16 years old now, own root Quietness bushes are my oldest bushes, and they're still going strong. Vigor, winter hardiness to the tips, super generous flower output, lovely, high centered bloom form, no bloom crisping/petal wilting in heat/sun, straight necks, strong verticality with full embracing bush form, and disease resistance are Quietness' assets. Its only liability is a shorter than average bloom life, but the petals drop cleanly and blooms are produced in abundance. Quietness would make a great centerpiece/stand alone rose bush. It is excellent in a bed, too.

Moses.

@Moses What an amazing rose, sounds very pleasant

Ian,

The first Quietness I bought for myself almost 20 years ago, a bare root, one gallon size bush, was promptly gifted to a friend because I did not like its perceived gangliness.

Within a couple years, after doing more research on Quietness, I decided to give it a try again. What a fortuitous change of mind that was. The 5 bushes I got then became the backbone of my rose bed. I learned to like it more and more each year until today, it is still my favorite rose bush.

Moses.

I have to say 30 years. I bought Hazeldean from a Canadian couple in Homer, Alaska in 1995. I mailed the plant down here to myself when I moved to Oregon in 2014 because it was such a rarity. My other roses in Alaska would be 44 years old now. They would still be alive if the new home owner has not dug them out, because they were own root.

I moved here to this home nearly 22 years ago, and I have roses of that age which were planted a few months after we moved in. They are all grafted David Austin roses and are still doing well. Just a few months younger is Ballerina, a hybrid musk also doing well. Then com many roses that are 15-19 years old, all grafted from both US and Canadian sellers, all doing well, too. I can name all the names of the roses. But here are a few: 3 Evelyn , Brother Cadfael, Eglantyne, Jude the Obscure; a bit later in 2006, 2 Julia Child, 2 Ebb Tide, Wild Blue Yonder, all new to the US market. I'll stop now. Diane

@Sheila What a lovely rose and a great story to tell! Thank you

@Diane Thank you for your comment.

I have yet to try David Austin roses but I certainly must. And Ballerina? That rose was the parent of 'Lyda', an extremely good Musk. Thank you!

@Diane Thanks for the beautiful pictures! Just as beautiful as I imagined. . .

My oldest rose is Duet, which was here when we moved here 28 years ago. Not a favorite, but it's still going strong. There was a Chrysler Imperial here that I just dug out a couple of months ago due to major decline. And a Symphony that bit the dust late last year. Those were the three that were here in 1997, so I don't know how old they are/were, but they were well-established 28 years ago. I have several dozen that are between 22-27 years old, and what I find interesting is that ~50% of them are own-root, ~30% are on multiflora, and ~20% are on Dr. Huey, based on a quick perusal of my data base. And a couple on Manetti :-D

@susan Thanks for your comment! 28 strong..Not bad at all!

My 3 oldest surviving roses went in the ground spring 2000. All older roses succumbed to blackspot.

Earth Song and Carefree Beauty came from Sam Kedem.

I had read about the 3rd in fall 1999, in the old Scranton Gillette publication Greenhouse Product News. I was on their mailing list because I previously subscribed to Horticulture magazine, back when Roger Swain’s writing was regularly featured. That fall, GPN had a blurb about a new introduction, to be available the following spring. It promised good blackspot resistance. Of the eight named roses in its parentage, one was Carefree Beauty. That got my attention.


The next spring, a catalog from JE Miller Nursery (years before Stark Bros. bought them) offered this rose bare root. I hadn’t known they even sold roses. They listed three, or maybe four. Roses were just an afterthought for them. I got one.


I’ve since learned that rose breeding was just a hobby for the guy who bred this rose. He’s better known now than he was then (in 1999).

Glenn Dale, a hybrid wichurana rambler. How "old" it is depends on whether you measure how long I've lived with it, or how long it has lived with me, lol. My mom started the original plant (from a cutting just stuck in the ground) in the late '40's or early 50's, from a neighbor's plant, when she still lived at home with my grandmother. When she married my dad, the rose, or part of it, went with her. So I've known it all my life, now almost 68 years. The plant that I have multiples of now came here to my home from my grandmother's plant 47 years ago, when we built this house, and her old home place was torn down a few months later. The much-loved City of York came at the same time, from the same source, but I lost it about 15 or 16 years ago to RRV. Yes, I cried like a baby over the three days it took to dig that huge plant out and burn it. But I still have Glenn Dale, and in multiples, to hopefully prevent having to go through that again with the last of Grandma's roses.

