Striped roses are some of the most striking members of a family that’s already showy. Roses with flowers that are striped and splashed with color add gaiety and spark to a garden in a way that even the brightest neon colors don’t. These days we are seeing a fair number of striped new introductions, but there have been striped roses for hundreds of years.
The oldest striped rose we have surviving today is Rosa gallica versicolor, usually known as Rosamundi. This is a deep pink and white bicolor sport of the plain apothecary’s rose. While this rose blooms only once a year, its bloom is so beautiful that it can be forgiven for this. Further, being only 3-4’ tall and the same width, it’s one of the easier old garden roses to fit into a small yard. It has a strong fragrance. Some sources say that it reverts to a solid color when grown on its own roots, but I have not found this to be so.
During the 1800s more striped roses were bred, and these have at least some repeat bloom being of the Bourbon and Hybrid Perpetual classes. Commandant Beaurepaire, Variegata de Bologna and Ferdinand Pichard all come from this era. Beaurepaire is a wild blend of pink, magenta and violet with white flecks, is highly scented and is about 4’ tall and wide. De Bologna is a taller shrub, getting to 6’ to 10’. It has the big, full of petals blooms that we associate with the Victorian era and is a red blend with a powerful scent. My favorite of this group, despite its relatively light scent, is Ferdinand Pichard. Pichard is a totally reliable rebloomer, always getting in at least three bloom cycles in a summer, frequently blooming well into fall. The blossoms are cupped, double and white striped with various shades of pink. The shrub can get to 5’ but for me has winter dieback that limits it to around 4’.
During most of the 20th century there were not many striped introductions but near the end of the century breeders started producing more of them, a trend which is continuing. Scentimental is a floribunda with an old fashioned bloom form and a strong, old rose fragrance. It is dark red with swirls of creamy white and reblooms very swiftly. While listed as hardy to zone 6, I’ve found it perfectly hardy in my zone 4 garden. This is a very striking rose!
Fourth of July is a climbing striped rose. One of the hardiest large flowered climbers, this rose is almost never without bloom. It’s a fast grower and its flowers open wide to show its red and white stripes to best advantage. It was the first climbing rose in 23 years to win an AARS award.
Striped roses also come in miniature form. Stars n’ Stripes is the most popular striped mini around; this is a constant bloomer with 1 ½” wide double blooms. Normally a slightly spreading 2’ shrub, it occasionally sports and turns into a climber.
So far we’ve only looked at shades of red, pink and white, which were the only colors available in the older striped roses. Today, there are other colors available. George Burns is yellow and red stripe, although the yellow tends to wash out to white in hot weather. I suspect that this rose might benefit from having some mid-day shade. The shrub is short- less than 3’ tall- but the blooms are quite large for the bush. The flowers are double and strongly scented. It blooms in flushes through the summer. It is not a strong grower and needs winter protection.
Oranges n’ Lemons is one of the most striking roses I’ve seen. A shrub rose with clusters of very double oranges blooms well splashed and striped with bright yellow that repeat several times during the summer. It has little scent. The bush is nearly thornless, making for easier care, and, surprisingly for a yellow rose, is very disease resistant. The new foliage is a lovely red color maturing to deep green. In warm climates it’s a tall rose, but up here it gets a lot of die back and definitely needs winter protection.
A few years ago purple joined the ranks of colors of striped roses with Purple Tiger, a floribunda with dark purple blooms with mauve streaks and white splashes. It has a strong fragrance and the blooms are very double. A short shrub of 2 ½’, it tends to get a lot of winter dieback. It also needs protection from spring freezes as the new growth is very sensitive.
Purple Splash is a new introduction, a large flowered climber with clusters of medium sized, double flowers of purple with white stripes that open flat. It has no fragrance. While listed as a climbing rose, it seems to be a short one that tops out around 6’. I have not seen this one in person, so I don’t know what its growth habits will be in our climate, but I’m looking forward to seeing it this summer.
What causes striping and streaking in roses, and why are they so few of them? Mostly, it’s not a genetic trait, so it can’t be bred into a rose. A lot of them, like Rosamundi, arose when part of a branch mutated. This mutated trait can then be perpetuated by asexual reproduction- taking cuttings of that branch and rooting them. One hot summer one of my old roses, a gallica called The Bishop, which is normally a purplish-pink rose, went wild with striped roses on a large part of the bush! Sadly, none of the cuttings I took rooted, and the striping has not recurred. This was a summer when many growers were reporting sports, so it might have been the heat or perhaps more UV radiation from so many sunny days. In some cases, a virus is suspected. . Ralph Moore, the great breeder of miniature roses, discovered that Ferdinand Pichard’s striping was actually genetic and that the rose could be used as a pollen parent to achieve striped roses- Stars n’ Stripes was the first striped mini. Whatever the cause, it’s a beautiful result.
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