Searching for the Gold...en State Rose

From 1939 catalog?
This highly colorized photo does not look
like the rose that we have. Not surprising! 

As the 80th anniversary of the Golden Gate International Exposition approached, I attempted to find the 'Golden State' rose, the official rose of the GGIE.

How do you find a rose that was first sold 80 years ago?Chances are pretty good that the rose is no longer in the trade. As new roses come in, people forget the old roses.

When searching for an old or vintage rose, the helpmefind website is very useful. You can find out who sells it and which gardens have it in their collections. Each lead led to a dead end, one after the other. Many rose experts and fans helped by tracking down their sources. Very often the rose had just died. Finally Thea read about my search on the Houzz forum? and she connected me with Becky who connected me with John Bagnasco, in San Diego. 

John: "I've had a difficult time trying to verify this rose. The one that I have was identified by Gregg Lowery to be Golden State. It's a beautiful rose, but to me it looks like it might have a few more petals than the Golden State pics I see on HMF. The color is definitely right. I'll send a pic when the next bloom opens. I am bringing a truckload of roses to the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden in Feb. The Golden State is in a 5G can and I can bring with me when I come up. Would that work for you?"

Then in February 2020, I learned that David Giroux (San Jose Heritage Rose Garden) had the rose delivery from John and it included the 'Golden State.' David drove it up to Fremont.

A drought tolerant rose garden?

Niles Cochet,
at an abandoned gas station in San Juan Bautista,
is the green bushy plant to the left, next to window.
Found/reported by Jeri Jennings.
It was not in bloom in this photo in mid-August,
but its foliage was a nice deep green.
Check out the supporting cast of characters:
agave, yucca?

Can you have roses in a drought tolerant garden, that gets little water in the summer?

I first became aware of such an idea from the "Rose Rustlers", those intrepid seekers of old roses at abandoned homestead, roadways, cemeteries, and abandoned gas stations. Many of these roses were brought by early settlers and were as rugged as the people who brought them. The roses are often disease resistant as well as drought tolerant.

The Master Gardeners of Alameda County have three demonstration gardens: Fremont, Livermore, and Albany. Look for their recommended plant lists.

I was surprised to see roses in the Livermore demonstration garden. I was double-surprised that one of their roses was the 'Mutabilis' rose or 'Butterfly' rose, a China/Bengale hybrid, and is listed as an Earth Kind rose.

Tea roses, like the "Niles Cochet" and its "sport mother", the Maman Cochet, do not require summer water once established.

References:

• “If Dead People Can Grow Roses, Anyone Can” by Mike Shoup, the owner of the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, Texas
• Caring for roses in the drought - UC
• Growing Roses During the Drought - Pacific Rose Society
• Drought Tolerant Roses - Tamara L.C. Johnson
• Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens
• The Rose Rustlers, is a brand new book from Texas and has descriptions of many 'found' roses.
• Earth Kind roses has a list of roses
• Suggestions from UC Davis on training your new rose to be more drought tolerant
• What to plant with your roses? 

You can have your roses and eat them, too

Dandelions top a snack of Mr. Lincoln and a pink rose.

All roses are edible. But some are more tasty. And of course, only if they are grown organically. Grow your own roses so you know that they are safe to eat.

Rosalind Creasy suggests these roses in her book, the Edible Flower Garden:

• 'Cécile Brünner'
• 'Zéphirine Drouhin'
• 'Austrian Copper'
• 'Eglantine'
• 'Belinda' (candying)
• Rugosa alba
• Rosa gallica
• Rosa moschata
• Rosa centifolia
• Rosa damascena
• 'The Fairy'
• 'Carefree Delight'
• 'Jeanne Lajoie'
• 'Graham Thomas'
• 'Perfect Moment'
• "Tiffany'
• 'Mr. Lincoln' (the red one that Beta is smelling)
• 'Double Delight'
• 'Mirandy'
• 'Pink Flower Carpet'

For making rose tea in the rose garden, I like the Bourbon rose 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' and the Portland roses: 'Rose de Rescht' and 'Pickering Four Seasons'. 'Jacques Cartier'  (Damask Perpetual/Hybrid Perpetual/Portland) is nice, too.

Also check on an earlier article with other roses to use for rose extracts.

To make it easier here's the list from that page:

• The Best and Most Fragrant Roses for Making Rose Water and Potpourris suggests Damask rose, Centifolia rose, moss roses. 
• Suggested Damask roses: Leda, La Ville des Bruxelles, Jacques Cartier, Celsiana, Hebe’s Lip, and Madame Hardy. 
• Suggested Centifolia roses: Tour de Malakoff, Fantin Latour, and The Bishop. 
• Suggested Moss roses: Alfred de Dalmas (Mousseline),Chapeau de Napoleon, Henri Martin, William Lobb. 
• Other suggested roses: Madame Isaac Pereire (most fragrant?), Souvenir de la Malmaison, Comte de Chambord, Reine des Violettes

Shinn's Lamarque rose

"La Marque Rose, 
thirteen years old, 
budded on Cherokee stock, 
on the Shinn farm house at Niles California"
From Vick's Illustrated Magazine,
February 1891
So it was planted in 1878.

