My visit to Sangerhausen

I got back from Sangerhausen on Monday and have needed a few days 
to digest my impressions. It is an overwhelming place. 15 hectares 
of 50,000 rose bushes of 6083 varieties and 528 species planted 
in a very beautiful setting among 300 kinds of mature trees, both 
rare and common varieties.
The town is also interesting in its way, a medieval copper mining 
town on the southern slope of the Harz mountains. It is very rundown. 
The old city center is almost empty except for shops and restaurants 
while people live in depressing housing estates from the 50’ies and 60’ies on the outskirts. 
The newest buildings in the old part seemed to be built around the middle of the 18th century, the majority were 16th century or older. One of the 
churches is in the Romanesque style, unusual for these parts 
of Germany. There are stencilled roses on the sidewalks and most 
houses had newly planted climbing roses outside.
People were extremely friendly and helpful, and they seem slightly 
dazed still by the fact that DDR is no more and foreign tourists 
are free to visit. Surprised also that we should choose to visit 
their old rosarium when we could so easily have gone to the Canary 
Islands or Mallorca instead. I hadn’t been to this part of Germany in 32 years and it has certainly changed since the fall of the wall, but 
it is still different from the west in appearance and attitudes. 
Dangerously so in some respects, because the new nazis are quite 
strong in these parts and won 20 % of the votes in the latest 
polls. Not only the new nazis are strong in and near Sangerhausen, the new communists also have a stronghold there. The newly elected Oberburgermeister is a "new" communist. (The town 
is called the "Capital of Unemployment".)
The rosarium is a museum. It is not very educational and 
it is not commercial. One can buy the Rosenverzeichnis, a list of the varieties, printed in 1976, and a pocket book on the history of the rosarium, 
with a little on roses and rose growing, and a small selection of 
souvenirs and postcards. There 
was a pavilion with graphics on the development of the rose and 
an educational bed of roses from albas and gallicas to modern 
roses. It was almost as far 
as possible from the entrance where I think it would have been 
better placed.
There were few visitors, almost none on 
Friday and two coach loads of senior citizens on Saturday. One can 
get coffee and icecream on the premises and there is a large beer garden just outside the main gate. The entrance fee is only 5 DM 
and one is free to come and go all day on the same ticket.
There were signs next to the ”Green Rose” and the ”Black Rose”, 
the only attempt at flirting with the public I could detect. The 
green rose was Viridiflora and the black rose was ’Nigrette’ 
(M. Krause 1933). There was no mention of the existence of any 
other so-called ”black roses”. Apparently this was it.
Hybrid teas, Hybrid Perpetuals and climbers seem to dominate the 
collection. The beginning of Sangerhausen is the early donation of 
1,100 roses from the private collection of one of the founders, 
Albert Hoffman, in the later years of the last century. I suppose 
his own garden would have contained many ”Remontanthybriden” if it 
reflected the taste of his time.
The roses are planted in numbered areas but the plan is obscure, 
probably because the garden is so old. Many roses must have died and 
others been moved. At least three plants of the same variety are 
planted together and many are grown in several places.
’Fragezeichen’ is a leitmotif, it appeared four times. All climbers 
and ramblers are planted on pillars and tied in only with rose twigs. 
Whether they were twigs from the roses themselves or from some 
especially pliable variety, I don’t know.
The HTs were mostly not planted according to any obvious plan but 
in the newest beds they were colour coordinated. Old and new roses, 
from breeders from all corners of the world and of every conceivable 
colour were planted together in semi-circles. I found this instructional. 
It was easy to spot particularly good varieties that stood out from 
the crowd. There was some blackspot and some mildew but very little. I 
am not especially interested in HTs but I remember ’Radiance’ (Cook 
1908) a perfect pink and absolutely healthy HT. The sickest rose of 
all 50,000 was a wretched specimen of ’Conrad Ferdinand Meyer’, a rose 
I have been contemplating, but now wouldn’t want for free.
The flowering was two weeks early so all species were over, including 
the Americans, generally later than the European species 
roses. Several of the old roses were also past their prime because of an 
untimely hot spell a few weeks ago. Now it was rather cool so the 
air was not as scented as one could have expected.
It had rained the night before so it was also too wet to examine 
