The "Knockout" Blow to High Maintenance Roses

The first part of this century has seen a rapid decline in sales of Hybrid Tea Roses. Not necessarily because they are bad roses (a lot of newer Hybrid Teas make terrific Garden Roses) but because the decades before had built the perception they were fussy, disease prone, bore little fragrance and were of little use in the garden.

Sales of shrub roses began to rise culminating in the release of the rose Knockout.

Bred by William Radler the Knockout series of roses begin to bring us once again back to Garden Roses. They make terrific low care shrubs and their skyrocketing sales reemphasize that the desire for disease resistant, easy to grow Garden Roses is back.

Today’s breeders are meeting that demand and roses from Europe and beyond are also becoming more readily available in the U.S.

Roses are coming full circle by going back to what they were for the vast majority of their history. A great flowering shrub for the garden.  A Garden Rose.

Photo of Bill Radler courtesy of Conard Pyle

Meanwhile in Europe...

 (Photo names at bottom)

Many European rose breeding firms continued to keep their Garden Rose and Exhibition/Cut Flower lines very separate. They bred roses for the cut flower industry and a totally separate line of Garden Roses. The German firm of Kordes and Söhne is a prime example as is the French firm of Delbard.  And some like Peter Beales Roses in the UK simply bred only Garden Roses. But these Garden Roses were mostly confined to Europe where the line between them and Cut Flower/Exhibition Varieties was kept fairly distinct. In addition Europe and most of the rest of the world has always had an aversion to chemicals for the home market.

In the latter part of the 20th century as the U.S. became more environmentally aware, many chemicals were thankfully being taken off the market. While some fine Hybrid Teas were able to thrive without them, many that up to now could only be grown with cheap, but now disappearing chemicals, began to flounder. Since those roses had been marketed and sold at the expense of the true Garden Roses it meant many a home gardener was suddenly faced with a plant that was difficult to grow, wouldn’t flourish and in many instances died off within a few years.  Sound familiar!

Roses began to get the reputation as being fussy, weak and needing a great deal of care. Suddenly June Cleaver in her pearls was our grandmothers slaving over her roses and we didn’t want to have to work that hard!

That gardeners were beginning to look for easier to grow roses is evidenced in the resurgent interest in the Old Garden Roses during this time. Old Garden Roses had a reputation for being disease resistant and easy to grow. Something they had earned because over time because the poor ones had disappeared and the stronger ones survived. I would suspect in 100 years the Hybrid Tea class will have gone through the same process and someone reading this will wonder what the fuss is all about!

In the 1990s the David Austin Roses took flight in this country. They not only had an old-fashioned look and could be planted amongst other plants but they also had fragrance. They were marketed as Garden Roses and once again the line between Garden Roses and Cut Flower/Exhibition Roses began to strongly emerge once again in the U.S.

Photos From the Top
Alfred Sisly - Delbard Rose
Cardinal de Richelieu - Old Garden Rose - Gallica
Sir John Mills - Beales Rose
Graham Thomas - David Austin Rose

Godspeed Professor Fineschi

Last Sunday a lover of roses was called by God to come to Heaven’s Rose Garden. The Garden he left behind is a piece of Heaven on Earth perched on a hillside in Tuscany.

“Come into my garden. I would like my roses to see you” is one of the plaques that hang along an old stone wall in the midst of the garden. We were the lucky ones, for to visit and spend time in that garden is an experience like nothing else. It is overwhelming to the mind to stand in the middle of that sun drenched spot and see what the Professor accomplished. It is even more overwhelming to think the Professor saw it in his Mind’s Eye some 50 plus years ago – long before the first rose was planted.

It is a collection like no other, organized and planted like no other. The old roses are grouped by class but the modern roses are grouped by hybridizer. It is like being in a museum of roses with each wing dedicated to a individual rose breeder.

In this garden you see the genius of their work as it developed and changed through their hybridizing career. It is nothing short of a living history of the people who bred roses.

And the work of a true genius and lover of roses.

The Professor is at home now being welcomed by many of those “Maker’s Of Heavenly Roses”. They and all of us who love roses owe the Professor so much.

