Standard on the left, "Ellen's Legacy" on the right.
I planted some of the red Ellen's Legacy rock roses from last fall's Wildflower Center plant sale about 20 feet from an existing bed of standard rock roses. This seedling popped up two months ago amongst the Ellen's Legacy rock roses, with obviously bigger leaves than other offspring that have turned out pure red. I assumed this would be what's going on, but kind of cool to see the gradation in color when it bloomed for the first time today. It's quite lovely, so I'll definitely keep it, though probably move it out of that particular drift of flowers to avoid the color clash 🙂
by magicmalthus
2 Comments
I got my red one there last spring too and the flowers are smaller on mine too. I love the gradient. Thanks for sharing.
Does anyone know where these “Ellen’s legacy” rock roses came from? I first noticed them at Lone Star nursery two years back, I think, but I assumed they were a cross with some non-native relative and avoided them until I saw them at the Wildflower Center sale, though the people that were available to talk at the time (it was hectic) didn’t know the origin either. I couldn’t find any information online about it.
This year I’ve seen them at basically all the local nurseries, so I assumed it was a new development and had become popular quickly, but I was surprised to see [wildflower.org has an image of it from back in 2013](https://www.wildflower.org/gallery/result.php?id_image=37610).