Today's Job

Queen of the Prairies, found rose, Hybrid Setigera.
Hybrid of Rosa setigera Michaux, (1843) by Samuel Feast.

It was two springs ago. I was at a usual haunt, the Landis Valley Historic Herb festival always held Mother's Day. There are tons of vendors there selling just about everything that has to do with gardens. I love going there. Lots of plants of every kind, but especially herbs. I get many of my speciality herbs such as Lovage and the lovely yellow tomato, Golden Queen.

One of the vendors there is an heirloom rose grower. He comes every year and sells such beauties as New Dawn, the Apocarathey's Rose, Rose de Rescht, and others. Two springs ago I got a found rose called Queen of the Prairies. It was the only one he had so I got it. Being a found rose, there is no record of it's history, or it was once lost and then found again in someone's homestead, back 40, completely forgotten about until a rose lover found it one day and took cuttings. It would be a rose no longer in production.

It's amazing I even bought it. The woman who sold it to me had very little knowledge of it and was very vague about it's origination. She said she found it in someone's back yard and took a few cuttings. It intriqued me. It was so very tiny Husband was afraid it wouldn't make it. I knew it was an old rose, but really wasn't sure if it was a climber, rambler or what. I planted it in the back 40 of my property where it was instantly forgotten. On occasion I would remember it and check on it but in all honesty, it more or less was neglected (and I don't hardly ever neglect a rose).

This spring I wandered back there to start the spring clean up which was horrendous. Since I had switched shifts at work last year, I had completely neglected that entire bed. I began cleaning out the weeds and ran across this tiny rose. I was totally amazed that it had not only survived the winter, but had no winter death on it at all. It had already begun to grow, even from the utmost points of the two little canes.

This morning it was time to tackle this now monster as it grew way out of control all summer and was throwing canes up to 20 ft. long everywhere! Husband tried to tie it to the fence but to no avail (he wouldn't prune the thing) and ended up running over some of the longer canes with the lawn tractor. I went back there armed with gloves, twine, sissors, pruners and a shovel. This rose was between to maiden grasses and a ton of weeds, some larger than myself. The shovel was for the largest of the weeds. The twine was to tie up the rose; the sissors to cut the twine; and the pruners to prune the long, thick canes.

The longest of the canes that were sheared off by the tractor, were pruned to good growth and tied to the fence. The wayward canes that simply shot out without any kind of mission, were pruned off completely. Canes that didn't seem to want to go where I wanted them to were also pruned away. In the end, I had a huge rambler of about eight canes that stretched over 25 feet of fence on two rails.

It did bloom for me this year, though it was so out of hand, the blooms were hard to get to. I do understand that as this rose grows and matures, it's blooms will get better. For now, it's turned out to be one amazing plant. Like my every precious New Dawn, the Queen doesn't get black spot, powdery mildew or seem to suffer from the usual insects. All it does is grow. This year it has bloomed only once but if it is what I think it is, one a year is all the bloom cycles I'll get from it. But it blooms before the grasses get going and it will undoubtedly be quite the beauty next year.

Husband wants a bunch of the Queen simply because of the amount (or lack of it) of care she's needed. Though not many prickles, she is still a handful. I'm really glad I did buy this rose. I will return to Landis Valley next year to seek out the Heirloom Rose grower and tell him that the Queen of the Prairies I purchased two years ago turned out to be one of the best roses in this area since New Dawn.

I am very impressed.