I have been lucky enough to visit the garden twice for a period of three days each time. And on one of those days to be invited to sit in the garden and have lunch and a bottle of wine made by his daughter with the Professor and Friends.

Truly Heaven on Earth.

The Roseto

The Rose Gets Fussy

Rose growing while still popular in the early part of the 20th century, was no longer set against the backdrop of the leisure time of the Victorian Era. Two wars, a great depression and the movement to the cities meant attention was elsewhere.

However, after World War II the United States in particular entered an era of unprecedented prosperity. The Marshall plan in Europe meant they too would join in although it would take longer. In addition chemicals were suddenly cheap, popular and naively considered safe to use. The vision of Leave it To Beaver’s Mother June Cleaver tending roses in her skirt, pearls and quaffed hair had arrived.

Hybrid Teas were the rage and as mentioned the flower form of the Peace rose set the standard to be built upon. Cheap chemicals meant disease resistance was not an issue. Many families had only one working parent, the Soccer Mom had yet to arrive on the scene and homes in the suburbs meant space for gardening.

The demand was for high centered Hybrid Teas on long stems and the rose industry complied. Fragrance began to lose importance as did disease resistance and vigor. Why worry about it when you could hop down to your local hardware store and buy DDT! Form was everything. What did happen is that many roses really meant for the cut flower/exhibition market were now being sold as Garden Roses which for the most part they were not.

But meanwhile in Europe.....
(stay tuned!)

The World's Oldest Rose Breeder

Now here’s something I’ve never figured out. We buy all kinds of things based on their being created by a “favorite”. A favorite author, musician, artist, designer: so why not buy roses that way? Modern roses are bred by very talented artists and like many of our other “favorites” their work possesses a common thread.

If you like one book by an author it stands to reason you’ll probably like the others. And so it is with roses.

The late Jack Harkness wrote a book on rose breeders called "The Makers of Heavenly Roses"


I’ve always loved that title and in the spirit of that I thought I’d introduce you to some rose breeders. If you recognize some of their work as growing in your garden, I urge you try their other roses. Help Me Find Roses is a great place to explore roses organized by breeder.

So who is the World’s Oldest Rose Breeder? Was it someone who worked in the mountains of China thousands of years ago, or maybe in the Mid-East? Or perhaps a great naturalist dubbed Pliny the Pollinator?

Nope. The World’s Oldest Rose Breeder is still with us today. Don’t believe me? Get up from your computer and look out your window. There you will meet the World’s Oldest Rose Breeder. Nature herself. Long before Men and Women turned their hand towards breeding plants, Nature was hard at work using simple tools like birds, bees and butterflies.

So before we start talking about human rose breeders we will take a moment to thank Nature for giving us so many Heavenly Roses since time began.

After all, it’s not nice to diss Mother Nature.

What of Garden Roses?

The arrival of the Hybrid Tea upon the scene coupled with the start of rose shows might lead some to believe Garden Roses were being neglected during this time.  Not so.  

Many Hybrid Teas, particularly the early ones, made excellent Garden Roses. In addition three of the finest Garden Rose classes we have were introduced during this early era of Hybrid Teas.

The Hybrid Musks were developed by the Rev Joseph Pemberton in England during the early twentieth century.  Roses such as Penelope (white rose right), Daybreak (yellow rose left), Francesca, Prosperity and more, still to this day make outstanding Garden Roses.  Even now visionary rose breeders such as Paul Barden continue the work with roses such as the new Hybrid Musk Jeri Jennings, bred by Mr. Barden.

The Polyanthas came into being in the late 1880s and continued to flourish for some time. They are thankfully seeing a revival today as gardeners begin to finally "discover" this tough, rewarding class of roses.  Jim Delahanty in Southern California has not only put together one of the largest collections of Polyanthas ever assembled, his constant championing of the class is largely responsible for their resurgence.  (Marie Pavie, blush rose left)

Floribunda roses were born and began to fully realize their potential under the visionary eye of the rose breeder Gene Boerner also known as “Papa Floribunda”. Many great Garden Roses from these classes are still with us today.  (Gruss An Aachen, blush rose right)

Enter The Hybrid Tea Rose

The introduction of the first Hybrid Tea in the late 1800s was by most markers an improvement upon the Hybrid Perpetuals, a class becoming known for being difficult and finicky to grow – sound familiar?

