Twenty-seven roses. That’s how many blooms tumbled out of my purse when I got home, each a different variety, all richly fragrant. My car smelled of roses. My office smelled of roses. I’d just gotten back from Independence, Texas, home of the Antique Rose Emporium.
A busy fall delayed my visit to the eight acres of display gardens — the roses peak in April and October — but it’s been a warm November and when I arrived the beds were still alive with migrating butterflies and fat bees storing up the last of the season’s pollen. Mike Shoup, the Emporium’s cheerful, bearded owner (shown above right), toured me around the different gardens, including one expressly for the many weddings the Emporium hosts. The goal, he explained, was to show people how they could integrate old roses (a loose term for varieties at least fifty years old, sometimes much older) into their gardens. It was all very pretty. But I wasn’t there for gardening inspiration. I was there to smell the roses.
I explained my purpose — and Now Smell This — to Mike as best I could. “Oh that’s great!” he said. “I think fragrance is one of the most important things about the roses, but it’s so hard to talk about.” Then he recommended The Emperor of Scent, Chandler Burr’s book on biophysicist and perfume critic Luca Turin, and I knew I'd found a fellow scent fanatic.
We got in Mike’s truck and headed over to the 21 acres of fields and greenhouses where the Emporium’s roses are grown, talking as we drove. Mike has been collecting and growing old roses since 1982. In 1984 he joined the loosely affiliated group of rose-obsessives who became known as the Texas Rose Rustlers. Together they scoured highways, old cemeteries, churchyards, and isolated towns and farmsteads for “lost” varieties of old roses no longer available through the nurseries, taking clippings to propagate whenever they found them.
I’ve always imagined the Rustlers as a tough, lawless bunch of Texans — mostly of the older, no-nonsense female variety — roaming the countryside with shears in hand, stopping at nothing to get their roses. Mike admitted there was some truth to my fantasy, especially in the beginning. “But there’s an etiquette now,” he assured me.
The Rustlers often found their roses flourishing with little or no care, in spite of Texas heat, droughts, and floods. Mike converted his original plant nursery to the Emporium so he could grow and share these tough beauties. His stock is still made up almost completely of reclaimed varieties, many of which arrived courtesy of people who heard about what he was doing and wanted to share roses they’d found, or preserve those they had been growing themselves. The Emporium now functions as a kind of ad hoc Osmothèque of the Southern rose world. Many grateful customers have been reunited with roses they remember seeing and smelling as children.
Especially smelling. Modern garden roses were bred for bigger, showier blooms. Like roses grown for the cut flower market, many lost the strength and variety of their fragrance along the way. Though the blooms of old roses are often smaller and simpler, they are often powerfully fragrant.
When we arrived at the fields, Mike led me through the roses, plucking roses and handing them to me as he went. “Here smell this one,” he said, again and again, as we tramped along. I complied happily, breathing deeply, then tucking the bloom in my bag when Mike handed me the next one.
I was astounded by the depth and variety of their scents. Some, like the bright red Maggie, mixed classic rose with distinctly peppery, herbal notes — the perfect rose for the groom’s lapel. The bright yellow Julia Child had a gorgeous, rounded fruitiness to it, just touched by soft musk. (I could easily imagine Julia herself trilling in pleasure at the scent.) In the charming Celine Forestier, a climber whose soft yellow blooms blush pale pink at the center, the same soft musk leaned toward honey with a sprinkling of cinnamon. And the small white bloom of Independence Musk was so richly musky that I nearly blushed the first time I sniffed it. The second and third time I swooned.
The classic dark red Chrysler Imperial (originally bred to sell the car) smelled distinctly of lemons. “I think it smells like Lemon Pledge,” said Mike, and it did have some of that woody waxiness to it. In Jean Theresa, a glowing yellow-apricot rose that Mike bred himself and named for his wife, the same citrus note was sweetened by myrrh and made complex by a very soft, fruity leather note. The final result was intoxicating and we paused for some time before I was ready to leave Jean Theresa behind. Sadly, she is not for sale.