The Shinn house once had a very large rose bush climbing up its walls. No longer. A yellow rose clambers up the trellis.

Charles Howard Shinn wrote about "California Rose Cottages" in Vick's Illustrated Magazine in 1891. He used a photograph of the farm home in Niles where he grew up. The La Marque rose is approaching the size of a house-eating rose.

Charles says "Then when people ask still further, what roses to plant, I have told them to begin almost any where, but that a Lamarque was good to start with, for one could plant it on a hillside with a crowbar, and it would come out ahead."

The La Marque rose is listed in the Shinn's Nurseries catalog.

Teasing out the Peace Rose History and Weaving in the California Nursery Company

The Roeding family history says that the California Nursery Company was the official West Coast propagator of the Peace rose. Or were they one of several? What about Armstrong?

It is also said that George Roeding, Jr. arranged to have Peace roses delivered to some number of delegates for the United Nations meeting in San Francisco.

Yet there is never any mention of this in the official Peace rose history. Why?

What happened to our Peace Rose?

From the 1948 California Nursery Catalog

These colors? Did the Peace Rose ever have these colors? Was this a colorized photo by someone who didn't know the true colors?

The California Nursery Company was one of the propagators of the Peace Rose on the West Coast in the mid 1940's. This was the color shown in their catalog. But the Roedings remember a different color than the color sold today.

Rose Garden Before Time

The "Lost Rose Garden"

Our local historic nursery park has a hidden neglected rose garden with about twenty rose bushes.

We recently found out that this garden was an old AARS rose test garden, suspended in time from the 1970's when the nursery went out of business.

The neighbor, Bill, who lived behind the garden watered the roses for 48 years. He moved in 2017 and could no longer take care of it. We scrambled and with the help of volunteers and neighbors, the garden was watered that summer. Then we decided that no one would be able to continue this, so in 2017-2018 we moved the roses up to the front of the park in a temporary location, our "Rose Hospital".

What roses are in this garden? There are no labels. What was the AARS rose selection program? Do we have roses that are now lost to the nursery trade? How do we find out?

Some of the roses are quite pretty and have a wonderful fragrance.

Rose Jelly

We were recently treated to some Bosnian treats at the garden. A garden volunteer brought the sweets and her mother. Her mother was in town visiting and came to visit us, too. They brought us a mystery rose that was super fragrant and said that it is used to make rose jelly in Bosnia.

Some garden googling brought up a name (Dulbešećer) and some photos and also somewhere (!) the name of a possible rose, Rose de Rescht. (I'm unable to find that resource again).

And we have it in the rose garden as well! Not quite as fragrant, but definitely the same fragrance.

Rose Water

Russelliana rose at Fort Ross.

Hybrid multiflora.

AKA Cottage Rose, Grevillei scarlet,

Old Spanish Rose, Russell's Cottage Rose

Helpmefind

The rose bushes at Fort Ross State Park are Russelliana roses.

Googling Russellinana sent me to the "Perfume Rose Harvest Tours" at Russian River Rose Company in Healdsburg.

Which made me wonder what roses are best used for rose water.

Roses and their journey around the world

From the THE INDIAN ROSE ANNUAL XXXI 2015

The California Nursery Company's Ramona Float in the 1929 Fiesta de las Rosas

The California Nursery Company float
in the 1929 Fiesta de las Rosas parade.
"The Wedding Scene from "Ramona'' was the
presentation of the California Nursery Company
of Niles, California."
Photographer - Frank Steiner, May 18, 1929
From OCLC WorldCat

In 1929 the California Nursery entered the Fiesta de las Rosas parade in San Jose with this float featuring Ramona's wedding place. Read the souvenir booklet and find the nursery's float on page 16.

San Jose has a very long history of parades to celebrate roses and to highlight San Jose as a "garden city". In 1896, the first "Carnival of the Roses" parade was held.  The Rose Carnival became the "Fiesta de las Rosas" in 1926.  The parade has since transformed into the Rose, White, and Blue parade.

What was the inspiration for this float in 1929? 

This was around the time that George C. Roeding, Jr. was thinking about renovating (or was in the process of renovating) the old Vallejo Adobe building. The 1931 catalog announced that the adobe would soon be renovated. The cover featured a beautiful pen and ink drawing of the Old Adobe.  See related article about Fred Reimers who transformed the adobe from functional to beautiful.

In 1928 "Ramona" was released. This silent movie starred Dolores del Rio and Warner Baxter. (For many years it was thought to be lost. Now you can find it online.) See the book Ramona Memories for how Helen Hunt Jackson's novel affected the selling of California for years and years. Bruce Roeding was not aware of any connection with Ramona, but then he was born in 1928!