The same Mr. Henry Bennett is considered by many to be the Father of the Hybrid Tea and achieved his success by deliberately crossing Hybrid Perpetuals with Tea Roses. From the Hybrid Perpetuals they took the long stems and the large blooms appearing solely on the stem. From the Teas they took their continual flowering and long petals which gradually became the high centered Hybrid Tea bloom of today.

Many rose historians consider there to be three distinct eras of Hybrid Teas and they are separated by the two World Wars of the 20th Century. Those bred before the war were still closely related to their Tea cousins in that the shrubs were rounded and their stems still did not quite achieve the length of today’s Hybrid Teas. Between the wars saw great progress in both form, stem length and disease resistance. At the time the latter was still a consideration as chemical controls were not yet widely used. At the end of World War II one of the most popular Hybrid Teas of all time was released the rose “Peace”.  (Picture is Chicago Peace a sport of the original Peace Rose.)

Peace was arguably one of the first roses to truly look like today’s Hybrid Tea roses. Long stems, high pointed center and single flowers per stem set the benchmark for Hybrid Teas to come.

The two camps begin to emerge

As roses continued to be crossed, there emerged a class of roses known as Hybrid Perpetuals (like John Hopper to the right). They are a result of taking the first generation spring flowering offspring of the old European roses crossed with China roses, and then crossing them with the Portland Roses (also known as Damask Perpetuals).

The intent was to get the repeat blooming and hardy re-blooming qualities of the Damask Perpetuals to combine with the ranges of color and the constant flowering qualities found in the Chinas. What emerged were typically roses with huge cabbagey blossoms perched atop what were then long stems.

As with anything new these became the rage and within a short time there were thousands of Hybrid Perpetuals in commerce. They were also developed simultaneously with the rise of the popularity of rose shows. In 1876 the Rev Dean Hole began the Royal National Rose Society in England and promoted rose shows as a way of drawing in new members and educating the public about roses.

As the popularity of roses shows increased the breeding of Hybrid Perpetuals became refined to achieve roses whose value lay more in their ability to produce great cut flowers for Exhibition than to be a great garden plant. Long stem, length of time the cut flower was held on the stem and form were valued over ease of growth.  (Sound familiar!)

The Victorian era was a time of great wealth, large greenhouses on country estates and huge staffs of gardeners both in the U.S. and abroad. This meant time and money were of no object in the pursuit of “perfection”. Roses were now also becoming grown solely for the beauty of the flower.  (Mons. Boncenne is the red rose to the left)

This meant some rose growers grew roses for their garden value and some for their cut flower/exhibition value. Both hard-working dedicated groups but the result was two different types of roses began to emerge based on what they used for. Cut flower/exhibition Roses on the one hand and Garden Roses on the other.

Take A Bow Mr. Bennett

During the 1800s repeat flowering roses from China began to arrive on the sails of the clipper ships. Four of them, 'Slater's Crimson China', 'Parson's Pink China', 'Hume's Blush Tea-scented China', and 'Parks' Yellow Tea-scented China' became collectively known as The Four Stud Chinas. In time they were crossed with the Old European Roses. Like any cross of a repeat flowering rose with a spring flowering roses their first offspring did not repeat. But subsequent generations did.

From these the Bourbon roses developed as did Noisettes. China and Tea roses also continued to develop. All roses relatively easy to care for and grown widely throughout the world. The Bourbons remain today one of my favorite classes of roses along with the Portlands; the latter being the only repeat flowering class of roses found in Europe before the Asian roses arrived.

During this era an English cattle breeder named Henry Bennett introduced the record keeping and purposeful crossing of cattle to achieve desired qualities into rose breeding. Until then rose breeding was mostly left to whims of nature as hips were harvested, seedlings grown and then released into commerce without much knowledge of parentage and without intent of achieving certain qualities.