“Black spot,” said Mike. “It’s susceptible to black spot. So I can’t sell it. But everyone who smells it wants to take one home.”
We continued on, bloom after bloom, happily comparing notes on what we smelled. (Me: “Wow! This one has a celery note!” Mike: “Yes, exactly! That’s exactly it!”) Mike made a call to his next appointment to say he would be late.
By the time we got to Gruss an Aachen my purse was full of flowers, and I was giddy, nearly drunk on scent, so I can’t say for certain that what I smelled was actually there, but I swear that this small, creamy rose, which the Antique Rose Emporium website describes as having only a “light fragrance,” smelled of aldehydes. Smelled, in fact, almost exactly like the opening of a rose-laden vintage perfume.
I tested my idea out on Mike. “Does this smell like an old-fashioned, expensively dressed woman ready for a night out to you? That strong, just-applied perfume smell?” “Yes,” he confirmed, noting that it wasn’t one of his favorites.
On the way back to the display gardens, Mike handed me one final rose. It was deep maroon, very simple and had a wonderful, dark rose scent that was somehow familiar. Mike drove and I sniffed, trying to place it. Maybe one of my perfumes? As the truck came to a stop it came to me: it was the scent of the thorny wild roses I used to walk by on my way to elementary school. I’d found my own lost rose, one I’d never even known was missing.
The Antique Rose Emporium ships to all U.S. locations suitable for their roses. They are happy to offer advice, make recommendations, and find lost roses over the phone. Also, a PSA: Meyer Lemons are back in season!
What a beautiful essay! Thank you for sharing this experience.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Thalia! I felt very lucky to have the experience.
You wrote so beautifully Alyssa!
Your blessed to have had such a fragrant scent experience.
I’m jealous! ha.
Thanks for sharing today.<3
Roses are a new perfume journey for me in the last year, I have come to find I adore all kinds on me. I don't have a green thumb to save my life but live where a bunch of talented women do( my lovely neighbors, 'The Mermaids' ) and I benefit every spring and summer for it.
It's like the "The Secret Garden" .
Tamara, I plan to be a fantastic gardener in my late sixties, but right now I’m like you–I just enjoy being the beneficiary of other people’s hard work. 😉
I mostly like my roses rich and dark in perfume–Pasetum Rose, Parfum Sacre, Bois de Paradis, the Montales–but every now and then a pink one sneaks in. Love the rose-rhubarb note in Rose Ikebana, for example. Do you have a favorite?
My favorite sexy , musky dark red rose is Montale Aoud Queen Roses and the “pink” one you describe is Montales’ Aoud Roses Petals for me. Very “ladies who lunch” GORGEOUS!
White Aoud is a lovely blend on my skin as well , that’s a whole shebang of decadence right there.
I guess you can see I love Montale! 😉
Serge Luten’s is Sa Majeste la Rose is something I’m lemming these days too for a rose fix, something I want to pick me up come cold Washington winters. Roses are BOMB. 😀
Montale Aoud Roses is “pink” to you? Whoa…I bow down…;-)
Isn’t she??? 😉 ha. I wonder what it’s like to you . 🙂
I think Aoud Roses Petals is pink too. (Oud Queen Roses is red, in my mind.)
You ladies are crazy goddesses of ROSE is all I can say! Roses Petals is deep red to me, especially next to lightweight like Rose Ikebana. Queen Roses I find quite powdery.
I love roses. Thanks for the article Alyssa!
You’re welcome!
Yay, real rose lovers! I love the simpler-flowering old fashioned roses, particularly the single blooms! Around here…well, you almost never see them, in spite of the Wild Rose (which wild rose?) being Iowa’s state flower. There used to be a simply gorgeous rose garden in one of the parks near the house I grew up in, when it began to fall into neglect….well, we called it pirating, not rustling. Unfortunately, my mother’s ability to grow roses is a lot like my ability to fly, that is to say “crash and burn”.
