I got 5 mystery roses from Rogue Valley, three of which looked like the same thornless climber, so I planted them all thinking they were Andenken an J. Diering. Much to my surprise, one of them bloomed and it was red and white stripes. Woo hoo! I'm excited, whichever one it turns out to be.

As usual, I went through and checked the Rogue Valley inventory to see what was still available that might be the mystery striped rose. It's clearly a modern, which rules out the striped Gallicas and such. It doesn't have any pink, which rules out Modern Times, and it doesn't have enough white to be Ferdinand Pichard. I'd love it if it were Hurdy Gurdy, but I think there are too many petals.

I have narrowed it down to Papageno and Moore's Striped Rugosa, I think. I have Papageno and the blooms look just right, but the lack of thorns is puzzling. The rugosa would be a better fit in that regard, but the leaves don't look particularly rugose to me. However, Moore's SR was in the free rose selections for this year, which adds to its chances, but I'd requested that as my free rose in an order and they'd run out of it. Any suggestions? Anything I'm missing?

Thanks as always for your help!

Cynthia

And incidentally, I think all the striped roses you mentioned descend from 'Ferdinand Pichard', which Ralph Moore used to pass on stripes in his breeding (most other striped roses are sports and don't pass them on to seedlings). So if you don't guess the right one, chances are you'll still be in the right "family."

:-)

~Christopher

So far, there seems to be consensus that Papageno is a good working name for this one. I actually like the prospect of these mystery roses, mgleason, since it could be literally anything in their catalog and it tends to stretch me to try roses I wouldn't normally buy. A few years ago, the mystery rose was "Rookie", a compact short flori/mini white rose, and it really has turned out to be a nice steady bloomer and great bloom form. I probably wouldn't have bought Robin Hood or Sophisticate (from two and three years ago) on their own, but they ramble nicely in the part shade, and they really make a statement in the neighbor's yard where they asked me to expand my shade area into their side of the yard.

You're right that I might be able to ask Rogue Valley, though I find that their phone personnel are lovely people and helpful with orders, but they don't seem to know the details of the roses if they're not labeled. I don't know if Rogue Valley sends mystery plants because the labels have been lost or misplaced in propagation (hence they don't know any more than we do), or because they're overstocked. On my side, it would be more convenient to call these "our choice" rather than "mystery" roses and leave the tags in if it's the latter situation, but I don't mind the unknown for the first year. My only dilemma comes in where to plant something that hasn't bloomed and I have no clue what it is. The unknown mini from this year was easy to place, but I have a vaguely HT looking bush that I had to guess where to put, since I rarely if ever move roses once planted.

Besides, I have all you lovely helpful folks to help me identify the roses each year! I challenge any rose company, except maybe Burlington and the dearly departed Vintage, to have the breadth of expertise in identifying a wide range of roses that we have here on GW!

Cynthia