A rose by any other name
By Judy Evans
@JudyEv (325105)
Rockingham, Australia
June 16, 2016 1:03am CST
I have just pruned my four rose bushes. Pruning perhaps implies that I know what I'm doing whereas in actual fact I don't. The bushes were getting very unkempt and needed tidying up. This has now been done. I know the centre of the bush is supposed to be kept uncluttered and that's what I've tried to do.
Anyway one of the bushes, created by rose grower and breeder Peter Nosow, is called 'Olivia Newton-John' after the singer/actress which is probably best remembered for her performance opposite John Travolta in the musical Grease.
I would have called the blooms pink but research tells me it has 'delicate apricot buds which open to reveal a peachy-apricot bloom'. I'll let you be the judge from the photo. When mature, the flowers are double and softly ruffled. It does have a delicate tea fragrance and bushes grow to about 1.2 metres. Proceeds from the sale of this rose has helped raise thousands of dollars for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre based at Austin Health in Melbourne. Olivia survived breast cancer in 1992.
A second rose created for the Wellness Centre was unveiled in 2012 and named 'Our Honey Olivia'. It is a honey-coloured variation of the original rose.
Do you have roses and do you do your own pruning?
47 people like this
50 responses
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
16 Jun 16
There are some weird and wonderful names for roses. I think it would be nice to have roses growing in a neighbouring park.
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
@enlightenedpsych2 I was meaning individual names for the different rose varieties. I'm not sure I can think of 'outlandish' names but there are ones like Just Joey, Arthur Bell, Atomic Blonde, New Dawn, Night Owl.
@crazyhorseladycx (39515)
• United States
16 Jun 16
i reckon they're referrin' to the "blush" that ripe apricots've, 'kin to a sun-kissed peach? either way, 'tis a beauty'n such a worthy cause. i didn't care fer that movie myself, but think she's a beautiful voice. how delightful they've released 'nother, will ya be gettin' one'f those also?
most'f the rose bushes here perished o'er years'f drought (ya save the trees, the rest ya sadly let go), but there's a few survivors. i've been unable to tend to their prunin' fer some years 'n they truly show't! some're climbers 'n've taken o'er their area'n then some, the others're quite scraggly lookin' 'n i'm hopin' i can hold out'n their prunin' 'til february. somethin' that's'n desperate need.
1 person likes this
@crazyhorseladycx (39515)
• United States
17 Jun 16
@JudyEv :D yes ma'am, i nearly cried o'er the loss'f some. most beautiful 'n the scent that permeated the place from 'em a great loss's well. those spendy ones tend to come back...'s a dull red with no fragrance - what they used to graft to 'n the most hardy'f stock.
'bout 20 years 'go, when the hubs went with me to the "hills", we went to my grannie's ol' homestead 'n i was delighted to see one'f her rosebushes still remained. i whipped out the shovel 'n dug me up some, it grows to this day out by my drive. opens with the palest flush'f pink 'n then turns a clear white. no fragrance, though't'd such back there. i reckon the lack'f humidity'd be a factor?
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
@crazyhorseladycx How lovely that you have such an old rose still growing. I don't know anything which ones have fragrance and which don't - except that I think maybe the ones with horrible thorns have the best smells. :)
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
16 Jun 16
Yes, and yes. I used to have a magnificent rose garden with dozens of roses. This was a real job, especially since the specimen of Climbing Peace I had sent out canes of about 12 feet long each season.
Tip for pruning: When you cut blooms, look very low on the stem, find a swelling on the outer side of the stem (away from the center of the bush) and cut the stem just above there. This way, you will never have a big job, since cutting flowers is, in essence pruning. The branch will grow from that swelling and keep your bush tidy.
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
18 Jun 16
@JudyEv Thanks. This works for many plants. Plants send their "juice" (life force) up a stem or branch and keep growing through the "bud unions" also called "bud eyes". I just call them the swelling. It seems to be a description most people can relate to.
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
19 Jun 16
@JudyEv I think there are official names of things and what we all call them. The later depends upon how we heard of the object the first time. If the bud to which you are referring is along the stem, and looks like a swollen nub, then we're talking about the same thing. It's where the stem continues to grow, and not where a rosebud starts.
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@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
@ElizabethWallace I thought 'swelling' and what I'd call a bud (or start of a bud) would be the same.
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@divalounger (5849)
• United States
16 Jun 16
What a beautiful flower! So delicate and a lovely color! I do have roses and deadhead them once or twice a year--but I don't know what I am doing either--but they keep blooming, so I must be doing something right!
1 person likes this
@divalounger (5849)
• United States
17 Jun 16
@JudyEv I actually think they are getting some fertilizer for "free." We use the old dishwater, with all those food particles to water them--all that vegetable matter seems to work for them
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@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
@divalounger If Mum's roses got aphis or mildew, she would throw the dish-washer over the bushes as the detergent would help get rid of the pests and mildew.
1 person likes this
@koopharper (7463)
• Canada
16 Jun 16
When I worked through college, I was actually considered one of the more talented student arborists. Never had to prune roses though. Right now I do my "pruning" with a chainsaw close to the ground. Spotted Alders take some taming.