So, back on the subject, Glenn Dale has been with me for 68 years, but technically only "mine" for 47 years.

EDIT: Yes, I've lived in the SAME PLACE for 47 years, lol. I'm almost 68 and have only lived in two houses my entire life.

Fig, that’s a wonderful story about your Glenn Dale. I love reading stories like this and always feel a little sense of deprivation, because I know nothing as “ the old home place” in my life. I have moved many times and the two generations before me all moved multiple times, sometimes within the country, sometimes out of the country. There’s a good side to this way of life as well, because it has given me a broader horizon than I may have had otherwise, but I feel there’s something to be said for living close to family and finding a bit more permanence than I have known. Twenty some years ago, as a young family with two little ones, my husband and I went to the Toronto area in Ontario, Canada, the area where my mother grew up as a young girl before they moved to western Ontario when she was 18. I met up with my mother’s oldest sister who took me for a drive around the neighborhood where she grew up. She showed me the church my mother attended as a young girl, now closed up and designated a historical site and opened only once a year for a candlelight service. The meadow my mother roamed is now a forest. The beautiful old farmhouse I only knew from pictures no longer exists. My aunt said the Canadian government used it as a testing site for some kind of explosives. It obliterated everything except for a few old evergreen trees that stood as a windbreak. I fought a feeling of anger as I looked at what should have held a piece of my history and my aunt drove away. I’ve never been back. I feel an urge to give my children a bit of what I missed out on, but they don’t seem to feel the need and happily trot all over the globe with a sense of independence I never had. (My oldest daughter took a solo trip to Scotland several years ago, just because she could.)

All this rambling of mine! By the time I’m 80 years old I will be out of control. Anyway, once again, thank you for the story, John! It was delightful and I would love to see a picture of your Glenn Dale.

Rifis, so what is the third rose? Two are Earth Song and Carefree Beauty, and the third has Carefree Beauty in its parentage... but you didn't tell us the name of the rose. I bought several roses from Sam Kedem back in the day... I seem to remember that he was a bit of a character :-D

susan: KO. Sam didn’t have it in 2000, but it was in his 2001 catalog.

I too ordered from Sam Kedem, and went to his nursery once.

@judijunebugarizonazn8 Judi, I've been blessed to have both been settled, AND well-traveled. My immediate family all lives with a few miles of me, and I live within a twenty minute drive of where I went to school and 30 minutes from where I went to college (Go VOLS!). But as a musician and songwriter, I've been around a bit (ok....more than a bit). My mom used to say I should have been born with roller skates on my feet, since I was always on the move. There's a lot to be said for both lifestyles, and I think I enjoyed the best of both worlds. It's good to travel, and see the world, but it's been a solace to have a home base all my life. As Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness", but the idea of a "home place" is gold.

If you think *I've* had a settled life, my mom is almost 92, and SHE has only lived in two houses her entire life, and of course, Glenn Dale has been with her much longer, approaching 75 years.

EDIT: if I can find it, there's a photo of my Grandmother's house just a few years after Mom planted the first Glenn Dale. It's a smallish plant compared to what it became (a house eater), but it would show both GD's "roots" and my own, lol.

What a lovely thread. I enjoyed reading these stories as my students sit here taking an exam! If they only knew where I'm traveling in my mind right now... Judi, I resonate with your lack of rootedness -- as well as with your sense of broadened horizons. I moved a lot as a child, but have now lived in my current house since 1999. Most of my roses burned in the 2008 Tea Fire, and since most were grafted, what I got was the root stock when they came back. Only one rose survived both the fire and my own changing garden whims, and that is the Harkness climber, High Hopes. I would have bought it from Jackson & Perkins in late '99 or early 2000. It may or may not have originally been grafted, but I think it's all own-root now. It's survived 2 fires, gophers, deer, rabbits, drought. And it's on a slope competing with oak tree roots. Still healthy. I've grown so attached to it I started 3 more from cuttings and have gifted this rose to a neighbor, so if something happens to mine, I know where to go for another cutting! I don't see it for sale anymore. It really is a wonderful pink rose with a tinge of apricot. Petals fall cleanly away so it never looks ugly. Develops orange hips in fall. Its only "fault" is that it's not very fragrant. Maybe that's why deer haven't wrecked it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtoRz6G8b5w

Thanks, Sheila! :-)

Thank you, sheila.

