Wednesday 14 August 2013

Sylvie's Rose

A couple of years ago our seriously green thumbed friend and neighbour Sylvie did a rose propagation workshop at the Chateau of Azay-le-Ferron. I was the lucky recipient of one of the cuttings she had taken from the chateau's rose garden. Ever since it has lived in a smallish plastic pot and moved around the garden and courtyard, developing roots and growing a bit. My attention to it has be shamefully intermittent, but it has survived several cold winters and some hot dry weather. It's clearly indestructible.

It's also beautiful. This year I potted it up into a really big pot and it has put on a lot of growth and flowered for the first time. The flowers are the palest palest pink (or white with a pink blush in rose speak). It has the most glorious scent. I am delighted with it, and impressed by its tenacity as well as its outstanding all-round rosiness.

Sylvie told me when she gave it to me that she couldn't remember what it was called. I've consulted some books and I think it might be a centifolia of some sort, but rose taxonomy is a black art, and I am by no means sure. Anyone who has any idea what the name of my lovely rose is please speak up!

3 comments:

Tim said...

The head is that of a "moss" rose... but the stem ain't!
That might help...
and Pauline's got a book...

chm said...

The opened flower looks very much like Madame Alfred Carrière, an old climbing rose.


http://www.davidaustinroses.com/american/showrose.asp?showr=539

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Rosa_Madame_Alfred_Carriere_2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosa_Madame_Alfred_Carriere_2.jpg&h=1333&w=1600&sz=284&tbnid=fTdWQI32_S9arM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=108&zoom=1&usg=___I-3BhImlih6Elv54hO2fQpC7yE=&docid=to6nJ_qOycYj4M&sa=X&ei=ETMLUsHrJvDYyQGqj4BY&ved=0CDgQ9QEwAg&dur=747#imgdii=fTdWQI32_S9arM%3A%3Bq4vWw3sNjV6KGM%3BfTdWQI32_S9arM%3A

As far as I know, no relationship with the painter Eugène Carrière.

Susan said...

Tim: It's not a moss -- not enough sticky hairy bits, but you are right -- it's the calyx that makes me think centifolia. Mosses are a sort of side branch of the centifolias, so there are resemblances.

chm: I know Mme Alfred Carriere, and it had crossed my mind that it could be this or maybe a similar Bourbon rose. I think Mme AC is very close to the mark.

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