She’s not given up though. She’s recently “liberated” an entire bed of red, fuchsia and medium-darkish pink rosebushes from the house next to her (it’s been abandoned for about 15 years.)
You might try some of the Griffith Buck roses, which were bred to do well in the Midwestern climate. Carefree Beauty is one which is also popular here in Texas, as it is very tolerant of the Texas heat. It was for some time bred and sold as “Katy Road Pink” (found roses are usually given names that reflect the place where they were “discovered”) before it was identified as Carefree Beauty. I have one in my garden, and the blooms are utterly charming.
Thanks 50, but the problem goes much deeper than that…I kill anything that I take home, and I’m beginning to think I get that trait from my mother. The most successful plant in her back yard for a long time was a gigantic mulberry tree that she literally could not kill until I convinced her to buy some wisterias to choke it to death…now she can’t get rid of the wisteria! She’s currently got her eye on some clippings from one of the little old ladies at her church, well, the little old lady’s husband anyway. I’ve been past thier house, I’m reatively certain he’s got quite a few “forgotten” varieties in that garden, but I don’t know rose varieties well enough to be sure (my personal greatest succes has been accidentally rooted carrots.)
Ha, ha, ha! I love that story about your mother and her “pirating.” (Pretty funny that Texans rustle and Iowans pirate–maybe something about that prairie/sea connection?) I second 50-Roses’ recommendation on the antique roses. They’re tough!
Would be interesting to see what the Iowa tourism board would say if you asked them, “Which wild rose?”
I checked that out this morning, and got three different replies, the Iowa Wild Rose (looked it up, and just got a casino,) the sweet prairie rose and the wild prairie rose. Most non-state sites (US Park Services) list it as the wild prairie rose, so I’m going to go with that!
Thanks for reporting back!
I so wish I had a garden. I remember when I was little the smell of a garden of roses after rain,the perfect scent.
That’s such a lovely memory.
thank you for a highly evocative article. very nice.
I’m so glad you liked it.
Lovely article, Alyssa. I lifted bunches of photos from the Antique Rose Emporium (with attribution, of course) to use in a blog post about roses this past summer… I WANT TO GO. And bring plants home, because the only roses I’ve got are the landscape type (I can’t kill those).
I think I especially want the Julia Child rose.
I couldn’t find it on the site, so it may be a new variety. Hopefully it will pop up soon. You know they ship, right? Just sayin’…
Go! They’re actually closer to Houston than Austin, so if you have any friends thereabouts it would be a lovely trip. Especially in April, when all the wildflowers will be in bloom. Lots of antique stores to hit along the way, too…
Gorgeous post. I want to smell them all. Love roses so much. I keep fresh cut ones at all times.
I want to order some from that site but I have nowhere to plant them currently. I keep telling my fiance’ that one of the requirements for our future home is a place where I can keep roses, preferrably a rooftop garden.
I want these for obvious reasons: http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/rose-1121.html
Oooh, and it’s so pretty!
I am all about container gardens–so much easier to manage, and a surprising number of plants to really well in them. Of course, if all you have is a windowsill I suppose you’re stuck. But they’re website it pretty good for dreaming!
Oh my. Excuse all the typos please. But I’m sure you knew what I meant… (*blushing emoticon*)
Alyssa – thanks for your lovely essay! I just adore roses and rose perfumes. I read an article about this place in an older issue of Organic Gardening and it just seems wonderful. (There was an interesting article about maintaining the proper kind of bugs – nemotodes? – in garden soil for roses too… ) I though about how fun it would be to rustle up old roses that are climatized (we also have a lot of great bearded iris wild around here too). It inspired me to take cuttings of wild roses (rosa setigera, I think) that grow around here near the rail road tracks and get them started in my own small garden. They have a very simple 5 petal bloom that is only open for a few days, but you can smell them from about 20 feet away! Roses are wonderful and have such a rich history. Gruss an Aachen is on my list for 2011. How lucky you are for your private tour! Which makes me remember that I am dying to try the new AG Rose Splendide!
