Frillylily said:well first off who owned the house before you? and before that and is anyone still living? Probably a grandchild ect could tell you 'yes, I remember when grandma planted that' that will give you an age moreso. But chances are if the neighbor told you that it is probably true. How old is the house? that time era will give you an idea of the roses popular and available for the day. If it is 50 years old, there is a good chance it isn't grafted, and is on it's own roots (like 100% chance most likely) which is good. Lets face it, if it is 50 years old this has seen a lot of neglect, so caring for it minimally is probably best, supposing it is doing ok on it's own. It's healthy right? I mean it's blooming so it must be happy. All you need to worry about is doing anything inadvertently to harm it. Like accidentally weed eating, which would probably grow back, accidentally spraying w over drift of herbicide, or allowing a dog to pee on it regularly, or things like that. toss a little rotted cow manure on it and some mulch and it will love you! also, full sun, so don't plant or erect anything near it that will block the sun too much, roses are sun lovers.
zuzu said:Andrew, your rose has the habit of a hybrid tea. Belle Helene is a Gallica. It blooms only once a year and it's relatively thornless (it has only a few small thorns on each cane). Queen Elizabeth is the right color, but it doesn't have as many petals as your rose.
I found my guesses by looking for pink hybrid teas with large blooms with more than 40 petals.
Frillylily, you're wrong to say there's a good chance it isn't grafted. Own-root roses were not being sold 50 years ago. They were present in gardens, of course, but only if the gardener had grown them himself from cuttings. All nursery-grown roses, even landscape shrubs and OGRs were grafted then. The own-root rose nursery is a relatively new phenomenon.
RoseBlush1 said:I agree for the most part with Zuzu ... I am not 100% that what you are looking at is totally dead because you never truly know until you cut the cane and see the inside of the cane as some roses do develop bark as they age. Roses are tough and can be rejuvenated with a little help from the gardener.
You have identified the class of rose you have inherited, so even tho' you may never know the cultivar's true name, you can learn how to care for it.
Your first goal, of course, is to improve the soil, make sure it has sufficient moisture and nutrients. You will want to cut out obvious dead wood and then take a step back.
When you can provide photos of the whole plant and give us a better idea of where your are gardening, members of the Rose Forum can give you more helpful suggestions to help you move forward. Zone 6 only tells us your cold hardiness information, but doesn't give us much more information about the kind of climate you have for your garden.
It sounds like you are not struggling with bringing abandoned roses back, so you should end up having a whole lot of fun, but are in serious danger of becoming a rose addict. Zuzu is an incredible enabler ...