Roses growing on high altitude

Rose report from the mountain village of 1200 meters above sea level

I am back in the tiny mountain village of Alagna Valsesia, which is 1200metres on the southern flank of Europe's second highest peak - the Monte Rosa.

The history of this village and its people goes back to more than 1000 years ago. They were originally german speakers from scattered parts of Switzerland. Even though their geographic culinary is very Italian, the Valser people are very proud of their ancestors tradition and way of life. They really love their rugged terrains.

Despite the waves of modernisation that took place over the years, Alagna and the surrounding villages basically retained much of it rustic charm. During the early 19 century, the Queen Margharita of Italy spent most of her summer months at the foot of the Monte Rosa. The queen must have enjoyed the outdoor and mountaineering, that in 1890 she commissioned a mountain refuge be built atop the punta Gnifetti at 4560m. It became the highest mountain refuge in Europe.

The refuge is still in use today after much restructuring, providing shelter to hundreds of climbers during peak summer months. Scientists from all over the world use the refuge as a base for studying the affects of high altitude on humans.

After many years of coming back to this village, Alagna for me is by far the best out of bounds off piste skiing. There are very few ski resorts in the world which offer 3000m of lift accessed vertical!!

I am here not only for freeride freestyle heli-skiing, but also studying and documenting the roses that are growing around the village at this high altitude.
This year, during the time of my visit, the amount of snow is astounding. You can see how the pergola below bowed down under the weight of snow. I can't hardly see anything except a few taller upright growers hybrid teas roses that are growing against the walls

When not documenting roses, I'm somewhere up there with my skis http://rae-dogblog.blogspot.com/

Rosy Inheritance

Some people collect stamps, shoes, handbags, books, antique cars, motorbikes.....all sorts of things A to Z.

I used to collect shoes and handbags until my closet exploded! These days I go about like "men's style" small thin wallet tucked in nicely in the inner pocket of my jacket. Handbags made me look clumsy, what more with the laptop bag and file bag and sandwich in one hand and car keys and and and.... I am now a simplified person. Less is more.

I have always been collecting plants since I was a kid. It started with cactus, succulent and seeds of all sorts. Later on, I bought my first house and by default I inherited everything that's planted by the previous owner. It didn't take me long before I ripped off the tennis court and expanded the garden.
Few years after that, I ran out of space. Its time to move on and built a house in a middle of a vineyard. I started the new garden on a blank canvas. As of today, the terraced flat areas are filled up neck in neck and and I am forced to cultivate a less than practical adjoining areas, a small woodland clearing and 60 degrees steep slopes meaning whatever plants that are going to be grown there must be easy care and low maintenance. Being an an avid rose collector, so I began a quest searching and collecting rare and antique roses that are low maintenance.

My friends asked "How many roses are you going to grow??

"until I ran out of space"

"That's a lot of work" they said

"not necessarily" was my answer

A lot of people I knew are convinced that roses are high maintenance plants, but this is a general misconception. Gardening is a constant maintenance work even when done on a recreational basis. 4 hours on the golf course is also work, plus the extra hours spent working on putting and chipping practices leaving patches on the lawn. Plants are living growing things. Some plants are known to travel from one corner of the garden and popped up in another place. Some plants are thugs and they smother other plants. It is always a matter of selecting the right plant for the right usage.

This unidentified old rose which I inherited through the property is a good example. It is one of the many rose shrubs that is growing all over the place in the vineyard. It is also a fine example of a very cold hardy rose and able to take the exposed windy location very well. As seen in the picture below, it is growing just behind the retaining wall and thrived by itself for years getting water from the rain and sharing whatever fertilizer the grape vines received. This is a very low maintenance rose. The plant practically takes care of itself and very disease resistant too.
Nobody from the vineyards hands are able to identify this rose. The older generation who started the vineyards are long gone. Roses are commonly used by wine growers to detect the spores of powdery mildew which will catch the roses first before infecting the grapes. So I am quite sure this roses must have been part of the vineyard culture for a long time. The grape vines surrounding it has been replace a couple of times in the last many decades. I am slowly going through the records of the vineyard tracing its history, the variety of grapes introduced over the last decades, the bills and payments slips but I still haven't come across anything about the roses.

After a few years of studying the plant, leaves, blooms and other characteristics of my inherited roses, I am quite sure this one in particular is Celesté from Alba group of roses. I could be wrong, I have been wrong before. Identifying roses is very tricky. 9 of 10 characteristic may match but the last one is always the doubt factor because so many roses share similar characteristics and for an untrained eyes like mine, they all look the same! There are conflicting thoughts from expert rosarians too.

Why bother finding the name? A rose is a rose, but that is like saying all individual human beings are the same....and we know that is not true. Roses are like human. They have genetic codes and these codes determines their survival care.

