Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris

Recently, Mike and I went to the exhibit “Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and it didn’t disappoint. The posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, legendary for their depiction of the nightlife, cafes, cabarets  and celebrities of 19th century Paris, illustrated life in Paris and Montmartre during its bohemian heyday. Also included in the exhibit were other notable artists of the time, such as Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas and John Singer Sargent. The exhibit’s astoundingly vivid visual world of Paris’ social scene transported me back in time.

Through Toulouse-Lautrec’s art, I learned about can-can dancer Jane Avril, who was a lifelong friend of Toulouse-Lautrec and commissioned the poster above to advertise her cabaret show at the Jardin de Paris. I especially like “Divan Japonaise,” (pictured below) which shows Jane Avril enjoying herself at the club.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s depiction of May Belfort, an Irish singer who performed in Parisian nightclubs with her ever-present black cat, can be seen in this promotional poster.

Mary Belfort

The exhibit also included several images of Aristide Bruant, French singer and nightclub owner, in his famous red scarf and black cape.

I loved Le Chat Noir (“The Black Cat”), poster by Théophile Steinlen which advertised the cabaret located in the Montmatre section of Paris in the early 1880’s. It reminded me of our last trip to Paris, when we had purchased a group of souvenir posters from one of the many bouquinistas lining the Seine.

The “Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris” will be at the MFA until August 4, 2019. If you have a chance to see it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Fragrance in Roses

The McCartney Rose – Hybrid Tea, strong spice fragrance

David Austin, founder of David Austin Roses in Albrighton, England, was once quoted as saying that a rose without fragrance is only half a rose. What a perfect way to describe a characteristic so essential to the identity of America’s national floral emblem.

While the delicious, delightful, slightly mysterious and often fickle quality of floral fragrance is now considered a highly desirable trait most prized by rose lovers, it wasn’t always so. This quality was willingly sacrificed by rose breeders in the nineteenth into twentieth centuries. Why? Rose hybridizing is a game of compromise with one trait willingly forfeited to gain another. Fragrance was often the victim of hybridizing choices that placed higher value on superior floral form, unique and vibrant colors, increased winter hardiness and stronger disease resistance.

Flash forward 100 years and the rose buying public now long for highly scented roses and commercial rose growers know it. While fragrance is an inherited trait, the gene for fragrance is recessive and crossing two fragrant varieties doesn’t necessarily produce fragrant offspring. Due to this unpredictability of rose genetics, contemporary rose hybridizers continuously search for the right genetic combinations that will add fragrance to other desirable characteristics. Since it takes eight to ten years from pollination to retail introduction, restoring a characteristic as elusive as fragrance has taken decades.

American Beauty

Fragrance is produced by oils in the petals of the bloom with different oils creating distinctive fragrances. The American Rose Society lists twenty-four fragrances, the most well-known is the classic ‘rose’ scent. This intoxicating old rose or damask scent can be found in many red and pink roses like the old garden rose American Beauty, David Austin’s Mary Rose, Mr. Lincoln, and Chrysler Imperial.

Ebb Tide

Other essential oils are responsible for the spicy, clove-like scent in the floribunda Ebb Tide. Sniffing Graham Thomas yields the light and delicate tea fragrance while Julia Child imparts a strong anise or licorice scent.

Graham Thomas

Julia Child

But fragrance can be subjective because everyone’s nose is different. Two people may smell the same rose and each will offer different descriptions. Fragrance also is influenced by temperature, humidity and the rose’s stage of bloom. A fully open bloom will have more scent than a flower that is partially open; the intensity ebbs as the bloom goes by. A blossom may have a strong scent on a warm, sunny day; take the same bloom on a cool, cloudy, breezy day and the scent will be subdued.

Time of day also impacts a rose’s fragrance. The highest concentration of oils are found in early morning which is why roses grown for their attar of roses (oils extracted from rose petals) are harvested then. (Our experience has been that every fresh rose bloom exudes some detectable scent, however subtle, under ideal conditions.)

Clearly, rose fragrance is highly desirable and has become its own reward. The presence of discernable fragrance, or the lack of it, often determines whether a variety gets introduced or not. Each hybridizer of the genus rosa has their personal hybridizing objectives. Each is looking for that unique, exceptional variety. Each is prepared to spend a professional lifetime searching for that one perfect and fragrant rose, the magnum opus of a career.

2019 Lecture Series

Mike and Angelina Chute’s Garden

After the holiday hubbub is over and tranquility returns, the new year presents itself and the gardening season begins again, as it always does, with great expectations. While the roses in our gardens are quietly resting under their winter cover, Angelina and I have been unusually busy planning for the 2019 season. We have accepted a number of invitations to present lectures and workshops, including a new home and garden show in Connecticut plus programs in area garden centers. Our entertaining PowerPoint lectures, workshops and seminars are designed to educate and make rose gardening appealing to even the most reluctant gardener. We annually review, revise, and refresh our program list as well as add new ones.

