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.

Take a Chance - A Bon Chance That is!

Is it possible for a rose to be fragrant, winter hardy and disease resistant?  The answer in short is yes, it is.  Thanks to the late Malcom "Mike" Lowe we are blessed to have such a rose available to us.

Formerly known as "Mike's Old Fashioned Pink", Bon Chance is a one tough shrub rose.  I first met it in Mike's garden in Nashua, New Hampshire where Mike bred and tested roses he bred.  The soft pink blooms were perching on arching canes and begging for a nose to be put in them.  Always one to oblige, I did so.  And was greeted with sweet fragrance that lingered like a fine Bordeaux in a Riedel wine glass.

I asked Mike about it and he told me it was one of the latest ones he'd bred and there was a bed of them on the grounds of the Nashua City Hall.  There, like so many hardy New Hampshirites, they thrived and bloomed from spring to fall all season and simply shrugged off winter during the cold months only to emerge unscathed the following spring.

Always unsure how roses bred up north would do in the south I propagated Bon Chance and planted it here in the upstate of South Carolina.  It thrived.  In our no-spray garden the same blooms, healthy foliage and tidy arching habit were revealed.  And a test of the nose again plumbed the depths of a Riedel glass.  Plant one of these roses in your garden and take a moment to drink of the same glass.

Here are the specifics.  Shrub, light pink, Zone 5 - Introduced in 1999 by Lowe, Mike - Growth Size & Characteristics are: midsize shrub (3'-5'), fragrant, repeat flowering.

Here is where you can buy it - Rogue Valley Roses.

How low should you go?

There seems to be a competition among some rose folks as to how short they prune their roses.

"I pruned mine to 12 inches this year" is usually quickly raised by, "Oh yeah, I cut mine down to 6" - "That's nothing, I pruned mine to the below the soil level!".  I would be remiss in not mentioning these talks also usually involve the wearing of some form of rose print clothing.

Hey, if someone wants to cut their roses down to nothing and then wait all year for them to get large only to do it again then that's their business.

Me?  I like a full, shrubby, plant right from the get go so I don't prune that way.  In fact I leave my shrub roses tall - like three to four feet.  I also leave lots of canes because that also gives me a full shrubby plant.  And more importantly lots and lots of flowers.  So many you can smell them from across the yard.

If a picture is worth a thousand words than I figure a video might really do the trick.  Here are two videos on pruning.  The first introduces you to my thoughts on pruning - with a shout out to Jeri Jennings who suggested the two basic growth habits and methods.  The second is about pruning a shrub rose to give you that full look as taught to me by David Stone at Mottisfont Abbey.

Introduction to rose pruning.



Pruning a Rose That Grows From the Base



See, I told you it wasn't that hard!

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)

A Rose To Know. Kathleen Harrop.

Back in the early 1990s Wayside Gardens put a climbing Bourbon Rose by the name of Zepherine Drouhin on the cover of its catalogue.  From that moment on Zepherine has consistently been one of the more popular Old Garden Climbing Roses around.  The fact that its also thornless certainly also helped it achieve that status.

Oh, I've grown it over the years - and never really fallen in love with it.  The blooms are a little too hot pink for my taste and for me it blackspots consistently.  Even if I leave it alone to let it try to build its own immunities, come summer I can still count on its foliage looking like the face of a coal miner just finishing a 12 hour shift.

Kathleen Harrop is a sport of Zepherine Drouhin.  What is a sport?  Simple.  Every now and then a rose throws off a cane bearing a different colored bloom or a different growth habit.  If one is observant, you take propagation material from the cane and see if the sport remains consistent as you continue to propagate it.  If you propagate a few generations and it does, then indeed you have a stable sport.

I planted my first Kathleen Harrop at our farm some 15 years ago.  I've never regretted it.  The blooms are a softer pink, it is also thornless but best of all it rarely gets disease for me.  I grow her as a large free standing shrub and year in and year out she covers herself with undulations of shell pink, fragrant blooms.  A real standout in our garden.  Why not give her a home in your garden.

Here is some more information;

Bourbon, light pink, Zone 6 - Introduced in 1919 by Dickson, Colin - Growth Size & Characteristics are: large shrub (5'+), short climber (under 10'), fragrant, repeat flowering, thornless.

Pruning technique.  Depending on if you want to grow her as a shrub or a climber we have two videos on our You Tube Channel for you to look at.

1. As a Shrub.  Pruning Roses That Grow From The Base 
2. As a Climber.  Pruning and Controlling A Climbing Rose 

You can purchase Kathleen Harrop from these fine Independent Rose Nurseries.
Rogue Valley Roses - United States
Peter Beales Roses - United Kingdom
Vintage Gardens - United States
Northland Rosarium - United States
Pickering Nurseries - Canada

You Were Probably Taught To Prune Like This...

You purchased your first rose, planted it, tended it; worried if it would live and then came pruning time.  You consulted the books, maybe went to a demonstration or maybe asked a neighbor.  More than likely you were taught to prune this way



That's okay, nothing wrong with it.

If your objective is long stem cut flowers. 

As I wrote about in a previous post this method was developed for that and it works beautifully.  My point here is that over the next few weeks while I introduce you to other methods of pruning roses, don't think this method is incorrect and I'll be teaching you the "correct" method.

I'll be teaching you some other methods to give you the ability to get different things from your rose bushes.  And what you want from your rose bushes depends on only one person - You.  After all it's your garden isn't it?