Skip to main content
 
Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Summertime Roses Offer Sights and Scents

Posted in Horticulture on July 3 2014, by Stephen Scanniello

Stephen Scanniello is NYBG’s Curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. The author of six books on roses, his latest is A Rose By Any Name. Stephen is the recipient of the Jane Righter Rose Medal from the Garden Club of America. He gardens in Barnegat, NJ.

Shrub rose 'Alexandra, Princesse de Luxembourg'
Shrub rose ‘Alexandra, Princesse de Luxembourg’

During July in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, you’ll find the gardeners and volunteers bent over headfirst into the rose beds filling buckets with faded blooms. We’re deadheading, or as they say in England, “refreshing” the rose shrubs. Deadheading is summer pruning and very easy to do. Simply cut the stem bearing the faded rose to a point where a set of healthy leaves is attached. This is a time-consuming job that will reward you with beautiful new roses in a few weeks time.

There are still plenty of roses to enjoy in the garden. The sweetly scented ‘Alexandra, Princesse de Luxembourg’, a blush-pink shrub rose, and ‘David Rockefeller’s Golden Sparrow’ are both in full bloom. Last week, in Paris, this yellow beauty won the prestigious Gold Medal for Landscape Roses at the International Rose Trials of Bagatelle.

Known locally as "Elmwood Single Musk," this richly scented species attracts bees.
Known locally as “Elmwood Single Musk,” this richly scented species attracts bees.

The extremely rare Rosa moschata (Musk Rose) is just beginning to bloom and will continue until there is a hard frost. The earliest written description and illustration of this white shrub rose appears in John Gerard’s The Herbal, published in 1529. Two forms of this ancient species, a multi-petalled and a five-petalled, are planted just inside the north entrance to the Rose Garden. As you enter through this gate, take in a good sniff—you’ll know you’re in the right spot—and you may not want to leave!

The "multi-petalled" version of the Musk rose, also known locally as "Crenshaw Musk." The crimped, burnt-looking petals at its center are the key to identifying this rose.
The “multi-petalled” version of the Musk rose, also known locally as “Crenshaw Musk.” The crimped, burnt-looking petals at its center are the key to identifying this rose.