Henry Bennett purposefully took pollen from one rose to another, noted the cross and documented the results. He discovered over time that he could influence the outcome of the roses he was breeding by using certain roses again and again. The result is rose breeding much as it’s done today. The fact that today’s talented breeders can breed for characteristics such as disease resistance, stripes and shorter growth habit can be traced back to Mr. Bennett.

Go West Young Rose

As Americans moved west across their new country, many a rose traveled along in those Conestoga Wagons tucked somewhere between the family clock and frying pan used to make “Hoppin John”. Upon arrival at the new homestead they were planted, watered and left to grow under the same conditions those early settlers encountered. Over time their true names were forgotten and they became known simply as “Grandma’s Red Rose” or “Aunt Sally’s Pink Climber”. Many survive today as “Found Roses” rustled by dedicated rosarians. Names like “Charleston Graveyard”, “Angles Camp White Tea” and "Natchitoches Noisette" are as much a testament to the conditions they thrived under as to the locations where they were rediscovered.

Over time roses found their way into almost every garden. Some were grown for their beauty and some for medicinal purposes like R. gallica officinalis better known as “Apothecary's Rose” for that very reason. Their ability to retain perfume in their dried petals was just another reason to tuck them amidst the hollyhocks in the garden.

Rose hips became valued as a rich source of Vitamin C and were carried by sailors on long voyages to prevent scurvy. As recently as World War II rose hips were grown in Victory Gardens to replace the vitamin C normally found in citrus fruits which were at that time unavailable in cooler climates. I would wager a bet that the roses producing those hips were treated just like all the other plants in those hundreds of thousands of gardens grown as a badge of Patriotism. Imagine if those Victory Roses needed complicated spraying and feeding programs. I suspect they would have been used more as compost than a source for vitamin C.

Fast forward to today and my garden at home is a no spray, no chemical, no irrigation beyond what falls from the sky garden, and much like the shoes of the cobbler’s children my roses get little to no care. Roses from Species to Modern are left to thrive on their own. And they do. In fact in time I’ve even noticed roses like Mme. Isaac Pereire, a Bourbon rose that can be disease prone but I love her anyway because she bears blooms of stunning beauty and scent, has slowly built up her own immune system and now rarely gets disease.

Much like children who have to catch every cold in order to build up immunity I feel roses mature in the same manner. Even my beloved Mme. Isaac is almost always without disease now that she has gone through adolescence. Perhaps we coddle our roses too much?

A little history - Part 1

Rose growing wasn’t always so complicated. In fact for thousands of years it involved no work at all. Mother Nature herself created the first roses which are species roses. By estimate over some 100 plus exist. The arguments as to what defines a species rose are numerous and this is not the place for that. Suffice to say that species roses have been on this earth long before man, long before cultivated gardens and long before anyone knew what an outward facing bud eye was.

These species roses survived without any care and still do today. Many a hedgerow in England, a mountainside in China or an old homestead in America still contain these original roses that continue to thrive happily under the hand of Mother Nature. And fortunately many gardeners still grow and enjoy them in their own gardens.

Over time and with a little help from the birds and the bees pollen from the Species roses was mixed and other forms of cultivated or “Hybrid” roses began to emerge. Some of the earliest known to the western world are what is known at the “Old European Roses”. Groups like Gallicas, Damasks, Centifolias, Albas, Portlands and Mosses poured forth perfume mostly during the spring bloom season. In Asia the China and Tea roses began to emerge carrying with them repeat flowering qualities rarely seen in the western world and destined to remain that way until the times of the clipper ships.

Like their native ancestors these roses too thrived on benign neglect. The weaker varieties among them were weeded out by either the hand of nature or the hoe of the gardener and the stronger ones persisted by being passed from garden to garden via cuttings or shoots that emerged next to the parent plant in the warmth of springtime.

Next:  "Go West Young Rose"

Why I Do The Things I Do

Many years ago I obtained the book “Roses for Every Garden” by R. C. Allen. It was as inspirational to me then as it is now and Mr. Allen’s reasons for writing it ring true to me today. I quote from Mr. Allen’s foreword both because he says it so well and to acknowledge the influence of those who have gone before.

