Emmy Morrison found this rose, Call Down the Storm, at a deteriorating old house at what is now exit 25 of I-77 before the highway was built and rooted cuttings.   Emmy Morrison with Paul Neyron.   Bill Morrison shows off Clotilde Soupert.

Emmy “Rose” Morrison can look into each pink face and tell you what it’s been up to for several hundred years – the famous people it has known and the adventures it has seen. Her pink faces and many other shades; belong to heirloom roses, and Emmy knows them, every one. She points out that before the introduction of modern hybrids, most of which have very little scent, roses were not red, but a deep pink.

“I’ll tell you how long I’ve loved old roses,” Emmy says. “Since when I was riding a tricycle, that’s when – and I’m 78 years old,” she finishes from her Davidson patio overlooking about an acre of exuberant bloom. There are so many varieties out there – more than 100 – that, frankly, she’s lost count.

Emmy grew up in Concord, and while tricycling one day, she saw a rose in a neighbor’s yard that captivated her. She couldn’t forget it. As a young bride 55 years ago, she went back to the house to see whether the rose was still there. “The owner gave me a cutting, and I still have it today. Charles De Mills is the name of it. It is pre-1700,” she says of the rose’s historical origins.

The fact that each petal of an heirloom rose bursts with history is a big reason people love them. Avid collectors such as Emmy are on a kind of quest to grow them, tell people about them and share them in order to preserve them. Emmy says only several hundred out of thousands of old rose varieties still exist. And they survive only because collectors grow them.

Heirloom roses – smelling fragrant the way modern varieties often don’t – fell out of fashion after the introduction of tea roses in 1867. Too bad, because unlike fastidious modern hybrids, they require little or no pesticides or fungicides. Environmentally friendly, they thrive in average soils.

“You know how modern tea roses have a reputation for requiring fastidious attention and spraying or they’ll fall over in a faint?” she asks. “What I love is that most heirlooms are so tough. They’re great for beginners to grow. That means it’s easy to get other people hooked on this hobby.”

She admits to feeding them once a year with her own concoction and once in a while spraying for Japanese beetles. But that’s it.

She points out a lovely one called Old Blush – the rose that was blooming at Appomattox – one of her favorites. “But then my favorite is whichever one I’m looking at now,” she says with a smile.

And this time of year, with May as the prime blooming season, she and her husband have plenty of favorites to behold.

Collaborative gardenin
“I couldn’t do it without this man here,” Emmy says of her husband, Bill – known as “Bud” – who does the heavy labor. Bill has just stepped off the riding mower. He’s been working on the parallel runways of lawn meant for strolling between long, raised beds of roses that have no respect for lawn.

It’s a strange sight to look out past the rose beds and see some of the roses that have escaped and are climbing 35 to 40 feet into the branches of trees at the back of the property. “We put those climbers back there temporarily, till we could figure out what to do with them,” she says wryly, looking up at the roses that have happily taken over the treetops.

Bill is wearing heavy-duty canvas gloves up to his elbows, called “rose sleeves,” so he doesn’t get scratched as he mows past roses that are leaping with blooms and thorn-laden stems. He holds a hiking stick on his lap to push back the many runners full of thorns that spill over onto the lawn.

“I am fortunate to have a husband who loves this hobby as much as I do,” Emmy says.

Bill and Emmy, who met at a square dance more than 55 years ago, moved to Davidson from Cabarrus County about 15 years ago. They say it took five years to do all the digging and plant all the roses. They started with 15 roses that they transplanted from their Cabarrus farm, and their rose garden took off from there.

Bill remembers this particular stretch of land well. He was raised just a few miles away. “I remember when they used to grow cotton all through here,” he says. “They were still bringing the mail by horse and buggy when I was a boy.

Secrets of acquisition
The Morrisons usually collect their roses through a method known as “rose rustling.” There are Web sites devoted entirely to discussions of this pastime and its etiquette.

“That’s when you get cuttings from roses that you spot in old churchyards and fields, and hope there are no snakes,” Emmy says. “Of course, if it’s someone’s house, you always ask first.”

Emmy says rose rustling equipment consists of boots for tramping through tall grass, a cooler, paper towels and pruners for cutting a piece of the rose you are collecting. Moisten a paper towel and wrap around the cut end for transport in the cooler.

Once home, you root the cuttings to make a clone of the original. Not all your cuttings are going to take and form roots in the normal course of things.

“To make a cutting, I split the leaf in half, strip all but the hardwood, scrape the end down to where it’s green, split the butt end of it and put it in sand. I sometimes dip the end in rooting hormone,” she says. “In a group of 10 cuttings, you’d be lucky to get two or three to root. Depends on the rose.”

Bill has taken off again on his riding mower. Every once in a while, you can see the tip of his hiking stick lift, and a cascade of blooms lifts gently as if in a sweet smelling breeze.

The Morrisons’ Etiquette of Rose Rustling

1. Always ask first. Unless you are at a remote site, such as along a roadside, with no signs of human habitation, you should always ask before you snip.

2. Explain what you are doing. Identify yourself and explain why you would like to have some cuttings. It puts people at ease if you let them know who you are, what you are doing and how much you love roses.

3. Take photos and make notes. Ask permission to take pictures of the plant and the flowers, and offer to send a copy of the pictures to the owner. Also make notes about the plant (preferably using a found rose form of some sort). If you approach your rose rustling in a serious and professional manner, it will build the confidence of the owner that you are not a criminal and that you are not involved in some sort of scam. Also, the pictures and notes will help you document and identify the cuttings.

4. Be friendly and share information. You may know more about roses than the owner of the plant, and the information that you can offer usually will be accepted as a fair exchange for the cuttings.

5. Express your gratitude. Thank the owner for his or her generosity. It also doesn’t hurt to send a nice note later.

6. Offer something in exchange. It is nice to offer a small rooted cutting as a gift to a generous plant owner, and it pays off in goodwill. A few extra cuttings in 4-inch pots do not cost an experienced rose rustler anything but a little time and effort.

7. Leave before they begin to think you are going to stay for dinner.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Morrisons’ garden is not public. But check out their informative Web site for more information: www.rkdn.org/roses/

The Morrisons have a collection of more than 100 kinds of heirloom roses, dating from before the 1600s. Here are a few of Emmy Morrison’s top picks:

• Apothecary (the Red Rose of Lancaster – pre-1600s)
• Common Moss (1696)
• Old Blush (1752)
• Alba Maxima (the famous White Rose of York – ancient)
• Charles de Mills (pre-1700s)
• Enfant de France (1860)
• Cardinal de Richelieu (pre-1847)
• Paul Neyron (1869)
• Crepuscule (1904)

Emmy’s Reading Choice:
“In Search of Lost Roses,” by Thomas Christopher

Emmy’s Favorite Online Catalog of Heirlooms:
Antique Rose Emporium
www.weareroses.com
800-441-0002

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