1 person likes this
@koopharper (7463)
• Canada
16 Jun 16
@JudyEv I'm prone to exert a little too much pressure for the mechanism on loppers made that way. I have a plain shear style lopper from the dollar store. It only half size but I can get a lot of work done with it and the price of three bucks was hard to beat.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
16 Jun 16
Chainsaws do a great job of pruning. We have a pair of ratchet pruners which are pretty good too. They 'bite' partway through then you open them up and close them again and they finish the job. It's hard to explain but they're very effective on quite thick stems.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
17 Jun 16
@koopharper For that price you can afford another one if and when you wear out the first.
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@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
16 Jun 16
We don't have any here - but we have had many roses over the last few years at different homes. I am not a pro - but we did more than prune, we hacked them and they came back bigger and better after.
1 person likes this
@AbbyGreenhill (45496)
• United States
16 Jun 16
@JudyEv The roses in this area are all 'knock out roses' so they can take the abuse.
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@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
17 Jun 16
@AbbyGreenhill No sure what a 'knock out rose' is. Do you mean they are tough and not likely to die?
@Jeanniemaries (8237)
• United States
16 Jun 16
I can see the apricot color. It's a gorgeous rose!! in my last house I had many rose bushes, all different, all beautiful. I was not good at trimming them, and some I ruined by trimming back too far and they reverted to simple flat red roses. I never knew that could happen.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
16 Jun 16
Forgive me if you know this but most roses are cultivated on 'root stock'. If they send new shoots from below the graft near the base of the bush, the foliage and flowers from below the graft will be of the old stock so maybe that is where the flat roses came from.
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@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
16 Jun 16
@Jeanniemaries Usually when they shoot from below the graft they are very vigorous. I have one that keeps doing that. And it is really, really thorny.
@Jeanniemaries (8237)
• United States
16 Jun 16
@JudyEv Yes, that is exactly what happened. I pruned to below the graft in my zeal to protect the canes from a harsh winter.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
16 Jun 16
That is a perfect delicately formed rose. That's an Olivia?
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@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
16 Jun 16
Yes, one of the first 'Olivia' types. We've had it for quite some years.
@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
17 Jun 16
@JohnRoberts She set up the facility so it isn't just named after her. Vince (husband) used to call here Olivia Newton-Bomb. Some of the proceeds from the sale of the roses go to her foundation.
@JohnRoberts (109857)
• Los Angeles, California
16 Jun 16
@JudyEv I knew of Olivia's illness but not that she has roses and a medical facility named after her. She was a heartthrob when I was young.
1 person likes this
@WriterGirl44 (62)
•
16 Jun 16
My ex grows beautiful roses. We got a new rose bush for each of our children when they were born. Everyone has a bold color and surprisingly the colors match their personality :-) I tried to grow tea roses indoors but it was never a successful endeavor for me. I guess I will appreciate these beauties from afar.
@WriterGirl44 (62)
•
17 Jun 16
@JudyEv the children's plants are outside. I was referring to the potted tea roses for inside. I haven't had any luck with these. They are easy to overwater and winter in the North is too cold, even in the house. I have a black light for my summer seeds, so I may try it again. I hate giving up :-)
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@WriterGirl44 (62)
•
18 Jun 16
@JudyEv I remembered the name of the roses I tried to grow. They are miniature roses, often found around Valentines Day as an alternative to giving cut bouquets. I think they are beautiful.
1 person likes this
@much2say (53798)
• Los Angeles, California
16 Jun 16
How very pretty and dainty! Don't you just love all the chic names they have for various colors? It is a pink, but to say peachy-apricot certainly makes it sound fancier 
. We "did" have roses - but we had been wanting to get rid of all the bushes. Apparently you can't just pull them out . . . they come back again, as we have discovered. Seriously, every year they pop out of the ground in the very same spot we yanked them out 
. But I know what you mean about implying that you know what you're doing with the pruning . . . that's the way it was when I was tending to the roses . . . I just tried to make it look "nice"!
. We "did" have roses - but we had been wanting to get rid of all the bushes. Apparently you can't just pull them out . . . they come back again, as we have discovered. Seriously, every year they pop out of the ground in the very same spot we yanked them out . But I know what you mean about implying that you know what you're doing with the pruning . . . that's the way it was when I was tending to the roses . . . I just tried to make it look "nice"!1 person likes this
@much2say (53798)
• Los Angeles, California
17 Jun 16
@JudyEv I used to be worried about killing the rose plants altogether, but I guess no matter what I did they weren't going to die. To me, "nice" meant keeping the bush small and shapely instead of letting the long stems grow every which way.
1 person likes this
@succeednow (1633)
• Singapore
17 Jun 16
I like looking at roses but they are hard to grow in a tropical place. I'm also wondering whether scientists have come out with one that has no thorns.
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@succeednow (1633)
• Singapore
19 Jun 16
@JudyEv I didn't know that. No wonder they have not been able to get rid of the thorns. Maybe in the near future some really smart guy can come out with a solution.
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@JudyEv (325105)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 Jun 16
I think every time they get rid of the thorns, the fragrance also disappears.
@silvermist (19702)
• India
16 Jun 16
@JudyEv Yes,I remember seeing the movie and Olivia in it.Whatever the color is supposed to be it is soft and beautiful.No,sadly,I do not have roses.
1 person likes this
@silvermist (19702)
• India
20 Jun 16
@JudyEv Yes,definitely Olivia looked pretty and the roses named after her are prettier.
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