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'Comtesse de Labarthe' rose Reviews & Comments
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Duchess de Brabant has flourished for 20+ years of benign neglect in my hot humid Zone 9b yard.
No sign of disease and several flushes of blooms every year. Truly trouble-free and worth growing.
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Who precisely was Duchess of Brabant in the late 1860s, when a good handful of plants were named after her? The Duchess that had been became queen in 1865 when husband Leopold, Duke of Brabant, became King of the Belgians. Their son who became Duke of Brabant at that time was very young, was unmarried, and died in 1869. Or are we to assume that everything named 'Duchesse de Brabant' dated back to pre-1865?
Perhaps it would be of interest for me to add: The Duchess was being commemorated rather frequently in the mid to late 1860s: 1864 brought us introduction of a bicolor Carnation of the name. In 1867, we find mention of a Strawberry named ‘Duchess de Brabant’; and Achimenes ‘Duchesse de Brabant’ in the same year; a Pear, a Rhododendron, a Begonia as well, and methinks I ran across a Lilac of the name too in the era. 1869 brought us a Pyrethrum ‘Duchess of Brabant’, from Salter of Hammersmith. It seems to have been a time ripe for Horticulture interesting itself in a Duchesse de Brabant.
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To throw more names into the ring the Comtesse is sold around here (the Sunshine Coast of Queensland Australia) as "The Montville Rose" (Montville is a town in the region) . I have had some interesting discussion with a couple of people who swear the rose was bred in Montville by a local rosarian.
So far as propagation goes, we have about 100 of them growing at our place and we probably purchased 2. Around here cutting usually strike at nearly 100% strike rate.
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Just wondering what method you use to get that good a strike rate on cuttings. Most of mine (for other cultivars) seem to snuff it, so I must be doing something wrong.
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I may have exaggerated the 100%. It would be closer to 80%. We use a very technical and time intensive method. We cut a piece of the rose and jamb into into the soil. That's it.
Our soil is reasonably sandy so it is well drained but we need to keep watering it every day or two or six.
Not sure but may it is just maybe our climate (we are on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland) about 20k from the beach but not all that far above sea level. It gets quite humid. Timing may help though we usually do them when wee prune the roses which in our climate can basically be anytime of the year. Other varieties of rose seem to strike better if we do them in April-May. For us The Comtesse seems to strike a lot easier than other roses though others in or area do have trouble getting the to strike.
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It's just as well I like tea, as the scent of this rose reeks of it... amazingly powerful stuff from just one small bloom, I could hardly believe it.. the scent fills my little greenhouse... Tregothnan tea of course..
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#1 of 16 posted
15 DEC 20 by
 HubertG
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Marlorena, the scent can be quite intense, especially for a Tea Rose. There's a lot more going on than just 'tea' in this fragrance to my nose, but I can never really discern what other scents are involved, they just all seem to blend into one. I had to look up Tregothnan Tea by the way. Sounds interesting.
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Yes I'm sure you're right, and you would know more than me about this rose...but tea, or similar, is the only one I can pick up so far.. maybe it will change with age...
... it's a pity I have to call it Duchesse de Brabant, as I disapprove of name changes and prefer the original..Maybe not where you are though. Are you a Countess Bertha fan Hubert?...
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#3 of 16 posted
15 DEC 20 by
HubertG
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I just call mine Comtesse de Labarthe in a very unfrench accent lol. I'm a fan of the rose. I keep mine compact by light pruning but I remember several bushes of it years ago at Parramatta Park in Sydney which were head-high or more. The fragrance just being near them in full bloom was amazing. It will flower twelve months of the year in our climate; no wonder it has remained popular.
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..lucky you.. mine has a few blooms on it now but they are a sodden mess. Can't compete with Sydney I'm afraid..
The beer is better here, so I'm told..
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My theory is that they were always two different roses, and the 'Comtesse' has been extinct for ages. For one thing, the portrait of the 'Comtesse' doesn't look enough like what people are growing now.
Maybe, it was just a bad likeness, but If there were two roses introduced around the same time, and confused in commerce, why is the default assumption that the survivor was the French rose, rather than the American one?
There—does that make you feel less bad about callind it 'DdB'?
;>)
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I love your theories Virginia, and I expect you're more often right than wrong..