Cloud Ten (Radler, white climbing rose)

New this year is “Radler Roses, Beyond Knock Out Roses.” This PowerPoint presentation highlights a number of attractive, disease resistant varieties that have been hybridized by Will Radler, breeder of the famous Knock Out family of sustainable roses. We describe these roses as being “beyond Knock Outs.” as they do not have “Knock Out” as part of their name. Will Radler has served as a consultant to this program and it will debut at the Boston Flower & Garden Show on March 19. (See the complete list of 2019 programs, dates, and times on the 2019 Lecture Series page.) For a description of our programs, visit our web site’s Program page at RoseSolutions.net.

Our season opens at the Southeastern Connecticut Home & Garden Show on Sunday, February 24 at the Mohegan Sun Casino. Our event starts at 12:15 with a Meet & Greet book signing followed at 1:00 pm by our “Six Simple Steps to Successful Rose Gardening” our most popular program. This is Rose Gardening 101 where we explain how to grow great roses in home gardens in six simple steps. There will be plenty of time for Q and A during and after the program.

On Saturday, March 16, we return to the Boston Flower & Garden Show at the Seaport World Trade Center to present our new program for 2019, “Beyond Knock Out Roses; Discovering Other Sustainable Roses from Knock Out Hybridizer Will Radler.” We enjoy the high energy of the Boston show and especially the interaction with the big lively Boston audiences. (We will have our two books, Roses for New England: A Guide to Sustainable Rose Gardening as well as Rose Gardening Season by Season: A Journal for Passionate Gardeners, available at all our lectures and workshops.

We are looking forward to our visit to Russell’s Garden Center in Wayland, MA on Sunday, March 24 at 2:00 pm when we present the Six Simple Steps program. This event will include refreshments and door prizes. To register or for more information, go to www.russellsgardencenter.com or call 508-358-2283 x394.

Display at 2018 Maine Flower Show

We pack up and head north to Portland, Maine on Saturday, March 30, to speak at the Maine Flower Show. We presented a program there last year on cold-climate rose gardening that attracted an audience from across northern New England as well as Quebec and the Canadian eastern provinces. This year we’ve created another customized cold-climate program titled “Fifteen Remarkable Roses for Northern New England Gardens,” which focuses on successful rose gardening in USDA zones 3 through 5.

We present the “Radler Roses, Beyond Knock Out Roses” program at the Rhode Island Home Flower & Garden Show on Saturday, April 6 at 1pm.  We had presented programs at the old RI Flower & Garden Show from 1998 until it closed a few years ago. Now it’s back again at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence and we’re glad. Go to www.ribahomeshow.com for more details.

Join us at the RI Rose Society’s “Rose Fest” on Saturday, May 4 at Chaves Garden Center, in Middletown, RI. We again present our Six Simple Steps program but in a garden setting using real plants as props instead of a digital PowerPoint program — a fun and unique way to demonstrate rose gardening.

Mike Chute at 2018 RI Rose Society Rose Show

Saturday, June 15 at 1 PM is the Rhode Island Rose Society’s 21^st annual rose show at the Wickford Community Center in Wickford, RI. Join Angelina and me at New England’s premier display of  roses of every type and color. At 1:30, we will use real roses grown in local gardens by home gardeners as props to demonstrate how simple it is successfully grow roses at home. Free and open to the public.

In between all these events, our lecture series includes programs to garden clubs and presentations to various horticultural organizations. All this, plus time out for a trip to Great Britain, makes early 2019 another active season for Angelina and me.

We are available to speak at flower shows, garden centers, garden club meetings, symposiums and conventions and will travel to just about anywhere. We can customize programs and even produce one-of-a-kind presentations. We continue to add bookings throughout the year so keep checking in. As always, if your organization needs a program at the last minute maybe we can help. Contact me at mike.at.rosesolutions.

David C.H. Austin Remembered

 

David C.H. Austin                    (Photo: DavidAustinRoses.com)

David C. H. Austin, the founder of David Austin Roses Ltd,  passed away in December at the age of 92 in Albrighton, England, the town where he was born. He leaves a lasting legacy of extraordinary horticultural accomplishment having melded the virtues of old garden roses with those of modern roses, a daunting challenge. He had a clear vision of what could be and, through a lifetime of patience and persistence, followed his dreams and, in doing so, forever changed the international rose landscape.

The son of an English farmer, Austin’s interest was in horticulture more so than agriculture, particularly roses. As a young nurseryman in the 1950s, he loved the character and fragrance of traditional old garden roses and bemoaned their decline in popularity. While roses then were still a favorite plant of gardeners everywhere, the modern hybrid teas and floribundas with their repeat blooming ability and much broader color spectrum had pushed the once-blooming, old-fashioned roses with limited colors to one side.

