Reine des Violettes, hybrid perpetual, from Greenmantle Nursery

Wild Edric, Austin rugosa, from Pickering Nurseries. Both sadly gone. I lament the loss of this rose perhaps more than any other.:(

Mrs. Doreen Pike, Austin rugosa, from Heirloom Old Garden Roses

Excellenz von Schubert, polyantha, from Rogue Valley Roses

Wasagaming, rugosa, from High Country Roses
Grace de Monaco, hybrid tea, from Vintage Gardens

Melissa

Melissa, I don't know where you live, but if you'd like to visit and take cuttings of my Wild Edric, you're very welcome to do so. I know I would miss mine if something were to happen to them, so I completely understand how you feel.

rbehs, your Erinnerung an Brod is so beautiful. I do love purple roses although right now I have only two, two bushes of Wild Edric and one of International Herald Tribune. I wouldn't want to be without either one.

That's very kind of you Ingrid. I'll send you a private message. Perhaps we can get together when the weather is cooler as I think cuttings now might cook.

That would be great, Melissa. I agree, now would not be the best time for cuttings. It would be wonderful if you could have Wild Edric again. It's a rose that deserves to be saved and passed along to as many people as possible. Discontinuing this wonderful rose is one of Austin's greatest mistakes in my opinion. When my husband fell into this rose one of its largest branches was almost completely severed. I didn't have much hope of saving it but put it back upright and wound a Band-Aid around it. It now has lots of buds! That says a lot about the toughness of this rose since the branch lived on in spite of my very poor attempt at saving it.

'International Herald Tribune'

Jack Harkness Floribunda, Int. 1984

(Most purple roses do poorly here. This one excels.)

Jeri I'm glad you posted those gorgeous pictures. It really is a wonderful rose. Mine lives happily intertwined with Marie Pavie. I should have planted them further apart, of course.

Belle De Crecy

EVS Ecellence Von Schubert

My phone made most of my purples pink, so will use the camera next year.

I don't know, Ingrid. I know this is absolute heresy, but I LOVE seeing two roses growing up and through each other.

Jennifer so. GA zone 8b Oh my! You guys have some gorgeous roses & pics of them too & you all love purple/lavender roses! I loved seeing Reinne des Violettes b/c I have a baby growing & I haven't seen any blooms yet. What is the name of the one you all like that Austin discontinued?

It's the Austin rugosa Wild Edric. Such a beautiful rose. The prettiest rugosa I have ever seen. It is very difficult to capture the subtleties in the color of the flowers. They are like a Monet painting and shimmer in the light with the color shifting with it. David Austin has stopped selling it in the USA. PIckering Nurseries used to sell it but that fine nursery closed. The only other source for US buyers was Heirloom but Heirloom stocks the most recent Austin introductions and when Austin tells suppliers to stop selling one of its roses, they better do it if they want to continue getting the new releases..... I even wrote Heirloom to ask if I could buy their mother plant. No answer.:( Mine was a big mature plant which I lost suddenly with a group of other roses across my garden. The likely culprit was boron toxicity as our city water is often very high in boron. Due to a car accident and other health issues I wasn't up to giving my usual weak fish emulsion to my roses. Lugging a watering can around the yard wasn't in the cards. So I used a commercial timed release fertilizer which unfortunately also supplied boron. It seems to have been too much with the high dose in the water. I learned a valuable lesson and won't repeat my mistake. Wild Edric like other rugosas prefers a lean soil anyway. Feeding even with weak fish emulsion wasn't necessary. But now getting a replacement for this superb rose isn't easy.

Here are some photos that show this effect more than any other photos I have.

And one in the garden with my Kuvasz, Magda:

Magda died in 2014.:(

Melissa

Twilight Zone Munstead wood

young Lycidas

sweet Intoxication

I posted these recently in another thread, but here again is my baby Reine des Violettes, with her first bloom last week; cutting from Sept. 2017.

I caught this little guy on my lavender rose, Poseidon, a couple of days ago. Lisa

And, what was I thinking? I forgot to add 'Carolyn Supinger':

Lisa—is that a mantis? I’ve always loved Poseidon; so pretty! Jeri—I’ve never seen ‘Carolyn Supinger’—what a rich color—wow! I’m off to look her up. :-)

Hah, Lisa--lovely lavender rose, but my first thought was that GUMBY was paying it a visit! And Jeri, wow, that is some color on that rose!

It is indeed. I am distressed to see on HMF that Carolyn Supinger is not available. It is so frustrating to find pictures of certain beautiful roses that have such unique, rare, and desirable colours,and yet are not available for most gardeners.

I thought the same thing, bart! I’m still learning how all this works...so if a grower could track down cuttings of a rose, say from a private garden, can they propagate it as long as it’s not still patented? Are there other factors to bringing something back into commerce?

