(I've decided to finally get onto reviewing the hundred-plus varieties of roses that have cycled through our garden in the last 20 years, just because most reviews are generated by suppliers and thus pretty suspect to peeps worried about dropping thirty damn dollars on one bloody plant; just saying. If this prospect bores you, too fucking bad. Everyone should garden, where possible. Your body needs the exercise. Your brain needs the tranquility. The dirt needs friends. Roses and indeed most other plants are indisputably preferable to the company of most people and far better for you than that other shit you're doing. Prove me wrong.)
Agnes is a really odd sort of rose, a hybrid-looking thing with the wild-type foliage of one parent and the feral habit of the other. The flower form resists effective classification too, seemingly stranded between Old Rose fluff and 70's Floribunda realness. She doesn’t get a lot of love, perhaps due to this misc. look and the often whack nature of the label photos that always seem to misrepresent her. She's a survivor, though, a flapper minted in 1922 from the wild roses Rugosa x Foetida persiana.
Agnes deserves far more attention. Her hair is full of secrets.
Agnes deserves far more attention. Her hair is full of secrets.
| Firstly and importantly, she is massively indestructible. A bit of confessional background: despite their iron-clad reputation and for no obvious reason, I’ve managed to kill fully half of the Rugosa-derived varieties that I’ve planted and Agnes has been treated worst of all. I have yanked it out of a range of shitty positions, from the almost complete shade and hungry competition of an encroaching Arrow Bamboo grove to the utterly indifferent, summer-baked clay of the slope it inhabits currently. The only real change in Agnes’ performance has been more flowers in the brighter situation. She seems to put on a good face even in those annoyingly seedy half shade/crap soil marginal areas.  |  The foliage is pleasant bright emerald green and an attractive, atypical ferny cutwork look that is never bothered by pathogens. I repeat: never bothered by pathogens. I don’t spray for anything, ever, and while my other roses are being rusted and defoliated, Agnes never turns a hair and she should be grown in droves for that quality alone. |
| The parent plant Foetida persiana is a notorious black spot magnet, so the clean Rugosa genes must prevail in this respect. She puts forth modest, slender, tufted buds that open to a flower featuring gradations of buttermilk yellow with a slight mellony scent, the form puffy, informal and sort of scrunchy, like a looser Centifolia with tissue-thin petals. There's a first late spring flush that goes on for about a month or so, then the odd single flower and a late summer rebloom, depending on the year although this second episode has become more reliable as the plant has matured. As a result of her wild heritage, the effect of Agnes’ foliage+blooms is uncommonly complimentary and wholly naturalistic, as though the two truely belong both together and within the wider fabric of an informal garden. The colour and form just don't scream rose bush, yo, which is a bit of a shocker really after so long staring at the depressing clownishness of so many modern hybrids. |  |
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Negatives? Well, she does bristle with Gooseberry-like thorns, making her a great hedge prospect and a menace to the unwary. The only other 'difficulty' I've encountered with Agnes is in regard to pruning, which usually means it's best to just put down the secateurs and back away from any impending hack job. My cack-handed meddling has made her a wee bit flat-headed at the moment as you can probably see in the pic below, but I intend to leave her alone from now on in the hope she regains her original, more graceful Rugosa form. Agnes may not knock you on your arse with her drag show, but there could not be a more low-maintenance, aesthetically sympathetic and uncomplaining rose.
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