Redbird, I don't think your @stillanntn6b went through, so I'm giving her another shout out ;)

I'm sorry I missed your email.

First about the blooms: they are that lovely, but sometimes not that deep a pink at center. Years ago, I had grabbed two aged blooms and took them to the Old Rose day up in Charlottesville VA.

Neither Doug Seidel nor any of the noisette people there could identify them. What made those special was that the bloom had matured very slowly and inside the outer rings of petals the interiour petals were divided into quarters. The quartered area was about an inch wide. I haven't seen that since, but it HAS to be distinctive as all get out.

My cutting grew very well in red clay until I didn't notice that a bird had dropped a muscadine grape seed in the growth area and the grape vine out competed the rose for moisture and I lost it.

I lost a more recent plant to voraceous vole/mole populations. Companion plantings of daffodils slowe d them a bit.

About the South Carolina plants. I saw one when we went to Orangeburg for the bicentennial of the Noisette Rose. Bill Patterson (Roses Unlimited) was there and introduced me to Mrs. Wannamaker who had found a 'similar' rose in the local cemetery called Sunset Cemetery. We went to her house and I saw her big bush. It was a more vigorous grower than Old Gray's but the canes had the same bark and the same look as they matured. She was growing it well. (She also had a Mutabilis that was misidentified as something else).

The way the blooms mature at the end of canes and the way new growth emerges from those bouquets of blooms are why I called it a noisette because none of my collection of OGRs grew that way, which ties them to the R. moschata parent.

We saw Bill last week and he is fine, they had sold out of Old Gray for this year. Back in Orangeburg he and I were comparing notes and he could only say very good things about OGN.

I'm glad to hear the original plant survives. When I took the original cuttings it was under attack from termites.

Ann

eta Did the two Orleans Rose bushes ever come back. They had been driven over by the grounds drew. I do remember where they were (and shade was keeping them small).

Thank you so much, Ann, for this information about both the OGC noisette and the rose in Orangeburg. It is intriguing. And I appreciate your description about the unique characteristic of the quartered inner section - I will keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, I will record this information in our binder (the rose has its own binder!) and share it with the director and trustee when I see them in a few weeks.

As far as the Orleans rose bushes...they have not mentioned that there were ever any other roses besides the noisette. I have not walked every section of the cemetery, so I may have missed them. I will certainly ask.

Best regards,

Kim

Here's mine:

The blooms are so tiny and so full of petals ...they routinely ball. My plant is a mass of hard little unopened blooms right now. It's healthy , a dense grower, and vigorous.

@erasmus_gw Thank you for sharing the photo - those blooms are beautiful. I also appreciate you sharing the description of the rose in your yard.