Is it possible, Austin wondered, to capture the flower form and fragrance of the old roses — a rose with no fragrance, he was known to say, is only half a rose — and combine it with the remondancy (repeat bloom) and rich color palette of modern roses?

Thus, starting in his farmhouse kitchen 60 years ago, Austin began a life-long quest for his ideal rose, a quest that grew into an internationally recognized brand that is widely marketed throughout Europe and the United States.

Graham Thomas

His first introduction was Constance Spry in 1961.  This beautiful, pink, fragrant climber is still available today but it was a once-bloomer and the pursuit of remondancy continued. The breakthrough came in 1983 when Austin introduced three varieties, Graham Thomas, Mary Rose, and Heritage, at the Chelsea Flower Show in London. Each had the desired old rose flower form, distinct fragrance, attractive colors as well as the all-important ability to re-bloom more than once per season. He referred to these three beauties as “English” roses and they shot him onto center stage in the rose world and he never looked back. His roses would go on to win 24 gold medals at Chelsea and he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2007 for services to horticulture.

 

Heritage

Over time, David Austin Roses developed the largest rose breeding program in the world, yielding 250,000 seedlings each year. Austin’s challenge was to balance the science of plant genetics with a vision of his ideal rose in a never ending search for certain key characteristics.  These distinctive traits include overall beauty, old fashioned floral form, outstanding garden performance, fragrance and “charm” — a British term meaning a unique difference from other roses. Achieving some of the desired characteristics in one variety is notable; achieving them all in one variety is the magnum opus of a career.

David Austin in Hybridizing Greenhouse   (Photo: DavidAustinRoses.com)

David Austin had said, “Every day, I marvel at my good fortune to have been able to make a life out of breeding roses. My greatest satisfaction is to see the pleasure my roses give to gardeners and rose lovers worldwide.” To that we reply, “It has been our good fortune to enjoy the beauty of these magnificent roses and to have benefitted from the vision of David C.H. Austin.”

 

If you would like to learn more about David Austin Roses, including details about his breeding program, we offer a PowerPoint Program, “David Austin’s English  Roses for New England Gardens.”

David Austin Roses New 2019 Introductions

Vanessa Bell – Photo: David Austin Roses

Every year Mike and I look forward to the new introductions from David Austin Roses. This spring, there will be three new English Roses available to U.S and Canadian gardeners: ‘Vanessa Bell’, ‘Dame Judi Dench’, and ‘James L. Austin’.

We love yellow roses, our favorite being ‘Graham Thomas’. When I saw ‘Vanessa Bell’, with its delicate, soft yellow petals that grow in clusters and fragrance described as “green tea with aspects of lemon and honey,” I decided that it definitely has a spot in our garden this spring. Not only is ‘Vanessa Bell’ floriferous, but is said to have a compact growth habit. It grows 4’ x 3’, is hardy to Zone 5 and is named after the artist and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group.

  Dame Judi Dench- Photo: David Austin Roses

One of the loveliest apricot-orange roses I’ve seen is the new introduction named after ‘Dame Judi Dench’. Red-tipped buds open to large apricot rosettes with ruffled petals and a button eye. The flowers have a light tea fragrance and the bush has a relaxed, arching growth habit which is 4’ x 4’. It is hardy to Zone 5 and, obviously, named after the well-known actor Dame Judi Dench.

James L. Austin – Photo: David Austin Roses

What a beautiful color the rose “James L. Austin’ is — one that will stand out in any garden. This rose has a bushy, upright habit with large, densely-petalled blooms that are an amazing shade of a deep reddish-pink which I would describe as a lovely raspberry color. How fitting, since its fragrance is described as “fruity, evoking blackberry and raspberry …” Growth habit is 4’x3’ and is hardy to Zone 5. James L. Austin is the son of David Austin Senior.

These new introductions are now available at www.davidaustinroses.com and are sold as bare root roses. They will not be available in garden centers as potted roses until the Spring of 2020.

David Austin Roses has also redesigned their 2019 Handbook of Roses. This year’s 175 page handbook includes a new fold-out” Index by Color” that has over 100 photos, as well as helpful information on rose care and detailed descriptions of their roses together with photographs, growth habit and zone information. We recently received our annual shipment of these beautiful catalogues that we distribute when we present our “David Austin’s English Roses for New England Gardens” programs. You can also order them from David Austin Roses through their web site (see above) or their toll free number (800-328-8893).

Gloucester, Massachusetts & the Cape Ann Museum

A Smart Blow by Fitz Henry Lane

The holidays are over. Our roses are dormant, sound asleep for the next three months. This is the time when Angelina and I catch up on other things that we like to do, like frequent day-trips to somewhere — eclectic destinations that catch our fancy.

