The oldest rose plant you know?

[Camilla]

Hi.

Thats old. :)

I have a rose in my garden that we know has been growing here at lest for a 100 year, just 900 years again to a record. :D

Camilla

[hannes]

This is a nice legend connected to that "Thousand-Year-Old Rose" at Hildesheim cathedral (and there are a number of similar legends). As Rachel mentioned above, the first documented records of the rose date back to the last third of the 16th century. The Wikipedia article states that the rose is at least 700 years old according to scientific attests. Other sources say that botanists who examined this dog rose have estimated an age of about 300 years for the plant. In any case, a very old rose and very impressive.

Here's a short article in English , also has a photo of the rose in bloom: CLICK HERE

greetings
Hannes

@ Camilla: just curious, what rose family is your 100 yr. old rose from?

[Camilla]

Hi Hannes.

My 100 year old rose is a Alba rose, I dont know the name but its white and about 1,80m tall witha a good fragrance.
I will see if I can post some photos of it later. Its a nice rose.

Camilla

[hannes]

Thank you, Camilla. I'd love to see some photos of that Alba.

Have a lovely weekend
Hannes

P.S./later addition:
Speaking of 100 yrs. old roses, my grandmother had just one rose in her garden, a Centifolia-ish type with very double pink flowers and with an excellent fragrance. She had planted the rose about 1910 and the rose is still going strong (now my mother's garden). Every other year when there was a more severe winter the canes completely froze down to the ground but the rose came back every time. I've dug up suckers from the rose two years ago and now too have my granny's rose in my garden. It's a bit sentimental but also somehow satisfying to know I have a rose which is a part of the plant that had been planted by someone from the family nearly 100 years ago.



(Photos are from middle of June this year)

[Camilla]

Hi Hannes.

Thats a gorgeous rose, looks a lot like Centifolia Major that are in full flower in my garden now.

Camilla

[cyndyp]

Hannes,

What a beautiful rose! How lucky you are to have a part of a rose that your grandmother planted. Enjoy the weekend.

Cyndy

[pinta]

my dad has a rose in his garden that he found in the foundations of his house. the house was built using sandstone from a nearby monastary that was demolished in Henry viii times and the rose could well have come from there. he planted the root some years ago and it has done well. It is a rambling type white rose, and he thinks it is called Chloe. does anybody have any inf on this rose

[Elizabeth M]

Pinta

if you could post a picture of the rose, I am sure someone will be able to identify it. And it would be great so see a rambler that has been growing for so many years.

ELizabeth

[GreenLarry]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth M

Pinta

if you could post a picture of the rose, I am sure someone will be able to identify it. And it would be great so see a rambler that has been growing for so many years.

ELizabeth

Hear hear!

[Paul Narramore]

An old post I know, but worth adding to. I'm also interested on old roses, and again, I mean old plants rather than the variety. During the summer of 2006. I spent three months riding my motorcycle across the USA, from the East Coast to the West and back again, some 17,000 miles. I stayed with friends from a previous trip in Tucson AZ, and one day we drove out to Tombstone, close to the Mexican border and famous for the Gunfight at OK Coral. Boot Hill, the town's cemetery, where the Clancy Brothers were buried, is at one end of the town. It was a baking hot day. Tombstone still resembles a Wild West town with mock gunfights staged in the dirt main street and Big Nose Kate's bar filled with tourists and Americans dressed as cowboys.

I was asked if I wanted to visit the World's Largest Rose - did I? I was shown through an antique shop into a rear courtyard. The rose had a massive 6ft diameter central trunk and the main growth is 10ft above the tiled courtyard and supported on numerous horizontal steel bars. The original bush, a white 'Lady Banksia' came over from Scotland in 1885 and it now covers an area of 8,000 square feet. Each Spring it is covered with millions of tiny white blossoms.

They sold rooted cuttings so I bought one for my hosts and when we returned to Tucson, planted it in their 'garden' with careful instructions of how to nurture it. For years, in our emails, they never mentioned it, until further prompting revealed that Gary had 'over fertilised it' and killed the poor plant. If that was me, I'd have returned to the original rose, bought a replacement and said nothing about it. However..... Gardening is not their cup of tea really as the ground in their 'garden' is desert, sandy coloured dust and rock.

My guess is that this is a Rosa banksia alba plena dating from the early 1800s and which clearly enjoyed the baking hot and dry climate of Arizona.

I know of the ancient Rosa canina of Hildesheim but have been trying without success to locate Britain's oldest rose. I have tried everywhere on the Internet and contacted the National Rose Society but so far it has eluded me. I know of roses from the late 1800s but there must be earlier ones. I wonder if the Moderator could ask Peter Beales for me?

Incidentally images of both these ancent roses can be found on Google Images.