'Rose de Meaux' Rose

PICTURE SOURCE Les Roses, Volume I (1817)

ORIGINAL BOTANICAL NAME Rosa Pomponia

ORIGINAL FRENCH NAME Rosier Pompon

CURRENT BOTANTICAL NAME R. centifolia ‘Rose de Meaux’

COMMON NAME Rose de Meaux

OTHER NAMES Pompon Rose, Common Pompon, De Champagne, May Pompon

CLASS Centifolia

ORIGIN Unknown: First record 1637, garden of Dominique Séguier

FLOWERING Once-flowering; summer

SCENT Strong, sweet fragrance

GROWTH Tall shrub, more compact than R. centifolia

AVAILABILITY Still in cultivation

For more information, don’t miss the introduction page; ‘Centifolia – The Old-Fashioned Cabbage Rose'

At left; picture of the Pompon Rose, R. centifolia ‘Roes de Meaux, painted by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, portrait 022 out of 170, Volume I of Les Roses.

Redouté & Thory describe this rose as a variety ‘produced under cultivation, either from the Cabbage Rose, or the Provence Rose, with which it has close affinities’.

The Provence Rose refered to here is R.gallica, which gets confusing because the English were using the term ‘Provence Rose’ interchangeably with Cabbage Rose…

So is this rose more Centifolia or Gallica?

Still in cultivation today, it’s often classified as a sport of R. centifolia, thought to be a true miniature of the larger Cabbage Rose. However, other authorities think it more Gallica in habit and nature…

Whatever it is, according to The Old Rose Adventurer (Brent C. Dickerson), it seems to have first appeared in the garden of Dominique Séguier, Bishop of Meaux, in 1637, been found by a Dijonnais gardener in 1735 and introduced into horticulture in 1789.

Redouté & Thory describe Rose de Meaux as a ‘low, woody shrub’ armed with ‘scattered, slender’ prickles. They describe the foliage as composed of five leaflets and the leaves as downy on their reverse, wrinkly and coloured light green. The flowers; pleasantly scented and most commonly arranged ‘two by two at the tips of small twigs’ and being ‘very double’ and a ‘pretty pink colour’ deepening towards the centre of the flower.

As a cultivation tip, they warn that the ‘stems and main branches tend to die back during the course of the year’ and therefore should be pruned ‘to the ground after flowering’. The shrub will then put its energy into growing new shoots that will ‘blossom the following spring’. Like a Gallica Rose, they also mention it can be propagated by ‘division of the old rootstalk in the autumn [fall].