Making a Rose Garden.

by Henry H. Saylor.

INTRODUCTION

I well remember the caution given me by a noted horticulturist when, in the sudden awakening to the joys of gardening, I was about to attempt the cultivation of nearly everything named in the largest seed and plant catalogue I could find:

"Leave the rose alone; it is not worth fighting for."

And leave it alone I did, until one day I was browsing about an old book shop and came upon a well-thumbed copy of good old Dean Hole's "A Book About Roses." Let me tell you that there is something radically wrong with the person who can read that book and then go on plodding along his dreary, roseless way.

But why, if there is such a book as that to be had, do I presume to put forth what can at best be but a feeble ray in its predecessor's blaze of inspiration? Merely because Dean Hole's book, and a later volume by the Rev. Andrew Foster-Melliar that is almost as inspiring, with perhaps even more helpful guidance, are both written for the English rosarian and for a cool, moist climate that necessitates a somewhat different method of procedure throughout as compared with that which would bring success in growing roses here in America. Then too, there is to my mind something encouraging in a very small book, a book that will merely attempt to lay the foundations for the superstructure that, after all, only experience can bring. Perhaps there are those who, like myself, are content with the bare essentials of cla.s.sification, content to be told the basic rudiments of cultivation, and who are in haste to be done with all of these homely means to an end, that they may begin growing roses.

Making a Rose Garden

CLa.s.sIFICATION

When one considers the fact that the majority of botanists recognize over a hundred species of the genus _Rosa_, and that a French botanist lists and describes 4,266 species from Europe and western Asia alone, it will readily be understood that this chapter can give but a rough, working knowledge of groups and species.

Fortunately the amateur rosarian in the United States is concerned with very few of the species, largely for the reason that the efforts of our rosegrowers have naturally been confined to a few important groups where general merit is most strongly marked. Indeed, for the purposes of a modest rose garden, one would not go far wrong if he limited his choice of varieties to the Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals and a few of the Teas, with several of the _wichuraiana_ and _rugosa_ hybrids for trellis and hedge.

The name Hybrid Perpetual is borne by an enormous group of roses which have been derived from various species, crossed and recrossed until the parentage is in most cases hopelessly involved. The "Perpetual" half of the name signifies that the rose continues to bloom more or less frequently throughout the summer. As a matter of fact, it is usually _less_.

Teas or Tea-scented China roses form a distinct group that is readily recognized by the characteristic scent of the flowers and by the smoothness of its leaves. Teas are, in a way, the aristocrats of the rose garden. They bloom with no great blare of trumpets in June, like the Perpetuals, but they keep steadily at their work of producing exquisite blooms, one or two at a time, throughout the summer. Their one serious handicap is a lack of hardiness, which they possess only in a slight and very variable degree; and they must be very carefully protected in the north to bring them safely through the winter. Even though I were forced to buy new plants each spring, however, I would not have a rose garden without Teas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ulrich Brunner, a red Hybrid Perpetual that has achieved an excellent reputation. The H.P. type is characterized by hardiness and great freedom of bloom in June. Thereafter throughout the summer the burden of display must be borne by the Teas and Hybrid Teas.]

Hybrid Teas, as the name signifies, are successful crosses between the Tea and roses in the Hybrid Perpetual group. This cla.s.s combines the persistence of the Tea with the st.u.r.dier growth of the Perpetuals, and from it we shall probably get the great bulk of our garden roses for some years to come.

The Moss Rose, of which you will surely want a representative in your garden, belongs in the Provence group, as will be seen in the tabular cla.s.sification at the end of this chapter. Who does not know its beautiful buds in their setting of mossy stems? This rose, like many a one that has not gotten such a grip on our affections, has refused steadfastly to mix its blood with another species, and has retained its good points and its bad ones for over three hundred years. It is quite hardy but is rather susceptible to mildew.

There are other roses, too, outside the larger and best-known groups--roses that, because of some superlative merit in one direction or because of past a.s.sociations, lay a strong hand on our heart-strings and plead for an obscure corner of the new rose garden: the bristling Scotch Rose, the fragrant Damasks, the sweetbrier or eglantine with its inimitable fragrant foliage, the Penzance Brier Hybrids, the White Banksian of southern gardens with its odor of violets, the Persian Yellow of our grand-mothers' gardens, and the hundred-petaled Cabbage Rose, parent of the Moss.

Climbing roses are to be found in many of the groups--Wichuraiana, Ayrshire, Polyantha, Musk, Noisette and as sports in the Hybrid Perpetual, Tea and Hybrid Tea groups.

It is in another cla.s.s, however, that we may look for the ideal American roses of the future. Not many years ago, came to us three natives of j.a.pan, _Rosa wichuraiana_, _Rosa multiflora_ and _Rosa rugosa_. From the first two has been developed by our American hybridizers the race of Ramblers, while from the third has come such st.u.r.dy children as Conrad F. Meyer, perhaps the ideal hedge rose for our northern climate. In the estimation of Professor Charles S.

Sargent, the dean of American horticulture, it is along the line of _rugosa_ hybrids that we shall succeed in filling our gardens with large, beautiful, hardy and continuously flowering roses.

The climate of the South and California seems ideally suited to the Teas, producing a wealth of exquisite bloom that fills those of us that live in more trying surroundings with envy. In the South also they have the Cherokee Rose (_Rosa laevigata_ or _sinica_), flourishing along roadsides and in great ma.s.ses on the prairies, its long, arching stems bearing a wealth of pure white, single flowers, four or five inches across, in a setting of brilliant, evergreen foliage. It is one of our American hybridizers' hopes and aims to cross this with a hardy rose to gain sufficient stamina for the North.

And out in Oregon, the Hybrid Perpetuals and Hybrid Teas grow to a size and beauty that is unsurpa.s.sed the world over. Practically every kind of rose can be grown in the Puget Sound district, and the amateurs of that locality seem to have as little trouble with rose pests as we do here with our hardy decorative shrubs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Marechal Neil, a tender climbing Tea rose, dark golden-yellow in color, requires winter protection in the North. The Tea is the aristocrat of the rose garden, unapproached for delicate fragrance, refined form of the individual blooms, and continued flowering throughout the summer.]

To sum up the whole matter of cla.s.sification and to show the relative positions of many groups that, for lack of s.p.a.ce, have not even been mentioned above, the following tabular key is given--a slightly modified form of the cla.s.sification given in the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture:

_I. Summer-flowering Roses, blooming once only_

A. Large-flowered (double).

1. Growth branching or pendulous; leaf wrinkled.

_Provence_ Moss Pompon Sulphurea

2. Growth firm and robust; leaf downy.

_Damask and French_ Hybrid French Hybrid Provence Hybrid Bourbon Hybrid China

3. Growth free; leaf whitish above; spineless.

_Alba_

B. Small-flowered (single and double).

1. Growth climbing; flowers produced singly.

_Ayrshire_

2. Growth short-jointed, generally, except in Alpine.

_Briers_ Austrian Scotch Sweet Penzance Prairie Alpine

3. Growth climbing; flowers in cl.u.s.ters.

_Multiflora_ Polyantha

4. Growth free; foliage persistent (more or less shiny).

_Evergreen_ Sempervirens Wichuraiana Cherokee Banksian

5. Growth free; foliage wrinkled.

_Pompon_

_II. Summer- and Autumn-flowering Roses, blooming more or less continuously_

A. Large-flowered.

1. Foliage very rough.

_Hybrid Perpetual_ _Hybrid Tea_ _Moss_

2. Foliage rough.

_Bourbon_ _Bourbon Perpetual_

3. Foliage smooth.

_China_ Tea Lawrenceana (Fairy)