Ann, your rescued roses sound so lovely. It seems like some kind of life lesson, doesn’t it, that the simple blooms often have the richest and most beautiful scent? 😉
I haven’t tried the new Annick Goutal either!
What a lovely article, Alyssa! Thank you so much. I had never been much of a rose fan, always associating it with some horrific fragrance worn by a woman who used to often sit in front of us in church. Also, as none of my family is very good at gardening I never had the real thing to enjoy. Now I am getting into gardening, with the help of my mother- in- law and a green fingered friend, and would love to plant some roses. I would love to place an order with the Antique Rose Emporium ( I think what they are doing is fabulous) but they don’t ship overseas! 🙁 I will have to see if there is an English equivalent.
Your David Austin is famous worldwide for having brought the best of old rose qualities together with some of the nice things about hybrids. You might start with his nursery. http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/SlipGate.asp
And I would be really shocked if there weren’t some kind of antique/old rose movement in England, given the strength of both the gardening community and the respect for tradition there. Might be called something else, though. Do report back if you find anything!
Alyssa–I’m so glad you got to see the Antique Rose Emporium. I have bought many of my roses from them, and they are terrific. Their plants are very healthy and vigorous. If anyone is worried about ordering from them, rest assured they do a wonderful job of packaging so everything arrives in good condition. Antique roses really are tough; anyone who thinks he/she cannot grow roses should really try a few tough-as-nails antiques before giving up.
It’s so nice to have NST as a motivation for getting out to places like the Emporium!
Very nice article Alyssa! I am itching to visit this Emporium now. It is abloom in the fall?
And it turns out I have one of their climbing roses in my front flower bed- Seven Sisters- my mom visited the Rose Emporium with a friend who writes for Texas Highways magazine-bought it for me (and planted it) about 6 years ago- very hearty and very fragrant. Highly recommend 🙂
What a nice recommendation!
I would say the display gardens are pretty much on their way out, especially with the recent cold weather we’ve had. They’ll be back in full bloom in April, and apparently they were quite gorgeous about a month ago. Sorry about that–I’ll try to do a reminder PSA when Spring comes, as I did for the Myer Lemons this time around.
Alyssa, I am just drooling over this! I want them all! Fortunately there is a wonderful rose garden near me too, here in Oregon, and I visit their display garden regularly to get drunk on the smells. I think I really need Independence Musk from the Texas place though!
I love the myrrh-scented David Austin roses and the old garden roses too. I am also a fan of the Hybrid Musk roses, but alas most of them are huge plants and I only have so much space. My favorite part of the Hybrid Musks is that they throw their scent out on the air unlike most other roses, and you can smell them from quite a distance.
As for rose perfumes, I have several favorites including Parfum Sacre, but I really do (ahem) “need” another rose perfume, something like one of the Montale roses, a knock ’em dead sultry rose, to complete my collection. So many to choose from though!
Flora, isn’t Portland the “City of the Roses?” Y’all get so much more rain than we do, but I’m sure the ARE would be happy to tell you if Independence would thrive up there or not. I swear, that thing was INDECENT. And it was so tiny!
Mmmm…knock ’em dead sultry roses. Have you tried Oha from Teo Cabanel? A gorgeous modern oriental/chyrpre (very French bergamot top, but that patchouli balsamic base) with a vibrant true rose note in it’s heart. The truest red rose I’ve smelled.
What a delightful visit and article, Alyssa! There is a (much simpler) rose garden near me – I must remember to plan a sniffing expedition next summer.
I’ve been enjoying a couple of rose perfumes this fall: Kilian’s Liaisons Dangereuses (plum rose) and Rose Oud. I’m finding these two extraordinarily beautiful perfumes just perfect for fall.
