Dainty Maid - the Rose

Calidore has been writing about her roses grown from cuttings. Many of mine came that way - some much more vigourous than their kin dwarfed on rootstocks for suburban gardens (and mass propagation), and some so finicky the only reason I persist with them is I haven't had time to pull them out again.

But one of my successes is Dainty Maid (1940). I have been searching for my photograph of her in full bloom, without luck. And without even much luck in finding her in books - she isn't in Macoboy's Roses (and should not be confused with either Dainty Bess or Dairy Maid), but I did find her in Vol2 of Trevor Griffiths' My World of Old Roses, but not the article I am looking for. I know she is quoted somewhere as one of the two parents of one of our famous modern roses.

Anyways ....Dainty Maid was given to me about 1985 by a woman who had collected her just after the second world war, and grown her for ever since as "Princess Elizabeth" - which is a name I could never find. Mind you, I did see a photo of her once in a popular garden magazine identified as Queen Elizabeth - which she is definitely not, in the rose world!!!!

Dainty Maid aka Princess Elizabeth is a single pink rose in huge clusters - flowers somewhat like Dainty Bess, but with yellow, not red stamens, and much more prolific. And it takes so easily from cuttings, that I have passed lots of her around. I will never forget seeing her in a bed of Hybrid Teas, half as big again and flowering her heart out.

I wish she would hurry up and have her spring flowers again, so I can photograph them to show you.

There is a photograph of a not-too-brilliant specimen HERE, behind the Galtonia (and peeping out again from the top of my side-bar, every time you open this page)

But, in the meantime, I might just take some cuttings. 'Tis the season. Don't think I need to - I just want to.And yes - it is Autumn - my two different pink Autumn Stonecrops are out in flower. And some of the Crocuses have withstood the Cockatoos.