... I'm happy to call it the Duchesse.. it makes life a whole lot easier as I find it rolls off the tongue better.. and it is sold here under that name.. although it does beg the question, what actually is it? because I understood that Duchesse de Brabant was a made up name for the U.S. market..
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#7 of 16 posted
6 MAY 21 by
HubertG
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I'd say they're the same rose. I remember reading a newspaper article by (I think) Arthur Moore, an Australian authority on roses in the very early 20th century, where he related how he ordered in 'Duchesse de Brabant' from America and was disappointed to find it was our 'Comtesse de Labarthe'. A few early American catalogues have both names listed for that rose. I think it's just a case of one name taking off in America and another name sticking elsewhere.
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But by the early 20th Century, the two roses (and I maintain there were two roses) had been confused in commerce for 30 years or more.
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If you look at the early references, you'll see that 'CdL' was introduced c. 1860, and after going to England, was described by William Paul as "salmon pink, second-rate" in 1863. She was barely mentioned again for 10 years, when she suddenly became popular at about the same time she began to be 'discovered' as the true name of 'DdB'.
If she were so wonderful, why did nobody extoll her virtues until she became confused in commerce with the 'Duchesse'?
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William Paul was writing about a Tea growing in England, when Teas hadn't been there all that long. Maybe he expected it to cope with the English climate; and 10 years later, gardeners knew better.
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When William Paul wrote the first edition of 'The Rose Garden' in 1848, he reviewed more than 100 Teas, as well as Noisettes, Chinas and Bourbons. I think it's incorrect to say that 15 years later, he didn't know how to grow Tea Roses in England. He grew them under glass and out of doors, and his descriptions show that he's familiar with which ones are hardier and which are "uncertain" out of doors.
A better argument against my theory might be that he just didn't like 'CdL' for aesthetic reasons, or perhaps he originally had a weak clone. I'm not sure how many of the later editions of the book were done under his close supervision, but later editions do have a description of 'CdL' as simply being "salmon-pink". He dropped the "second-rate" part of the description, but it does seem as if he sincerely had a change of heart about her merits, he'd have added something to reflect that.
In the 1870's and 1880's there was a mania for declaring roses synonymous that were demonstrably different, but were the same for the purposes of rose exhibitions, and that could be why two different cupped, salmon-pink Tea Roses were said to be the same. Saying roses were synonymous back then did not mean that either rose was an imposter.
At any rate, this isn't a theory I'm anxious to fight for. My only point, really, is that the idea that 'DdB' must be a re-named 'CdL' isn't an airtight case. It seems just as likely that there were two different salmon-pink roses confused in commerce in the 1870's, and that the rose called 'Duchesse de Brabant' was the better rose, and the original 'Comtesse de Labarthe' is long gone, having been replaced in commerce not long after she was first introduced.
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That's a valid point re The Rose Garden.
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I don't suppose William Paul has such a huge fan club these days, but I try to make up for that... :>)
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#14 of 16 posted
12 MAY 21 by
HubertG
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The fact that Pierre Bernede also introduced a pink Hybrid Perpetual named 'Mademoiselle de Labarthe' in 1856 suggests to me a possible association of some sort with that family. It would be interesting to know if there was one.
A few American catalogues do include entries for both 'Comtesse de Labarthe' and 'Duchesse de Brabant', but usually if they are both mentioned it's as the same rose. If 'Duchesse de Brabant' was a distinct rose, who was it's breeder and when was it introduced?
Regarding the name of the rose -- insisting on calling 'Duchesse de Brabant' the 'Comtesse de Labarthe' is a bit like insisting 'Peace' should be called 'Mme. A. Meilland' in the US. It might be 'correct' but calling it 'Peace' wouldn't be 'incorrect'.
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Yes. As a journal editor, I add C de L to D de B, to keep all our readership happy.
But I'm not willing to print without qualification names that are not compatible with early references - eg. Jean Ducher.
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I'd guess Bernède had some connection to the Labarthes... and the Tartases, even if it was just that they were good customers.
Something that made me smile is that in the 1908 book Nomenclature of the Pear, the author lists 'Duchesse de Brabant' as a synonym for 3 different pears. I guess if you had something you wanted to sell, that was a good name to use... there was also a Begonia and a Camellia by that name.
As for the name, I think it probably smells as sweet by either name, and I don't think there is any doubt that it IS the same rose that is known as 'Comtesse' down under, and 'Duchesse' elsewhere.
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