Article (HMF Ezine)  (Apr 2001)  Page(s) 3.  
 
Heritage Roses. Quarterly Rose Letter of the Heritage Roses Group.
Rev. Douglas T. Seidel. Those Fabulous Foundlings.

Any list of Noisette foundlings must begin with "Faded Pink Monthly". This was introduced to the gardening world almost seventy years ago by Mrs. Frederick Love Keays.....
....While Mrs. Keays hoped in print that this local beauty would turn out to be the original 'Blush Noisette', she could never quite get her rose to match the descriptions of the early writers. But the beauty of the variety and its connection to Mrs. Keays are more than enough reason to grow it today. In the garden "Faded Pink Monthly" looks for all the world like a taller version of the much admired Polyantha, 'Marie Pavie'. But the Maryland foundling regularly reaches six feet and taller ('Marie Pavie' is just three feet here), its foliage is larger, and the bloom is less double in larger clusters.
In 1973 I first visited the Maryland hill where Mrs. Keays' Creekside had stood and where a number of her roses were struggling to survive. Six bushes of "Faded Pink Monthly" still guarded the approach to the vanished manor house. For thirty years, at that point, no kind hand had tended them, no one had cared to pull the suffocating tendrils of honeysuckle and poison ivy away. But dear "Faded Pink Monthly" was still blooming! cuttings from those stalwart survivors have grown to be the most willing bloomers and the hardiest of the Noisette clan in my Zone 6 garden. Pickering and Roses Unlimited are now growing this legacy from Mrs. Keays.

Book  (1944)  Page(s) 38.  
 
Mrs. Frederick L. Keays. Some Always Dependables.
In the past we have said much about the Old Blush Noislette, called "Faded Pink Monthly" in Maryland where we found it. It is far spread in that state and in Virginia and is faithful ever. But, the emphasis we would like to put down hard is that 'Blush Noisette' is as faithful here as it ever was in Maryland. Several bushes of this beloved rose have grown to five and six feet tall and spread almost as much. Last winter's quick drop in temperature were nothing to this 'Old Blush'. It laughed at the sudden cold, never turned a twig, woke up to charming foliage in the spring and bloomed its big clusters of pale musk-scented flowers. this last week of September little roses are there mingled with bright pink buds, daintily winged on the sepals, promising beauty for some time to come. There is a rose which was not born to fail or to die. How far north this Musk and China hybrid could go is a question but its reputation for being tender is to this extent a myth.

Book  (1942)  Page(s) 75.  
 
S. L. Wiseman. Continued Amateur Rose-Breeding.
....the present-day breeders are utilizing some of the old roses like .... and "Faded Pink Monthly". These old types set seed freely and they are all fragrant.

Book  (1940)  Page(s) 181.  
 
S. L. Wiseman, Harvey, Illinois. The Roses I Like.
Faded Pink Monthly. Noisette. Originated, it seems, about 1817. This is one rose I love for it just blooms and blooms every month. It is never without blooms and buds.

Book  (1940)  Page(s) 181.  
 
S. L. Wiseman, Harvey, Illinois.
"Faded Pink Monthly". Noisette. Originated, it seems, about 1817. This is one rose I love for it just blooms and blooms every month. It is never without blooms and buds.

Book  (1935)  Page(s) 126.  
 
Faded Pink Monthly Description... a local name for a very lovely old rose. The story of this rose was told at length in "Old Roses in Calvert County, Maryland," in the American Rose Annual for 1932... Our rose never has attained a height above four feet... Faded Pink Monthly begins to bloom in May with us, and except for a few days' rest to which to catch up new impulse, never ceases until frost...

Book  (1935)  
 
1978 facsimile edition of the 1935 'Old Roses' book by Mrs. Ethelyn Emery Keays.
p126. "Faded Pink Monthly" , a sweet name to linger over, is a local name for a very lovely old rose. The story of this rose was told at length in "Old Roses in Calvert County , Maryland," in the American Rose Annual for 1932. The original gift to us is a very old plant dating back of [to] the Civil War. To identify it took many months of study and photographing and propagating. The blooms of "Faded Pink Monthly" might have been reproduced for Redoute's lovely colored picture of the Rose of Philippe Noisette. Our rose never has attained a height above four feet, so it is a dwarf compared to the eight to ten feet of the original 'Blush Noisette'. Clusters have never been counted up to a half of 'Old Blush', as far as we have counted. Beauty, fragrance, hardiness, clean lovely foliage, prickles, color - are all present. "Faded Pink Monthly" begins to bloom in May with us, and except for a few days' rest in which to catch up a new impulse never ceases until frost.

Book  (1933)  Page(s) 19.  
 
Mrs. Frederick L. Keays. Visitors to Old Roses.
...."Faded Pink Monthly", an early bush Noisette....

