Unknown Griffith Buck

11 years ago

last modified: 11 years ago

An acquaintance asked me to dig up her Griffith Buck garden and gave me the roses. Sixteen of my roses were wiped out a year earlier by RRD, so I was willing to accept donations.

This one grows fairly tall. As you see it gets lots of buds each stem -- the growth pattern of a grandiflora, although the flowers are somewhat compact. The blooms are fairly high-centered. What is difficult to see and should help identify it is that the canes and thorns remain fairly red.

Good disease resistance. Cold hardy. Well--that goes to show it is a Buck. Grows well early in the spring. Nice form to the unscented flowers. It is 5' or taller easily by fall. It is nearly 5' tall now, in early June.

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Comments (4)

seil zone 6b MI
11 years ago
Could be Quietness.
mark_roeder 4B NE Iowa
Original Author
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Seil zone 6b,

Thanks for the thought. It looks close. I am not sure about Quietness. Reason being is helpmefind says Quietness was introduced in 2003. Iowa State University discarded his garden sometime after he left ISU, and afterwards rosarians tried to reconstruct his work and put the discarded roses into commerce.

I probably dug this person's Buck Garden up around 2007-09. The Quietness pics on helpmefind seem to show a rose that gets confused centers showing its Canadian and older ancestry. I think this is less confused, but this spring we've had good weather - no rain - as it started blooming.

I suspect she had her Buck Garden for quite a while, as in prior to 2003. So I am considering this among other clues. She didn't like her Buck garden, and to not like an entire bed of roses would take a few years in my view to dump them. I think the main clue in addition to the flowers would be the redness of the canes and thorns which seems to extend into the foliage to a degree -- it would be really good clue.

I have thought it could be Hawkeye Belle, but I don't know if Hawkeye Belle has all this redness in the canes. This is because I haven't seen a known example of Hawkeye Belle. I would think someone in Iowa who puts in Buck roses would consider planting Hawkeye Belle. Thank goodness Griffith Buck had the native intelligence to not name a rose Cyclone Belle. ;>)
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AnneCecilia z5 MI
11 years ago
Hi Mark - I think you're right about your rose being Hawkeye Belle. I don't grow it anymore and I couldn't find a good photo of my own to support my memory about the red canes but if you check through photos on HelpMeFind you'll see some that show it quite clearly. The bloom looks right to me, no scent is right (well, IMO that goes for most Bucks anyway,) and it would certainly be one easily available to a collector of Dr. Buck's roses.
I also remember having issues with HB blooms opening properly in particularly rainy springs. She was not one of my favorite Bucks...
dublinbay z6 (KS)
11 years ago
Hawkeye Belle was my first thought--but I am not an expert on Bucks, so . . . .

Lovely blooms--only complaints seem to be that they brown and ball in spring wet weather.

Kate