According to: Die Rose: Geschichte, Arten, Kultur und Verwendung (The Rose: History, Kinds, Culture and Use); alba. Céleste, light incarnate, medium size, full, flat cup form, one of the most beautiful in this group

According to: Roses (Phillips & Rix); Celeste, (Celestial) An Alba which originated in Holland around the end of the 18th century. It makes a large rounded bush up to 2 m high, with grey-green leaves typical of R. x alba, and exceptionally beautiful, sweetly scented flowers.Illustrated by Redoute under the name R. damascena 'Aurore'.

According to: Classic Roses - An Illustrated Encyclopedia and Grower's Manual of Old Roses, Shrub Roses & Climbers; Celestial ('Celeste') Alba. Very ancient. Description and cultivation... flowers: soft pink...

According to the Rose Bible: Description; Don't prune bush low or they'll spend the next season reaching the height at which they're comfortable before blossoming.

Looking at the size of the woody canes, I guess my Inheritance has never met the secateurs.

According to the book: Gardening with old roses; Soft pink ... definitely performs better in light or dappled shade.

-->but my inherited rose is growing in full sun, in a most exposed windy location on top of a hill between rows and rows of grapes.

According to: The Ultimate Rose Book; Céleste ('Celestial') Alba. Description... an especially delicate clear shade of pink...

According to: The Ultimate Rose Book; Celestial Alba. Parentage: Unknown. (aka 'Celeste') Origin unknown, possibly The Netherlands. Description and cultivation... flowers: soft, even pink... Elongated red fruit...

--> I must remember to take picture of the hips soon

According to: Der Rosenfreund 1873 ed. Rosa alba. Celestial, medium size, full, pale pink-flesh-coloured, flat cup form; can be regarded as one of the most beautiful of this group. Very suitable for pillars and pyramids.

According to: Der Rosenzüchter, oder die Cultur der Rosen Alba. Celestial, medium size, full, pale pink, flesh-coloured, flat cup form.

According to: The Rose Garden (First Edition 1848) Rosa alba. Celestial; flowers flesh colour, beautifully tinted with the most delicate pink, of medium size, double; form, cupped. Habit, erect; growth, moderate.

According to: The Rose Garden (First Edition 1848) Rosa alba. New Celestial; flowers bright pinkish rose, large and showy.

According to: Rosenlexikon; Céleste (alba) ; flesh-white, medium size, double, cup form, 2 m.Celestial (damask) ? ? ; vivid pink, mediums ize, double = Rose céleste.Celestial (alba) in England ? ; flesh-white = Maiden's Blush

According to: The Essential Earthman; Gertrude Jekyll's donkey, Jack, once ate the side off a large plant of [Celestial], and Vita Sackville-West once observed that if she had to settle for just one alba it would be 'Celestial.' These were both great authorities on roses. Others prefer 'Maiden's Blush' or (as the French call it) 'Cuisse de Nymphe Emue,' which is to say the thigh of a passionate nymph. It is quite similar to 'Celestial,' perhaps more a bluish color....

I have grown Maiden's Blush for a few years now in an effort to compare the 2 roses. From a distance they look similar. They leaves and young canes look the same but the blooms are different. Maiden's Blush has got more petal count, compact and somewhat not as flat as Celesté


http://www.apictureofroses.com/cms/class/alba.htm

Read my other blog - Pooch

Follow up to where I last picked up

We are still in the depth of winter. Grey and cold but the good thing about my location is that we occasionally get that warm air http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_windpushed pushing up from the south. When this happened, it is almost like a short break from the dreary days of winter grey, with sunny clear blue sky, walking around with just a layer of clothing but this joy of tee shirt temperature is very short. The moment the sun goes down, the quicksilver will plunge down again to normal 0°C or thereabout winter temperature and life gets back to parkas and down jackets.

Took the dog for his walk and feed some ducks down at the river earlier today.


Nothing much going on in the garden at the moment. Almost everything in hibernation.
I've potted up all the bareroots roses I brought back from Italy in temporary pots until I can plant them out in the garden when the ground is workable. We have had frozen temperature for a long stretch of weeks and the pots was frozen solid. There was 2 days of föhn last week and I could see the ice thawing but it will be snowing again soon.


I also found Stanwell Perpetual left over rose bud from last autumn still hanging on despited all the freeze and thaw. Amazing.


The Pieris are busy making buds to break the winter spell.

When I was at the garden centre the other day buying soil for potting up the bareroses, I bought some primula aka primrose to cheer up my very monotonus green winter garden (actually more about cheering up my own self lol )
They came in all kinds of cheerful eye candy colours. This must be the answer to bridge the gap for colour starving souls.

Rosette Delizy breaking bud eye growth.
Nature's way revealing spring is just around the corner??


To my delight, some of my other newly bought bareroots roses are also showing some reddish cooked shrimp coloured tiny red shoots.

O joy!! Spring cleaning is looming in the air :(