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 I've been bragging about this rose for years, and here it is in all it's glory:  Improved Josephs' Coat.

Now the other flowers you're seeing down on the bottom are, from left to right : pink campion, outhouse bluebells (that's what they call 'em) and mini 'Wave' petunias - the red things with the dark throats. Also to the upper right are a small drift of red mop-heads; that's bee balm, and some yellow hangy-downy podlike things - those are tiger lilies that have not opened yet.

Focus on the rose.  The spent blossoms, the leaves, the canes, and all.  Most of all, focus not on the glorious cloud of multicolored blossoms, but on the sheer perfection of the leaves and canes.

Regular, bog standard 'Josephs' Coat' is a notorious bastard of a rose.  It has all the glam of a floribunda and the drama of 'Tropicana' and all the disease resistance of a malnourished Victorian infant.  The plants are usually nude of all leaves by this time of year, and those that remain are horrible objects covered in leprosy and black spot and what have you. Similarly the ultra-thorny canes.  Just awful, and not worth the few colorful blossoms you might get. 

I found this rose, as I've said probably four times by now, in a little privately run 'curated' specialty nursery in Sequim, Washington.  It was a hot, dry day, the wind was terrible, and there was one tall cane jutting up out of the container with a truss of blossoms, and that was it.

But it was PERFECT.

And so it has continued to be.  I have been graced by the Universe with this flawless wonder of a plant.  If you can find this rose anywhere, I cannot urge you strongly enough to purchase it at any cost.  I paid ten dollars for this one.  It laughs at dry weather, strong wind, sudden rain, and hellish temperatures.  And it's just glorious.  The leaves are a matte apple green, the blossoms are doubled, and have a wonderful, hoydenish form.  The petals change color by the hour - literally.  You can almost set your watch by when each blossom opens, then goes from bright scarlet through the apricots to clear yellow, pale yellow and finally pink- and every possible tint on that spectrum.  One hour! I have literally timed it! Yes! makes the difference between a scarlet rose and an apricot orange one on the same truss!  

It holds it's petals well, and after three days any given blossom is done.  Keep the hips popped off for the next month, and then let the last ones stay on the plant.  That is an old-time trick that actually seems to work - the plant 'senses' the presence of seed-bearing bodies lingering on it's life support system and 'remembers' to make more of them next season.  They're called flowers, kids.  

If you have a very old variety of rose, like Zephyrine Drouhin, Crested Moss, The Fairy or Celine Brunner, treat it the same way.  Cull the spent petals and clip the first hips away once the first flush of flowers has gone by to get a blossom here and there for the rest of the summer on these 'one time' bloomers.  And leave that last crop of hips alone!  Cut them away, and you'll get bupkis for flowers the next year - Zephyrine will go into a two-year sulk.  Those old, old varieties are so close to wild that they really depend on the action of the natural world to regulate their systems.  You are just there to keep them from eating small children and dogs, and to clear away the deadwood.

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