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Portland, OR easy bicycle rose tour

glacier
10 years ago

A botanist, Rick Shory, is giving a bicycle rose tour in NE Portland on Wednesday evening 6-7. It's an easy flat ride beginning at the library in the Hollywood district.

Focusing on the what is likely the most widely grown rose in the Portland area, Rick will show how to identify it and talk about its 100 year history in the evolution of the modern rose.

Here is a link that might be useful: rose bicycle tour details

This post was edited by glacier on Mon, Jun 10, 13 at 16:00

Comments (7)

  • jaxondel
    10 years ago

    Anyone here with knowledge (or a speculation) of what "the most growing rose in Portland" is?

    Assuming you plan to take the tour, Glacier, you will return to give us the answer, right?

  • Kippy
    10 years ago

    I would love to take that bike ride! Too bad I am not in Portland

  • glacier
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Well, I know the answer because I helped Rick bicycle all over that neighborhood with a GPS. We geotagged plantings of that particular shrub last weekend. I'm not telling until the time of ride.

    Unfortunately, I won't be there because I don't live there either. I was just visiting last weekend and the idea to do this tour came up.

    -lars
    the Uncommon Rose

  • Campanula UK Z8
    10 years ago

    thought it was Mme Caroline Testout which Portland was famous for (sorry for dreadful grammar).

    I, too, would be relishing such a bike-ride (as a pathetic non-driver).

  • glacier
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Unfortunately rain pretty much made the Rose Bicycle Tour a bust. Nobody showed up in the driving rain. We'll try this again next year. But for those interested:

    The answer is "Dr. Huey". This rootstock variety is now, tragically, the most common rose found in Portland. It can be seen in four forms:

    1) a totally neglected plant where the scion died a long time ago leaving only Dr Huey to carry on. The home owners are not likely the original one, and have no idea what the rose was supposed to have been. The plants this time of the year are nearly leafless from blackspot and have a few clusters of weak blooms.

    2) a tended plant where the scion still hangs on, but shoots of Dr. Huey are coming up from the base. This is common in public plantings, too. Next time you're at the Portland Union Pacific train station, notice that Dr Huey is showing on 50% of the roses there.

    3) a carefully tended plant trained over an arbor or climbing on a trellis next to a house. The home owner wonders why it only blooms once a year and "didn't that rose used to be yellow?"

    4) a carefully tended plant that gets cut back to the ground every winter as is conventional wisdom for pruning roses. The home owner wonders why this rose _never_ blooms. Dr. Huey only blooms on one year old wood, if you cut it back every year, you'll never see a bloom.

    Here is a link that might be useful: google map of 100 Dr Huey roses in NE Portland

  • seil zone 6b MI
    10 years ago

    Oh, what shame! I think the tour sounded marvelous! I hope it works out better next year.

    I had already guessed the good Doctor, lol! I think he's the most "grown" rose in the entire country!

  • Kippy
    10 years ago

    I had been thinking photographing the lovely examples of the doc next spring.

    Note the hints of red in the mass of white