“Somehow, the idea that roses are difficult has crept into our horticultural thinking, perhaps because we expect greater perfection from roses than from other flowers. Then in our efforts to excel we have made rose growing laborious, time consuming, even costly and lost the recreation and inspiration that more modest aims can provide” Mr. Allen wrote those words in 1948 and they still ring true.

But as Bob Dylan says, “the times they are a changin”. Roses like Knockout are showing gardeners they too can grow roses without fuss, the “Green” movement throughout the world is thankfully creating demand for plants grown without chemicals, smaller gardens mean roses must be integrated into the general planting and today’s busy lifestyles means roses growing must simplify and be less time consuming.

What prodded this entry was a question I’ve been asked many times. How did you develop your methods of growing roses? It came about from many years of raising my own roses, caring for other people’s roses, talking and being influenced by other rose people but most of all because many years ago I fell in love with roses, the simplicity of gardening and saw no reason why the two should be mutually exclusive. Today after close to twenty years of growing roses, including six years running a rose care company in Los Angeles and ten years as the owner of my own rose nursery, I feel even more strongly about it.

Mr. Allen in closing his foreword some 60 years ago said this. “This book is intended to strip rose culture of its complications….It removes bewilderment or uncertainty and, with success, the growing of roses becomes a rich and satisfying experience.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Basics. Prune or Rejuvenate?

Nothing frightens a new rose grower more than the dreaded "P" word - pruning.  It's a rose chore that has become so amazingly complicated it sends many a rose grower screaming for the shovel feeling the best way to prune is dig the #%&$* rose out and be done with it.

First off for Garden Roses forget about all the outward facing bud eye, five leaflet leaf set, 45 degree angle cut, seal with glue, stand on one leg and wear red underwear stuff.  With a Garden Rose you aren't pruning a rose you are merely shaping and cleaning up a flowering shrub. Clean out dead wood, twiggy weak growth and shape it up.  That's it really.

Which brings me to something you do want to do as the roses get older.  Cut out an old cane on a regular basis.  What is an old cane?  It's a cane that has stopped producing new growth and blooms.  I call it "bloomed out".  At this point the cane is only taking energy away from the more productive growth and you are best off getting rid of it.

And in fact it's actually preventing your roses from putting out new canes from the base.  That's right I said preventing.  I've learned over time the best way to get new canes from the base of a rose is to cut out an old cane right down to the ground.  Generally for every old cane I cut out I get 2-3 new ones.  Not a bad trade off!

That's why I call it rejuvenating and not pruning.  Cutting out dead growth, twiggy stuff and the occasional old cane spurs new, fresh growth that will bear a lot more flowers.  Rejuvenation.

I also like the word because to me it says I'm doing this for the future not for the past.  But more on that later.  Stay tuned!

Here is a video that might help.

What Is A Garden Rose And Does It Matter?

It probably seems all roses are garden roses because where else would you grow them but in your garden!  Guess again.  Some roses are raised specifically for the cut-flower/florist industry and in fact should be never be grown by the casual gardener.  Why?  Because they tend to be disease prone, fussy and require a lot of work.  Sound familiar!

The job of these roses is to put forth blooms on a regular schedule.  When you need 5 million long stem cut roses for Valentine's Day you need predictability and if means you have to spray every day you will.

Consider this fact.  Chemical fungicides and insecticides weren't really put into use until the 1930s and didn't come into their own until the 1950s.  As they became widely available to the home gardener, many of these roses found their way into our gardens.  As the chemicals were slowly banned (hurray!) these same roses acquired the reputation of being hard to grow so many a gardener tore them out or refused to grow them in the first place.

Enter Garden Roses.  Well, not so much as enter as welcome back.  For hundreds and hundreds of years roses were grown without any more fuss than your average azalea.  They were bred and released to the public with the idea they would simply be planted in the garden and admired without the need of a Hazmat Suit. 

Just like Knockout - probably the most popular Garden Rose in United States today.  Here is a little secret.  There are thousands of other great garden roses out there every bit as easy to grow as Knockout.  As we go on I'll help you learn how to find them.

And yes it does matter because anyone can grow them and that is what this Blog and our You Tube project is all about.