Newsletter  (Feb 2015)  Page(s) 7-8.  Includes photo(s).
 
[From "Tales of White Roses", by Jeri Jennings, pp. 6-10]
We first saw “Jesse Hildreth” on a May morning in 2002 or 2003. It was a tree – and a big one at that – drawing the eye from the lowest levels of the old San Juan Bautista Campo Santo to the highest point of the cemetery hill. Over the years, two opposing “trunks” had formed, so the rose was a large “V.” Topped with masses of perfect foliage and ruffled, lemon-white blooms, it was silhouetted dramatically against a cloud-splattered blue sky.
Up close, it was obvious that other canes had come and gone over many decades. And, the two remaining were fragile. Riddled with termites, they yet held up the weight of an astonishing spring bloom and foliage. But . . . It seemed unlikely that this beautiful rose could live many more years.
Taking a name from the headstone closest to the rose, we called it “Jesse Hildreth.” (The original Jesse Hildreth, just 21 years old, died Jan. 25, 1862.)
Never doubting that this was a Tea Rose, we were also reminded of the old Tea/Noisette, ‘Lamarque’. Like ‘Lamarque’, Jesse’s rose produces a generous froth of lemon-white blooms, in shapely clusters. The color was a close match – color deepening from delicate white outer petals toward a true lemon at the center – darker in cool weather – lighter in hot weather. The blooms open softly, undeterred by wet weather or wind. They’re fragrant, too – and I’m not good at detecting Tea fragrances. From the tall mother plant, they nodded down at us, conveniently placing their many virtues at nose-level. We thought for a time that Jesse’s rose could be ‘Devoniensis.’ (It is not.) Still, I think it must be in that family -- a family which includes among other roses ‘Smith’s Yellow,’ (the two drawings we have of that rose are intriguing) and ‘Lamarque.’