He came to my elementary school many years ago. To this day, I have no idea what led to that visit. He stood on the basketball court in the gym, his back close to the wall separating the gym from the principals office. We were seated on folding chairs. Not the whole school; maybe just the third grade. No parents present. He had a guitar. He taught us a bunch of songs. Where have all the flowers gone. And a “new” song - Puff the magic dragon. We sang all of them. We liked Puff the best. We didn't know who he was, but we liked him.

I found a picture of High Hopes:

Not a great bush shot...

Here's a photo of the Glenn Dale my mom planted. This is circa 1951-1952. A Sunday morning as my mom recalls. That's my maternal Grandmother, ready for church. The GD is against the porch post on the far right. I have a photo of it in bloom from the same era, but I have yet to find it. In this pic, it would have been no more than four or five years old. You can see that it reaches the porch roof, and is quite full. The long lamented City of York is on the other end of the porch to make a bookend of white roses. Unfortunately, I don't even have one photo of the rose I lost.

OFF TOPIC: When the photo was taken, the house was being remodeled. That's why the organ is on the porch. It was my paternal grandmother's pump organ (it was originally my GREAT-grandmother's), given to my maternal grandmother when my dad's mom passed away. That organ resides in my living room today.

EDIT: by the time I was old enough to notice, the two roses had clambered up and across the porch roof, met in the middle, and completely covered it. That's how I remember them

Definitely OFF TOPIC-The organ you see on my Grandmother's porch, today, in my living room:

@fig_insanity That's amazing! And seriously cool that there is a picture of the rose. I have a similar picture of my great great grandmother from 1945, the big white roses behind her were Frau Karl Druschki, however the rose to the very right (bottom) is a once blooming Hybrid damask of some sort and a rose that I confirmed to be a lost cultivar/new discovery.

Ian, our photos are very close to the same age. They even have the same faded look, lol. I have Frau Karl Druschki, and she's a lovely thing...in Spring. But I don't spray (much), and she needs that here.

I do regret that I don't have any pix of either Grandma's original City of York, or of my clone of it that I lost to RRV. It was my favorite of all my climbers, and I've not been able to replace it, just out of pure sentimentality. It wouldn't be the same. (Yeah, I know all CoY are genetically the same, but it wouldn't have grown in Grandma's garden, lol).

We still have one of the Frau Karl Druschki here but is seriously barely alive and is cut to the ground.

And what a tragedy, RRD sucks. Roses are special plants and I do not blame you for wanting a clone of your grandma's rose!

I enjoyed the old photos immensely, John and Ian. What a great little glimpse into the history of your families and their gardens!
John, I’m intrigued by the thought of you being a traveling musician. That was my dream as a young child up through my teenage years and even beyond. Twice, as. young child, traveling singing groups came to our church and invited the children to come up on stage and sing a song with them. I was on cloud nine and was sure that’s what I wanted to do with my life! Then a nice guy came along and we married and had a big family and I decided that was just as exciting and fulfilling. Ha! So much for dreams. I still love to sing though and this year I’m practicing with the local Handel’s Messiah performance at our little town. Not big stuff, but I am happy.

My two William Baffin roses are well over 30 years old. I planted them when we first moved into our home. They have bloomed beautifully every year since. Here's a pic from 2017. WB is on the left and John Davis (pink climber) is on the right.

Lovely stories everyone and great pictures! Bellarosa, I love your climbers flanking your doorway. How on earth do you keep William Baffin so well contained? I was going to buy it but Matt from High Country Gardens warned me that William Baffin is less a rose and more like a lifestyle. He said it can easily grow out of control. How well does he repeat? I know you've said your John Davis repeats reasonably well once established.

Cynthia