys, an American rosegrower, crossed 'Parsons' Pink China' with Miller's 'Old White Musk', and 'Champneys Pink Cluster' quickly became popular with American gardeners. Seeds harvested from this first cross by a French gardener, Phillipe Noisette, in New Orleans produced the first Noisette Rose, which he sent to his brother Louis Noisette in Paris in 1814; sadly, the year in which the Empress Josephine died. The new plants were bushier, more compact than 'Champney's Rose', and flowered right up to Christmas. Further crosses were made, and a cross with the China stud, 'Parks' Yellow Tea Scented', gave rise to many varieties including the yellow tea roses and the climber, 'Gloire de Dijon', still a favourite in my garden.

Development of the China Roses was fast in the hands of European gardeners; but the real breakthrough occurred in the French colony of Ile de Bourbon, in the Indian Ocean. 'Parsons' Pink China' and the European 'Four Seasons' rose were growing close together and a chance seedling appeared, which was recognised by the garden superintendant as of interest. He forwarded seeds of this rose to King Louis Phillippe's gardeners in Paris in 1819. The first plants to be grown flowered abundantly, had a strong perfume and a good constitution. They were named 'Rosier de l'Isle Bourbon', the Bourbon Rose.

The Bourbons were back-crossed with the China stud roses; and from these crosses stemmed a whole galaxy of roses during the next fifty years or so. 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' is the palest pink, typically three to four inches across, quartered in true old rose style. It was raised at the Empress' garden at La Malmaison, though well after the Empress's day. This rose is said to have been named by a Russian Grand Duke who visited the garden at La Malmaison and was given plants to be taken back to Russia, Asked to name the new variety, he called it 'Souvenir de la Malmaison'. Scores of Bourbon varieties, if not hundreds, were bred by nurserymen during the Nineteenth Century and many are still available today. A climbing form appeared later in the Nineteenth Century and is well worth growing, though it needs spraying against Black Spot. 'La Reine Victoria' and 'Louise Odier' are good, and 'Mme Isaac Pereire' has enormous, very strongly scented blooms.

Further development of the Bourbons led in due course to the Hybrid Perpetual roses of the later Nineteenth Century. Some of these produce tall, whippy growth which can be pegged down horizontally (if labour is available!). Vertical sidegrowths will appear at every leaf joint and fill a bed with flowers. My favourite Hybrid Perpetual, 'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain', produces splendidly perfumed fully double deep crimson purple roses, just right for a buttonhole. It prefers a rather shady site to flower well.

Towards the end of the last century, the strong 'tea' scent of two of the China stud roses was developed in a new race of Hybrid Tea roses, more resistant to disease, longer and more perpetually flowering than the Hybrid Perpetuals, to become the garden roses of the mid-Twentieth Century.

This article is of necessity superficial - it omits many older roses, for example the Moss Roses, popular in the early years of the Nineteenth Century. The Alba roses form a minor family on their own, the attractively named 'Maidens Blush' appears in many modern gardens. More information will be found in the works cited in the Bibliography

Bibliography

RHS Journal, March, July and August 1941

'Notes on the Origin and Evolution of our Garden Roses'

by Dr C C Hurst. His paper was based on experimental cytology (genetic research) undertaken before the Second World War, and was reproduced by Graham Stewart Thomas in his book 'The Old Shrub Roses', Phoenix House, London, 1955, the book which more than any other sparked off my interest in growing the historic roses of the past.

Some of the historical information in Dr Hurst's paper has been superseded by more recent studies, and a splendid survey of the development of the rose will be found in Peter Beales Roses, Harvill Harper Collins, 1992, from which much of the information in this paper is derived.

The passage on R chinensis spontanea was based on the Autumn 1996 edition of The Rose, the journal of The Royal National Rose Society, RNRS. Modern DNA analysis techniques are being used to confirm, or sometimes deny, the relationships described above, notably in France (Paper by Maurice Jay in RNRS Historic Roses Group No 20, Autumn 2000).