Texas Rose Rustlers

Despite their organization’s name, these rose enthusiasts do not condone thievery. They follow a stringent etiquette, which is posted on their website. Each rustler has the responsibility to investigate ownership of the property where an interesting rose is growing and ask permission to take a cutting. And the portion removed should never be more than the plant can tolerate. The rustlers recommend offering the owner who has allowed the cutting a small gift, such as a cutting of a different rose, as thanks for his generosity.

Urban renewal and suburban and rural development have made rose scavenging harder than in the past, when there were more old abandoned houses and decrepit barns, but the current ecological consciousness makes these survivor plants, with low water requirements, prized discoveries. Many of them smell lovely, too.

Colorful Flower Names

Robin Chotzinoff devoted the first chapter of her book People with Dirty Hands: The Passion for Gardening to the Texas Rose Rustlers. When the rustlers began, the roses they found had no registered names. Mike Shoup, a nurseryman who owns the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, Texas, was one of the first to start registering and propagating them. Chotzinoff was inspired by the group to try a little rustling herself, and the first rose she found in an overgrown cemetery she dubbed “Dear Pa,” since that was the inscription on the tombstone it was twined around. Shoup tells of one rose he named “Red Burglar,” because the thorny climber once trapped a thief trying to break into an old woman’s house.

Growing wild in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado is a hardy rose, now called Harison’s Yellow. Brought to the Southwest U.S. by early settlers, it is reputed to be the Yellow Rose of Texas of legend and song. Many of the antique roses that are being propagated now have been named for Republic of Texas heroes, such as Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.

Xeriscape Roses

Xeriscaping does not usually bring roses to mind. This exalted flower is usually thought of as high maintenance and delicate. However, the old roses of the Southwest have proved they are tough and drought tolerant, some of them surviving decades of neglect. Choose these plants for a xeriscape garden, and the result will be more color and fragrance.

These roses enjoy a good feeding and watering from time to time. Although they are not temperamental, any plant looks better when it has some care than when it is just hanging onto existence. Show them the same treatment as the other plants in a xeric landscape.

Life Lessons from Old Roses

After her foray into rustling, Chotzinoff came to believe that old roses could give us instructions on how to live better. The top two life lessons she cited were “There is more than one way to be beautiful” and “Survival is a noble goal.”