"Cass" suspects...

Good evening, Allegra. Thanks for sorting through this with me. I may
have solved the puzzle and will follow-up tomorrow....but the plant "Tam
Glow" is not old. This I concluded based on the basals: not barky and
wedged into the electrical/gas meter fixtures, ergo, utility meters
predated the rose. In addition, it has the appearance of a budded rose:
there is only one cane growing out of the ground. And, just as
importantly, I saw the same rose growing over a trellis at the local
Smith and Hawken store. S & H was closed, but tomorrow I shall go into
the nursery and examine the label of the rose.....but as I recall, when
I studied all their established roses which started flowering very
early this year, it was a noisette, and I think it was Jaune Desprez.

Good evening my dear,

Sad day today. First I hear about Howard Walters last night and then
this afternoon I got an email from a friend in the UK telling me about
Graham Thomas. I do feel as if I have suddenly lost two old friends,
although I only knew one of them in person, and the other through
his most informative writings. Anyway, I supposed they are conversing
about roses just like you and I, although I am nearly positive neither one
of them would have gone around like we do...

All right, so you think that the rose is Desprez a Fleurs Jaunes? Well
if it is it doesn't even look like my old one from Provence, the petals
look far too "thin", the color is yellow-washed in my monitor, and it
doesn't have the same richness that should have inherited from both
Blush Noisette and Parks' Yellow. I didn't notice the mottled stems
that are like a beauty mark on Jaune Deprez either. Maybe too much
sun does that to them, who is to tell? Mine was deep buff, with a hint
of pink around the center, turning apricot in cooler days. The fragrance
was fruity, just as Léonie Bell described it "a mango blend of orange,
pineapple, and banana found in magnolias and some Hybrid Teas,
but unexpected in an older rose." The foliage was always shiny-green,
leathery and somehow resistant to black spot, but once in a while after
a wet Spring PM will get her. And although the foliage was light green,
it wasn't the apple green of yours. It may be, but there is something
there that just don't fit. I cannot put my finger on it, but then again this
is
a horse of a rose, that can grow without any human help or thereabouts.
Mine went from 0 to 60 in two to three seasons, and climbed oblivious
to anything over a pergola, across a wisteria and into the blue spruce.
In my book anything Mermaid knows she learned from Jaune Deprez.

If it is, your sun and your soil robs her of much of its dark, rich side.
It loves a bit of cold, there is no question about it. In Provence
when the Mistral blows, the roses not up to it die instantly as far as
I can remember my Grandmother saying. "It can freeze your bones
under your overcoat, and it can dry a rose in a day" she used to
say. Her Jaune Deprez were house eating plants...

All right, so much for recognizing the obvious. This is generally the
problem with long distance diagnosis. In my book your fingers and
your nose are the only ones to trust. Over the net instead of Sherlock
Holmes one tends to follow Jacques Clouseau and act like one. And
by the way, when the blooms began to unfurl they always reminded
me of gardenias. Just for that elusive moment, after that, it was a
veritable mess of petals...

You know why they have security at courthouses, don't you? It's so
people can't shoot the clerks.

--
Cass

That explains it.

Allegra