The wonder and excitement surrounding a gift of a rose plant which could be the only one left in the world can soon be overshadowed by the strain of keeping that plant alive.

 Anita Garelja of Auckland New Zealand, died at a young age in the 1950's, but not without leaving us several worthwhile roses of her own breeding. 

We know little of Anita herself  but she must have been a keen rose grower, breeding roses with love and enthusiasm. She lived in Oratia, west Auckland.
Coincidentally so did Ann Endt, Nancy Steen's close friend. Did they know each other?
I like to imagine that they did.  

We can see that Anita's breeding programme made use of Iceberg and Cecile Brunner as their characteristics show in two of her roses in particular.

Oratia Maid was the first rose we came upon that could be called 'Pink Iceberg'.
It is similar in every way to Iceberg but the blooms are strongly washed with pink.
With this rose Anita was a woman before her time and just think of the royalties she could have earned if Oratia Maid had been registered then.
Now various forms of coloured Iceberg are easily available, but Anita beat them all.

Anita is another of her roses to come my way but it is too like Oratia Maid to have a personality of its own and in fact may be one and the same rose.  A field study of the two one day will answer the question.

Grandchild is another of her roses that could have swept the world.  It is a sturdy, strong growing but small plant with buttonhole blooms equal to Cecile Brunner's best, of slightly more substantial texture and with a very marketable name.

Another of Anita Garelja's roses to come my way is Oratia Sunset.  A move away from the pinks and paleness of Cecile Brunner and Iceberg, this rose is the prettiest apricot-orange, large flowered, fragrant and double.  Not tightly packed with petals, in fact there could be a little bit of Iceberg in its form, but where did the colour come from?

Grandchild and Oratia Maid I bought from Toni Sylvester when she used to open her garden in Greenhithe in the 1980's. Anita and Oratia Sunset were given to me by Penny Kilmartin who lives near me and brought these varieties with her from Auckland.

Anita grows well.
Oratia Sunset is another story and this is what I mean by the agony of rose rescuing.  Penny asked me to take one of her two plants to grow on because they weren't thriving and as we are a rose nursery she felt we would succeed.  To our knowledge Penny's tiny plant and my slightly bigger one are the only two in the world!

I nurtured my plant, keeping it potted and near my house so that I could tend to it.  It bloomed last year.  There was no real propagating material on this plant with short stems, no substantial budwood and no length for the taking of cuttings.  Another year must go by before we could reproduce it.

Then potential disaster struck.  An accidental but almost lethal dose of copper and oil spray caused the leaves to blacken and the stems to die back.  After an anxious time when things did not improve, I re-potted it, fresh mix, a new start.  No improvement was shown.

How could I tell Penny I was failing? 

Maybe if I dispatched it to the nursery block to sit on the weed-mat with all the other roses it would get a new lease of life.  There it sat all winter looking sadder and sadder.

Now that spring has arrived, albeit a cold, wet and windy one, against all odds Oratia Sunset has forced out some fresh new leaves.  I am overwhelmed with joy and hope, or is that relief?  A new bed has been dug in my garden for Lost Beauties and old Tea roses and Oratia Sunset is now planted there and I expect it to thrive.  Penny showed me her plant this week and it is tiny but this season it may decide to grow, too.

It is great fun rescuing Lost Beauties, but the responsibility of succeeding is serious and the agony of imminent failure is devastating.

Look out for Oratia Sunset in years to come.  I think it will be a beauty.

 

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