Book  (1932)  Page(s) 102.  Includes photo(s).
 
Mrs. Frederick L. Keays. Old Roses in Calvert Country, Maryland.
Across St. Leonard's Creek from our farm is an old plantation where, long before the war of the states, there grew under the pantry window an old rose called the Faded Pink Monthly.
Before the war, the cook took a cutting from this rose and grew it near her cabin door.
During our searchings through old gardens in our part of Calvert County for old roses to grow on our place, LiIIie, this cook's daughter, who is now our cook on the farm, showed us the way to the old plantation to see if we could get something from the original rose. It proved to be entirely gone-not a trace left. Years ago, Lillie had carried her mother's rose plant to her home when she married. It had suffered some during late years but had pulled along. A tough old dear! When we were disappointed in our search for the original, Lillie gave us her old rose, hesitatingly, as she thought it would die. So we acquired the rose grown by her mother before the war, a plant "slipped" before 1860. A wonderful gift!
It was a very large, very woody stump with a sparse top. We pruned and planted it very carefully with shelter and old richness bedded below to coax it. The fine old grandmother rewarded our care so generously that during the summer of 1930 it grew ample top to furnish us with cuttings in November from which we have grown several new plants. One of these cuttings, with the autumn bloom of this year, is shown in the illustration facing page 104.
To identify the Faded Pink Monthly teased us through many months of real study. All we surely knew was that it had a fragrance not like a China or Tea, that it resembled the China bloom, that it flowered in immense clusters, and that it was old.
Carrying our notes and holding fast and hard to our descriptions of bush, foliage, bloom, and general habit, we made repeated visits to the New York Public Library, where we studied those beautiful volumes, "Les Roses," written by Thory and illustrated by Redoute. After we had run down the Chinas to repeated disappointment,-for we thought it was some sort of China,-we went after the early Noisettes, the early ones which we had not known, our Noisette acquaintance, hitherto, having been confined to Marechal Niel and other later varieties into which the Tea cross had been introduced.

Book  (1932)  Page(s) 103.  
 
Mrs. Frederick L. Keays. Old Roses in Calvert Country, Maryland (continued)
The story of the Noisette is interestingly told by the authors of 1817 to 1870. Mr. Nicolas has repeated it in his recent book, "The Rose Manual." He writes, "The Noisette has an interesting history since it probably is the first strain originated in America. By fertilizing the Musk variety, Rosa moschata alba, with the Bengal rose, John Champneys, of Charleston, S. C., obtained a variety called 'Champneys' Pink Cluster.' A few years later, Philippe Noisette, from seeds of this variety, produced several perpetual-blooming hybrids which he sent to his
brother in Paris under the name of 'Noisette Roses'." Ellwanger in his book, "The Rose," says, "Louis Noisette received it about the year 1817. These roses, originally, had the characteristics in a great measure of the old Musk Rose, such as scent and a tendency to bloom in large clusters. The group is naturally of strong growth and nearly hardy." This blush Noisette of 1817 was called Le Rosier de Philippe Noisette by Thory and so painted by Redoute in "Les Roses." In "Les Roses," the Rosier de Philippe Noisette is thus described: The bush grew in France to 8 or 10 feet. (Four to 5 feet is the height attained by the Faded Pink Monthly so far in its career with us.) Branches are glabrous, with prickles quite strong, a bit crooked, red on the flowering shoots, brown on the old branches. Leaflets, 5 to 7, oval pointed, rarely obtuse, glabrous, green above, paler underneath, simply and finely serrate. Petioles velvety, armed with several little recurving prickles which extend onto the vein of the impaire or end leaflet, sometimes. Stipules are adnate with the petiole, bisected, pointed at end, toothed and glandulous on the edges. Flowers are lateral and terminal. The first to open are larger than the Musk Rose, the later ones a little less in size. They have a fragrance "tres-suave." The flowers are rarely solitary, more often they come 3 or 6 together at the ends of the branching stems, where they unite in a sort of panicle often composed of a great quantity of flowers, even as many as 130, which develop successively and very well. The tube of the calyx is shaped like a little keg. The pedicels are covered with downy hairs or glands. The sepals are two entire and three provided with small simple pinnules. They are pointed at the end, downy inside, and edged with little sessile glands. (Faded Pink Monthly so far has never exceeded 30 in a cluster of bloom.) The corolla has 7 or 8 ranks of white petals washed with pink, a little yellow at the claw, irregularly indented at the top. Styles are free, with stigmas reddish making a salient pistil. The rose partakes of the China Rose in foliage, flowers, and period of bloom. It differs from the Musk Rose by having free styles which in the Musk are joined in a column.
With the exception of height and quantity of flowers in a cluster, this was the Faded Pink Monthly.