Shalers Provence. (Old.) While we have only a few plants for the coming 
season, we think our more experienced rose friends will enjoy extracts from Mrs, 
Keays’ comments on this old rose, seldom seen today— 
“Shailer’s Provence is a rose to cherish. It differs from all the cabbage roses, in 
having a bloom which is cupped in the form of the anemone. The bush is as hardy 
as the old red Gallica, making a growth of from four to five feet, branching and 
suckering ... Its full flower is a lilac-pink with white shanks to the petals, the 
bud being a vinous pink . . . Sometimes the blooms come singly, often in three. 
Blooms break from almost every leaf-bud down the long shoots, making the second 
year of this bush very showy ...So curiously different is this rose from pink Cabbage 
that we probably would never have identified it without the illustration in Miss 
Lawrance’s book, although Shailer’s is described in many lists. One gets little help 
from such descriptions as this, ‘A curious hybrid differing from the Provence rose 
generally.’”” Let the writers of rose catalogues take this last comment to heart. 2.00 
Shot Silk. H. Tea. (1924.) Says the National Rose Society, 1945—‘Color 
cerise, shaded orange-salmon. Petals 27; moderately vigorous; very fragrant; foliage 
almost free of mildew. A beautiful bedding rose which shold be planted closely.” 
Mr. Lester always said of it, if he were limited to growing but one bush rose it would 
be Shot Silk, because its habits and performance are so excellent. And writing for 
the Pacific Rose Society in 1945 he included it in his three favorite roses, out of 
the hundreds with which he had been so long familiar. This writer, yielding to the 
Lester enthusiasm some years ago, planted a Shot Silk Climber in his garden at Red- 
lands, California, where the hot summers are not too kind to roses. Nothing in that 
garden of 225 varieties, exceeded Shot Silk in all those qualities which combine to 
make a rose good; certainly none were more equisitely beautiful. 
Both bush and climbers available. 1.75 
Soleil d’Or.  Pernetiana. (1900.) Moderately tall, bushy plant of excellent 
health and habit. Famous as being the foundation of the great Pernetiana class of 
roses. From its Persian Yellow ancestry comes its beautiful yellow tones, shaded 
nasturtium-red; flowers large, double, fragrant. Different and intriguing, 2.00 
Sombreuil. Tea. (1851.) We again page Mrs. Keays, to describe with 
clarity, a distinguished old favorite— 
“This rose has a marked mixture of Bourbon blood in the Tea rose ancestry. 
The full, fragrant bloom has a fine expanded form, within which very strongly 
textured petals stand in excellent order and stiffness, making a grand rose of creamy 
white tinted with pale pink or pinkish white, depending on the weather, becoming 
white eventually and lasting in form a long time; blooming in large clusters on a 
very sturdy bush with thick dark green foliage, quite leathery and more deeply 
serrate than the pure Tea foliage. Sombreuil, with all this resistant toughness, should 
be the finest white Tea rose in the garden, and is such, in dry, clear, sunny weather 
but a too moist spring causes the blooms to ball badly.” 2.00 
Souv. dela Malmaison. Bourbon. (1843.) A famous and influential rose 
“with a haunting fragrance.” Another of our special favorites and of Mrs. Keays also, 
for she writes of it with much charm and favor—Souvenir de la Malmaison, 1843, a 
grand old rose and a tremendous favorite in the past. The bloom is often very large, 
always full, of refreshing fragrance. Its thick petals are quartered and neat, of a 
pale flesh-color with center rosy or rosy buff, the light playing over them with a 
translucence which is enchanting and typical, like the light of history over the mis- 
tress of Malmaison.” 2.00 
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