 

We recently drove to Gloucester, Massachusetts, a fishing port city on Cape Ann on  the North Shore of Massachusetts to visit the Cape Ann Museum. The 2-hour drive north was prompted by a Providence newspaper article that featured the museum and especially its extensive collection of marine art by Fitz Henry Lane. When we arrived we also discovered a rich trove of historical maritime artifacts, ship models, a restored New England lighthouse lens, and exhibits pertaining to fishing and genealogy from the Cape Ann/Gloucester area. An added bonus we hadn’t expected.

 

Cape Ann Museum

Once in Gloucester, our GPS had us driving in circles unable to find the museum until we stopped and asked a local guy where it was. He pointed across the street to a handsome building and it was then that we spotted the tiny sign that said “Cape Ann Museum.”

The museum building is well maintained with three levels serviced by both stairs and an elevator. The Fitz Henry Lane Gallery takes up half of level 1 with Lane paintings on view along with many of his drawings. In comparison, a few pieces of Lane’s work hang in the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and a few at the Metropolitan Museum in New York but nothing like the 40 pictures in the collection at the diminutive Cape Ann.

A Rough Sea by Fitz Henry Lane

Lane, a Gloucester native, was a master of fine detail in his treatment of fishing and sailing vessels of the 19th century. So good was he at capturing every little detail, including the complicated rigging of 19th century schooners, that he was often hired by ship owners to paint portraits of their boats. Lane was well-known for his many paintings of Gloucester Harbor scenes, again bringing his attention to detail here as well as he did with ships.

 

Normon’s Woe by Fitz Henry Lane

Lane also possessed an amazing ability to show glowing luminescence and accurate depictions of sea and sky. I especially liked the warm sunset glow of “Norman’s Woe” still radiant after 150 years. (Norman’s Woe, seen in the background of the painting, is a rocky reef 500 feet offshore of Gloucester’s outer harbor. It was the inspiration for Longfellow’s famous poem, “The Wreck of the Hesperus.”)

 

Fresnel Lens

 

A restored 13-foot Fresnel Lens from a lighthouse on Thacher’s Island is featured on Level 2 along with some fine scratch-built wooden models of sailing schooners. Our favorite was the model of the Andrea Gail, the boat made famous in “The Perfect Storm,” parts of which were filmed in Gloucester. (See photo below)

 

 

 

Andrea Gail

Model of John Hays Hammond Schooner

When we were leaving, the receptionist at the museum told us that a Winslow Homer exhibit has been planned for later this spring. Homer, another well-regarded American marine artist with solid New England artistic credentials, and Lane together in one exhibit means we will be taking another day-trip to Gloucester.

We were done by mid-afternoon and headed home. We stopped for a late lunch at The Causeway, a Gloucester restaurant we discovered on the way out of town. The front appeared non-descript and the plain interior looked like what a Gloucester seafood shack should look like. The menu was mostly seafood and I ordered a cup of fish chowder which was gluten free, and a side of fried calamari. The chowder was full of fresh haddock chunks in a steaming buttery white broth, almost like a stew, and the generous pile of squid was fried in gluten-free cornmeal. It was fabulous and another unexpected bonus to the trip.

This was a good day.

Winter Protection for Roses

Rose Beds Hilled Up in Chutes’ Rose Garden

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone (it was early this year) and we’ve experienced some below freezing temperatures, it’s time to add winter protection to help our roses survive our New England winters.

The goal of winter protection is to keep roses dormant — not to keep them warm. What we want to do is just the opposite: make sure the rose bushes stay cold and not be fooled into thinking spring has arrived when we experience those warm days in late January when temperatures go up to the 40’s and mid 50’s.

Plant roses with bud union 2″ below soil level in southern New England

Adding winter protection to roses is easy but there are 2 factors to be aware of if you want your roses to come through the winter with little winter kill: First, make sure your roses are zone appropriate for your area. If they’re not, they don’t have a good chance of surviving the winter freeze and thaw cycles. Second, plant them properly. In southern New England budded roses need to be planted at least 2” below the soil in order to protect the bud union. In colder climates they should be planted deeper and in warmer climates higher.

If your roses are winter hardy and planted properly, follow these easy steps:

1. Wait until after the first hard frost before adding winter protection.
2. Give roses a light pruning and secure long canes so they will not be tossed around by winter storms and damage the bush.
3. Rake up garden litter to prevent diseases from wintering over in fallen foliage.
4. This is a good time to apply lime, if necessary.
5. Using soil, manure, compost or seaweed, hill up the base of each rose to about 12 inches.

Winter Protection at base of rose bush

If you want to know more about planting roses and winter protection, you can find more detailed information in our book Roses for New England: A Guide for Sustainable Rose Gardening which can be purchased on our website: RoseSolutions.net