(1996)  Page(s) 96.  Includes photo(s).
 
‘Milkmaid’. Rambler. Alister Clark, Australia 1925. ‘Crepuscule’ x unknown seedling.
If what you are looking for is a dense rambler to cover a high fence or to hide an unsightly shed or your neighbour’s rotary hoist, then you need search no further. ‘Milkmaid’ is the rose for you. That is, if you are living in the country or your garden covers at least 1 hectare (2 ½ acres). For ‘Milkmaid’ is definitely not a rose for small town gardens. She grows with unprecedented rapidity and in no time fills her allotted space. Her foliage is attractive, dark green and glossy, and so dense as to form a barrier impenetrable to eye or hand. The flower is medium-sized and borne in great profusion in spring when she is covered from head to foot with creamy-white blooms – the colour of those frothy pails of milk which came up from the dairy in the days before it was decreed that all milk should come in cardboard containers. The scent, as we would expect from one with her bucolic background, is unsophisticated, light and sweet and clean. Of the origins of ‘Milkmaid’ we know little. Alister Clark, not being a professional hybridiser (I think he might have been slightly put out by such a suggestion), kept very incomplete records of the crosses he made. Frequently roses are described as being ‘unnamed seedlings’. Just such a rose was one of the parents of ‘Milkmaid’. The other was the lovely apricot ‘Crepuscule’ and, when the flowers of ‘Milkmaid’ first open, just a trace of this colouring is visible in the center of the flower. But this piece of knowledge does not take us very far as the parentage of ‘Crepuscule’ itself is unknown. So ‘Milkmaid’ must rely on her own credentials. Being a rambler she flowers only once – in spring. If you want to prune her – and the growth is so vigorous that you probably will – you should do it straight after flowering. At Alister Clark’s home, Glenara, ‘Milkmaid’ has proved her hardiness by surviving years of neglect after Alister’s death. She is still climbing over a fence there and up trees, and putting on the sort of display you might expect from a rose which is given every kind of loving care. My first plants of ‘Milkmaid’ came from cuttings taken at Glenara. They all struck and we planted them on a high fence in the company of ‘Alberic Barbier’ with whom she has a good deal in common – the density of the foliage, the laxness of the canes, even the colour of the flower. We planted ‘Milkmaid’ also on a steep bank left raw and naked after the depredations of the bobcat. ‘Milkmaid’ has clothed it in fine style and seems as happy trailing downwards as she is climbing upwards. She is in fact so very much at home in this situation that we need to clip her regularly with the shears to prevent her from taking over the whole of the bed at the base of the bank.

(1996)  Page(s) 108.  Includes photo(s).
 
Paul Ricault. Shrub rose (Centifolia). Portemer, France 1845. Parentage unknown.
‘Paul Ricault’ has an identity problem. To begin with nobody knows who his parents were. And, as if that were not bad enough, the experts disagree entirely as to which race he belongs to. Some of them refer to him as a Bourbon, some as a Centifolia. Peter Beales, in his wonderfully informative book Classic Roses, lists him among the Hybrid Perpetuals. But since with all things to do with the rose Graham Thomas is my final authority, and he in his scholarly work The Old Shrub Roses includes ‘Paul Ricault’ in his chapter on the Centifolias, I feel compelled as usual to adhere to the procedure I have adopted throughout and follow his lead. Perhaps, as has often been suggested, ‘Paul Ricault’ is a cross between a Bourbon and a Centifolia. However we decide to categorise him, there will be little dispute about the fact that he is a very fine rose indeed. I have planted him in the little garden we have devoted entirely to the Centifolias, the old French roses, the Cabbage Roses - whichever affectionate name you prefer. Here he grows on top of a stone retaining wall, his long canes hanging down over the wall. Behind him is an old apple tree, retained for its flowers not for its fruit which is decidedly ordinary. ‘Paul Ricault’ has sent long canes up into the tree which he shares with a pale pinkish-mauve clematis. I think it is ‘Lady Londesborough’. If we are lucky they flower at the same time. There is an air of flamboyance and affluence about ‘Paul Ricault’. His flowers are very large, very full and many petalled (as we expect of a Centifolia), very flat and quartered and a wonderful glowing shade of deep rich pink. And the scent is superb. We grow a pale pink dianthus called ‘Beatrix’ along the top of the stone wall and the combined scent of the rose and the dianthus on a warm evening makes this a favourite place to sit. ‘Paul Ricault’ blooms for about a month, usually starting towards the end of November. It is fortunate that the apple tree is there, for the weight of the flowers is such that he really does need some sort of support. His long canes can also be successfully pinned down and this tends to increase the flowering. The foliage is unremarkable - smooth dark green and relatively few thorns. Like most of the old shrub roses, ‘Paul Ricault’ is hardy. He asks for little attention apart from the removal of dead wood and a light shaping in winter. If, every few years, the older canes are shortened the plant will send up new ones from the base. Released by Portemer from his nursery in Gentilly near Paris in 1845, ‘Paul Ricault’ must have been an instant success for he quickly found his way to the far corners of the earth. Nancy Steen found him growing in old gardens in New Zealand. I have found him among the tombstones and long grass of old cemeteries in Victoria. And as early as 1858 records show that he was already established in the Royal Botanic Gardens at the Cape of Good Hope.