the huge old bushes too closely and try to find a hidden label. The old roses were less well kept and allowed to spread freely. 
None were deadheaded and it would have been an impossible task anyway. 
The staff seemed quite small for such a large establishment, we saw 
about 10 gardeners. All were preparing for the ”Berg- und Rosenfest” 
next weekend, the biggest event of the season, edging the lawns and 
raking the beds.
By the way, walking on the grass was forbidden, ”except for the closer 
inspection of the roses”, which I found rather cute.
My husband and I are looking for hardy climbers and ramblers and some 
that stood out from the crowd were ’Le droit humain’ (Vilin 1907), a 
pink multiflora hybrid, ’Jean Lafitte’ (Horvath 1934) a pink setigera 
hybrid, ’Bijou des Prairies’ another setigera (Schwartz 1880), very 
like ’Geschwinds Orden’, a multiflora favourite. Another favourite 
was ’Johanna Röpke’ (Tantau 1931), a wichuraiana. Then I think we 
must have tired of all the bland pinks because from then on we noticed 
only the darkest climbers, ’Corporal Johann Nagy’ (Geschwind 1890), 
’Trompeter von Säckingen’ also a Geschwind rose, and then we got hooked 
on Geschwind roses of any colour. My husband developed an eye for them 
and in the end could spot them from a distance of 30 meters. ”I’ll be 
damned if that isn’t a Geschwind rose” said he and rushed to a group of 
pillar roses in the middle of a distant lawn and sure, one of them was 
’Walkure’, a pale pink wichuraiana from 1909.
Other roses that made an impression were ’Etna’, Haddington (a 
foundling gallica, very dark red), ’Duc de Cazes’ (Touvais 1861) a HP. 
I have to quote the German description from the inventory: ”samt. 
dunkelpurpur mit braunviolett”. (velvety dark purple with brownish 
violet), a very accurate description.
Best white rambler was ’White Flight’ (Koster 1923) a multiflora, 
incredibly beautiful.
’Leander’ was the only Austin rose that I noticed, a sturdy shrub 
rose covered in apricot flowers. I missed the new German alba hybrids 
from Weihrauch although I found the bed they were supposed to be in.
Near this bed and near the entrance was a large bed of roses bred in 
former DDR. It had a rather sad sign saying this was ”a historical 
collection of roses now propagated by noone”. They were all from the 
’70ies and ’80ies and looked just as good as any western hybrid teas 
or floribundas, white, pink, red, yellow, strong orange, salmon; self 
or with a different coloured eye, striped, blended or with paler 
reverses.
They were bred either by ”VEGS. Baumschulen Dresden” or by the ”GPG 
Roter Oktober” in Bad Langensalza not far from Sangerhausen. There was 
a Salza series, ’Salzagold’, ’Salzaperle’ and ’Salzaquelle’. Also a 
rose called ’Sacramento’ a name I don't think has been used by anyone 
else? All were from 1977 to 1987. But there were so many more. There 
is now a privately owned rose nursery at Bad Langensalza that 
specializes in old roses.
Not far from the DDR roses were the old Sovietbred roses together with 
a few Norwegian hybrids. (I fail to see the connection.) Many of the 
Soviet roses were bred by one Klimenko and had names like ’Korallovyj 
Sjurpriz’ Coral Surprise), ’Krymskaja notsch’ (Crimean Nights, 
Schtanko 1958) and ’Jasnaja Poljana’ (named after Leo Tolstoy’s home). 
Most of them were red HT’s, naturally, I suppose. All the world loves 
a red rose.
These beds were located in the more decorative department where the 
roses were underplanted with perennials. This was an inspirational 
part of the garden and I have learnt the importance of mass planting 
of perennials. I was familiar with many, if not most of them, but 
where I have 3 here there were at least 33 of each kind which makes 
some impact. Not that I have space for so many but I shall try to 
avoid the spottiness I have now.
Two new roses were mass planted, both pink shrubs, called ’Rosario’ 
and ’NDR1 Radio Niedersachsen’ (I made no note of this name so I am 
not quite sure it is correct, it is named for a radio programme). They 
are both wonderful roses and part of the proceeds go to the rosarium. 
I shall try to find them, the radio rose probably has another name in 
Sweden.
We left at noon on Saturday, exhausted. Spare roses are sold at the 
entrance gate, but they are not propagated for sale, they sell what 
they happen to have that day. On Friday there were only 3 old roses 
for sale, none very interesting so I was hoping the choice would be 
larger on Saturday. But there was only one, ’Souvenir de Beranger’ 
(Bruant 1857) a dark rose HP, so I had to buy it to have at least one souvenir rose.

I was quite genuinely amazed at the scope of the roses, but honestly, what really impressed me was the incredible collection of mature trees, quite lovely to see. The town also pleased me. Here in America we are rapidly losing our walkable towns. It was a joy to stroll from shop to cafe to park without getting into a car.

Rosefolly