I went over to take a closer look, and saw that there were actually TWO flowers!
This rose is special to me for two reasons. Walter Van Fleet is my very favorite rose hybridizer ... creator of 'American Pillar', 'Silver Moon', 'Alida Lovett', 'Glenn Dale', 'Birdie Blye', and others. His most popular rose is 'Dr. W. Van Fleet', which everyone's Grandma probably grew and was named for him against his wishes. (He wanted to name it 'Daybreak'). The fact that I have an entire garden of roses dedicated to his creations tells you how much I admire him.
This rose also represents the beginning of a rose friendship that I treasure. In 2007, I was looking for 'Bess Lovett', a rare Van Fleet rose that seems to have disappeared from gardens and nurseries. In an attempt to perhaps locate someone who grew this rose, I posted a query on GardenWeb's Antique Rose Forum. I received a lovely response from a gentleman in Maryland, also a Van Fleet admirer, who had a rose that he was fairly certain was the elusive 'Bess Lovett'. He rooted it from cuttings taken with permission at the USDA test fields (where Dr. Van Fleet worked until his death in the 1930s) before everything was bulldozed in the 1970s.
Within a week, I received a package containing 16 beautifully packaged cuttings. The rose in my garden came from these cuttings, as did roses that I later shared with friends.
These unexpected fall flowers on "Pink Van Fleet" are a gift ... and so is the friendship that they represent.
