Know Your Roses

Gardeners all live and grow by certain seasonal clues. We carefully watch for the first crocus flower, the first daffodil, the explosion of color when forsythias burst open, and as the weeks progress the clues of the season continue to remind us what time it is in our horticultural world.

For years, though, I had a slightly different clue that got the chlorophyll and dirt flowing in my veins. In late March or early April a nondescript tractor-trailer would pull up to Lynch’s Garden Center on North Sea Road and by the end of the day hundreds and hundreds of dormant, green-boxed Jackson and Perkins (J&P) roses would be unloaded and set up for sale. For me, this meant the gardening season was about to begin in earnest.

Well, things have changed. Jackson and Perkins, once the premier supplier and breeder of roses, has been sold a number of times, and you no longer see the boxes of roses coming off that truck each spring at Lynch’s. Other companies have filled the rose niche, but there has also been a steady decline in those of us planting roses, and I have to be counted among them. In 1980 I had 200 rose bushes. In 2016 I have five, though I totally lust after one that vexes me.

So while I do have some trepidations about roses, I still believe that there is a rose for every garden and for every gardener. All you have to do is decide how much time you want to put into your roses and realize that the more time you give them the more spectacular the display and rewards. There are roses that make excellent ground covers, and roses that thrive on trellises and climbing along walls. There are roses that make magnificent cut flowers that will be candy for the eyes as well as the nose. There are roses that make huge magnificent shrubs and those that will grow as a single stalk in a standard form. There are roses that do well in the meadow and those that do well at the beach, and—yes—there are tiny roses for the smallest of gardens and even those who garden indoors or only in pots. And, yes again, there are roses that you can grow organically. You can buy them inexpensively as bare-root plants that go into the ground in the spring or you can buy them as potted plants that can be installed as late as the ground is workable—or you can buy them in containers in full bloom for your instant garden.

Keep in mind a few things about roses. Most do not do well if their foliage is constantly wetted by irrigation during the night. Virtually all roses need plenty of sun, so they do not do well in partially shaded spots or as understory plantings. Many, but not all—with the emphasis on not all—will need varying degrees of pruning and spraying, and again, many but not all will be loved by deer, as the plump buds can often be just irresistible. Onward …

If you are looking for a classic, old-fashioned rose you need to look no further than those introduced through the last 30 or so years by English breeder David Austin, who spent more than a half-century perfecting what we now call the David Austin roses. They combine the best of the old and the new on plants that have great resilience and bloom repeatedly instead of just once, as with the early English varieties. In spite of this repetitive blooming advance, these roses have kept two of their critical traits, their beauty and their scents.

If using roses as a ground cover is your goal, then you will inevitably come across the Meidiland varieties, which come in shades of pink, red and while. Hybrid tea roses combine incredibly well in the mixed border with perennials, bulbs and shrubs or in groups of three or four out in the open. Each stem bears a single bloom, and because the plants stand erect and stately, almost stiffly, they impart a formal and aristocratic quality, which is why they are so popular in shows and as cuts.

Shorter floribundas, which grow from 2 to 4 feet high, may be considered the darlings of the family. They are versatile in the landscape and are among the easiest roses to grow. They remain trim, their foliage covering the stems to the ground, and the plants are compact and manageable. Their clusters of blossoms create a massive display that at times can seem explosive. Floribundas work well in foundation plantings, edging a walk or driveway, encircling a garden feature such as a statue, ornament or mailbox, and for forming a low hedge. One person I know who grows lots of these calls them a factory that just keeps on putting out blooms."

Grandifloras incorporate the best features of hybrid teas and floribundas, exceeding both in size and height. Upright like the hybrid teas, they produce smaller flowers, but in the cluster formation and greater numbers than the floribundas. Grandifloras are best suited for back-of-the-border positions or in small groups. You can also train them up a wall, on a trellis or over fences.

For walls, arbors, gazebos and fences, there are the traditional climbers and ramblers. Climbers, however, are taller, stronger and more vigorous, their flowers larger and their stems quicker to thicken and take anchor. Ramblers generally flower once in late spring or early summer and thus will fit well into the appropriate flowering scheme and design. Climbers bloom continuously or at least several times during the summer and fall. Because of their arching canes, both types lend themselves to framing windows or doors, screening an ugly view, draping a tree stump or entwining a gazebo.

Miniatures, tiny versions of the other types, grow less than 2 feet tall and of all the roses these can be the ones best suited to containers. But they also show well as edging for a flower bed, companions for herbs (consider the spraying though) or in mass plantings. Many also perform well indoors in very sunny windows or under artificial lighting. Shrub roses make natural hedges and as barrier plants they just can’t be beat. Spreading laterally, densely growing and branching from the base, they create a living fence combining beauty with beastly thorns to deter the unwanted.

Ground cover roses make their contribution in carpeting hillsides and slopes and can provide an alternative to grass and other common ground covers in covering a berm or mound while at the same time choking out most weeds.

Don’t forget also that the beauty of roses does not necessarily stop when the flowering is over. Many roses produce magnificently colored hips like tiny apples late in the season that give a second season of color in the ranges of orange to deep, dark reds. The Rosa rugosa, often called the beach rose, not only has wonderfully scented flowers, but it can grow in pure sand, flowers for several months and in late summer and through the fall it is covered with half-inch or larger hips that color the late landscape in deep oranges and reds and provide winter food to a number of birds and other animals.

Next week: the bugs, the tricks, the rumors and truths about growing roses and how to find a rose guru near you. Keep growing.