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Walk Through The Garden, 2007A
Walk Through The Garden, 2007previous rose ------- next rose
'Ruby
Meideland,' aka 'Ruby Meillandécor'Modern Shrub, 2004, Meilland Internationale
Okay, this rose has no fragrance. Nope, none. Not a jot. But I have been looking to learn about how a rose obtains its black or dark blue overtones, and 'Ruby Meillandécor' has taught me a lot.
This rose, I gather, is meant to be a border planting. She forms a low, dense mound that becomes covered with these almost sparkling red flowers. They open a bright, true red, and become covered with a black "haze" as they age. Under the microscope, this turns out to be a layer of lenticular cells each with a black dot in the center. The black dot seems to form as the lenticular cells dry out, and this causes the curling of the darker petals that you can see in the photograph.
'Ruby Meillandécor' breaks early and blooms late. She doesn't like the cold winters, but she tolerates them better than some of the other roses here, and seems to be coping better and better with them as the years go by (I think because she may finally be growing on her own roots). Nevertheless she always requires a lot of fairly severe pruning come spring.