Love and history bloom amid heirloom roses in Mercersburg

 Like debutantes at their first formal ball, the heirloom roses at Rock Hill Farm show off their prettiest petals in May and June.

Though they were planted less than 10 years ago, these roses have endured for centuries, making them hardier than the pioneers who settled here in the Cumberland Valley. And, many of the nearly 150 specimens were hybridized to create more modern roses.

Dr. John Stauffer, a physician and founder of the Conococheague Institute, created this rose garden in 2001 to honor his wife, Phyllis, who died in 1999.

"We weren't big time into roses," he said, but the prospect of a garden filled with flowers well-known to Welsh, Scots-Irish and English settlers in this area pleased him. The idea delighted his two sister-in-laws, Elise Clark and Paula Dawson; the latter is secretary of the California Native Plant Society. Dr. Stauffer also saw the heirloom rose garden as a way for the nonprofit to fulfill its mission of preserving this region's natural, cultural and genealogical history.

Roses played a role in local history, too. Every year, certain local churches in Franklin County paid "Rose Rent," a token of payment for the land given to them by local leaders so they could build a place of worship. Rents of a single rose were paid to Benjamin Chambers, who established Chambersburg in Franklin County in the mid-1700s.

A stroll around this garden could make you long for one of each. This dazzling array of flowers is a red, white and pink walk through ancient, European and Colonial history plus a rich dose of aromatherapy. The garden begins at Rock Hill Farm, a white, 18th-century farmhouse, and continues around a four-square fenced vegetable and flower garden that's 63 feet wide and typifies those planted by Pennsylvania Germans.

To choose the varieties, Dr. Stauffer enlisted the help of Dr. Doris Goldman, a plant ecologist, rosarian and elementary school teacher from Waynesboro. The timing was fortuitous because nurseries were starting to fill orders over the Internet.

"We had to purchase them from small specialty nurseries that were often in somebody's backyard," Dr. Goldman said.

About one-third of the rose bushes were custom-rooted; most of the rest are what gardeners call "own root," meaning that the root is the same genetic material as the plant you see.

The garden includes tall white or pink Alba roses; big, blousy cabbage roses featured in still-lifes by famous painters; Damask roses, which are used to make rose water; bright red or purple Gallica roses; Moss roses, whose sepals smell like pine; and Scotch roses, which bloom in early spring.

Some of the varieties could also be found in George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's gardens. The Autumn Damask, also called the Four Seasons rose, was used in the cult of Aphrodite in ancient Greece about 1,000 B.C.

"Jefferson called it the monthly rose because it bloomed all the time. All of the roses Jefferson grew are in the garden," Dr. Goldman said, adding that she consulted the catalog left by the third president's nursery man, a Scottish immigrant named Bernard M'Mahon.

In the 1800s, wealthy landowners ordered from nurseries while ordinary people saved their own seed or bought it from a peddler, she said.

"Most of the roses that people buy now have been bred by horticulturists to resist drought and disease," said Dr. Goldman, who spent six months ordering and identifying all of the roses here with green-and-white markers.

A most unususal sight is the pink-and-white striped Moss rose. Known as a sport, it's the result of mutation.

"The first Moss rose was discovered in France around 1700. You have to prune them carefully because sometimes they revert to an all-pink rose," Dr. Goldman said.

There's a Moss rose called 'Napoleon's Hat,' so named because its green sepals, which conceal the petals, are shaped like the tricorn hat worn by the French general. 'William Lobb,' a velvet moss rose, was named for the famous British explorer who traveled the world in search of seed.

The intoxicating fragrance released from the petals of the Attar Damask rose, which originated in Iran, is distilled and turned into rose water.

"They grow east of Mecca in Taiff," said Dr. Stauffer, naming the Saudi Arabian town he has visited.

A show-stopper is 'Rose de Rescht,' a Portland Damask with double blooms of deep fuschia. Nancy Lindsay, an English society gardener, introduced the rose from Iran in 1940 after finding it in an old Persian garden.

"British gardeners in the 1930s would go out and find a rose garden somewhere out in the Middle East that was ancient. 'Rose de Rescht' is probably a couple thousand years old," Dr. Goldman said.

Then, there's the Memorial rose (Rosa Wichuraiana), found in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Eastern China. The parent of many rambler roses, it's often planted in graveyards as groundcover.

'Baltimore Belle,' a heavenly scented, pale pink double bloom, was probably familiar to Edgar Allan Poe, Dr. Goldman said. The General Jack rose, a hybrid perpetual known in France as 'General Jacqueminot,' "is something you'd see in a Victorian garden," she said.

In addition to the garden, the institute focuses on history. Since 1994, the institute's board and dedicated volunteers have established a research library, opened a visitors center last year for historic exhibitions, restored a Pennsylvania German settler's home called the Martin-Negley House, built walking trails and installed exhibits beside the trails about the French and Indian War.