Yes, a praying mantis! There must be a whole bunch of them living in Poseidon. A few days later I made this bouquet of them to rescue them from the coming heat. My son found two more in the bouquet. He safely transferred them back outside. Lisa

Here is one of my purples, often a crimson with purple flashes. The Boursault, Purpurea:

This was an offset of a short fence rose in the little AZ town of Nutrioso. I didn't know what it was until I visited the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott in late May, where the same rose was blooming in front of the first governer's mansion (a large log cabin), with a sign saying an early territorial governer's wife planted it in the 1860s. An entry in HMF said it can be found around the old western US. It is a long spring bloomer, except for rare October flushes (which is why I collected it in Nutri that month). That same October flush was damasky fragrant, but subsequent spring blooms haven't had scent to notice. With adequate water, it grows to about 6 feet tall and runs around underground a couple of feet from the main plant.

OH, so that's the OTHER 'Purpurea'!

I have the China:

"Are there other factors to bringing something back into commerce?"

*** Yes. The most important one. Finding someone who would like to add it to their stock.

Lisa, that’s wonderful! They are such helpful and beautiful insects! (A friend called them the gardener‘s badge of honor—a sign of healthy balance in your garden!)

Thank you, Jeri—that makes sense, considering the work involved. :-)

Perma --- That, and the fact that we have fewer and fewer vendors, nowadays. And I guarantee you that none of em are getting rich. They do this out of love, and most of them are at capacity.

Great thread, Melissa! I love purples and all the rare species and cultivars you grow.

Thank you all for sharing these beauties!

Carolyn Supinger is so lovely. If only.... Carol

Here are my two contributions--which you've probably seen before since I show them off fairly frequently--but I do love them:

Munstead Wood--at its most dark purplish (usually more burgundy shows up)

And here is my lovely lavender "Love Song":

And I'm adding Oklahoma here--sometimes it gets really dark shades that can rival Munstead Woods.

Kate

Oooohhh, Kate beautiful Oklahoma. I hope when the weather cools that I see a dark color to mine. Exquisite

Jennifer Crisp Oh Yum Kate! I love your lavender & purple pics! Thanks so much for showing them, they are all new to me. And lovely too! I thought Oklahoma was a dark red, where did I get that idea? It surely looks like a dark & gorgeous purple in your pic. I love Munstead Wood & Love Song!

I agree with Jennifer. I’ve never seen Oklahoma look so dark and purple. It’s gorgeous, Kate! Your Love Song is lovely as well. My Love Song is between flushes, atm. I meant to go out and take a picture of my Wild Edric from Ingrid, for this thread this evening. Unfortunately, once it cools down I have so much to do before dark, that I forgot. It’s been SO miserably hot this week! Maybe tomorrow evening, I’ll remember.

Perma, It’s good to hear that Praying Mantis are a good sign in the garden. I guess I somehow achieved a VERY healthy balance here, because I’m seeing lots and lots of them, more than most summers:) Lisa

Jeri,I totally agree that most rose vendors (maybe with the exception of David Austin, lol) do what they do out of love. This is one reason why,in the past I've tended to not concern myself with taking cuttings : I'd just buy multiples. Ridiculously childish and irresponsible of me, I know; way too expensive, I can't afford it, and after all, I do what I do out of love, too! no money coming in. So I'm ashamed of my past behaviour, but I'm glad that you put that up; it explains though does not justify me. And I am totally unrepentant of the fact that I bought 3 Annie Laurie Mc Ds, for example ( the thing about Carolyn Supinger seems so wrong to me also because it was bred by our very own forum friend, Paul Barden,not by some long-ago person of the past!!! so this type of reason alone motivated me to get Kim's Carlin's Rhythym and Lauren when I could...) and 3 Karlsruhe's (beautiful, beautiful rose that seems by now to be available here in Europe exclusively from Peter Beales! Laguna is NOT a "replacement"! the colour is totally diffferent!) Because by having multiples, I have some assurance that at least one plant will make it to maturity in my harsh garden (that is a real concern with me for Annie, since that rose is slow to grow as a plant; just wants to flower, and since I can't get out to my garden on a regular basis even de-budding is a struggle).

Kate, what incredibly beautiful roses. Absolutely love those colours.

For the record, Oklahoma is usually a red--somewhat darkish red--but every once in a while it goes dark purple, nearly black around the edges. That was why I bought it--but most of the time it is nondescript red.

Somewhat similar situation for my Munstead Wood--mine just naturally seems to be a bit darker than the ones other gardeners show. Not anything special I do--it just likes to bloom somewhere between dark ruby and purple shades. Here's another pic of it:

It is the most gorgeous colored bloom in my garden!

Kate

Reine des Violettes

Young Lycidas

Mme Isaac Pereire

Krista, they are just stunning! If only they could be that color here in sun-baked FL...sigh.

Wow Krista, your purples are breathtaking

OMG ; breath-taking ideed!!!

I keep forgetting about Purple Prince.

This rose is continually in bloom

The fragrance and the color are outstanding but it's young and it blows pretty quickly . Hopefully as it matures it will hold longer.