I agree that there is something about fall that calls out for rose perfumes. A good match between those rose perfumes and the falling leaves, rain, chilly-but-not-cold air…
None of the Kilians seem to sit quite right with me, but DL has come the closest so far. I keep trying it again because I love that plummy rose note. I bet you smell fabulous!
Alyssa, your story had me shedding a few tears by the end. I love the way you and the owner connected and communicated about what you were smelling! Thanks for a special read. 🙂
Oh, thank you so much, Haunani!
What a treat for you!! I smell all the roses in the Rose Garden in Golden Gate Park, bur every year fewer and fewer have scent. I think it’s partly due to our weather, too – you have to find roses that can grow in fairly chilly climate. I did smell the Julia Child, and before I knew what it was I was surprised by how much it smelled like butter. When I found out it was her rose, it made perfect sense.
Hey, you’re right! That soft musky richness is downright buttery. (*Slaps forehead.*) And it’s egg yolk yellow! A pastry rose…
That is so great. Go Mike Shoup!
Yes, indeed, go Mike! He seems like such a smart, gracious, generous guy. In fact, it was only after the fact that I found he’d written a book, Roses in the Southern Garden. I don’t remember seeing it anywhere on the website…
http://www.amazon.com/Roses-Southern-Garden-Michael-Shoup/dp/0967821304
I *really* enjoyed this article, Alyssa. Your wonderful writing reminded me very much of Flower Confidential, which I read and enjoyed thanks to you! I’m in a condo now so I don’t have space for roses, but I used to be a rose grower and I miss them very much!
Wow, Rapp, I’m a big fan of Flower Confidential so I’ll take that as a huge compliment (and so glad you enjoyed the book). Isn’t there a little patio or front yard space where you could have some containers near your condo? There’s a Japanese restaurant I go to that has an amazing rose garden in tubs, out on the sidewalk by the parking lot. Love that kind of tucked-in surprise garden…
I’m lucky enough to have two patio areas as well as two balconies upstairs, but alas, it’s all shade! And I meant it as a huge compliment. 🙂
Shade! Ah, my bete noire as well (though I’m very grateful for it in the Texas heat). I have a whole gardening book called “Making the Most of Shade,” but there are almost no fragrant flowers or herbs in it….
Where I live its getting hotter and hotter! Still, I’m longing for rose. Unfortunately most of the ones that have been mentioned are not available here. I do, however, have paul Smith’s rose, lightened and brightened by tea – and also very long lasting. I adore Sa MaJeste La Rose but its quite pricey here. It is both bright and rich at the same time – the quintessential rose to me. I’v tried TDC rose poivree, but to me it was sort of a fluffy pink rose instead of the mystical blood-red rose I adore! The only ‘dark rose’ I have tried is Citizen Queen. Powerful and beautiful, but I wasnt looking for a rose note when I tried it – and I didn’t notice one. Today I tried Paris, again. The last time made me horribly edgy, and I couldn’t detect any rose but today it was a gorgeous deep smell. Who knows what I will think about it if I try it tomorrow!
Are you down in Australia? (Guess, since it’s getting hotter on the other side of the equator.) I would try looking for local equivalents to old roses. You may have a local rose society that could help you out. Rose obsessives seem to be everywhere!
South Africa actually! Its really the more interesting rose fragrances that I would like to try, though I wouldn’t say no to exploring fields of roses – esp if they have a robust scent! I can just picture all those petals tumbling out your purse and EVERYTHING being rose scented ( :
Your picture is very accurate! 🙂 It’s a two hour drive from the Emporium and my car was just filled with the scent of the blossoms. And then my office was filled, too…
I know nothing whatsoever about South Africa and roses, but I’d love to know more!
Very evocative essay! Has inspired me to look for old rose gardens here in Britain, I remember loving the scent of “Super Star” a coral rose 40 years ago….. Sigh. Off for a spritz of ” Sa Majeste” …. MMMMM
I hope you find your rose!