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Roses in The Landscape
What is a Garden Rose
Paul F. Zimmerman - Part 1 of a three part series published in The Rose official
publication of The American Rose Society 2008
Part 1. Garden Roses.
The Rose is one of the most diverse
plants gardeners have. There are Cut Flower Roses
producing beautiful long stem blooms for the florist
industry, Exhibition Roses winning awards at shows and
Garden Roses incredibly easy to grow in the garden.
Yet, they tend to be all lumped together and,
particularly in this country, sadly have collectively
gotten a reputation for being fussy, difficult and
chemically dependent. So before we begin discussing
designing, inter-planting and care of a garden grown
around roses, I’d like to spend this first article
talking about which roses are best to use in a general
landscape setting. In short, what is a “Garden Rose”?
First a garden rose must be easy to care
for. This doesn’t mean it thrives on neglect. Instead
it must make an attractive shrub, keep its foliage and
bloom with no more attention than what is given to other
shrubs in the garden. Essentially it should be nothing
more than another flowering shrub and be treated as
such. What they can’t be are “sticks with flowers on
top”. That is an unattractive plant, adding nothing to
the aesthetic of the garden. In part four we will talk
in greater detail about a simple care program; but any
rose that needs constant chemical spraying, feeding and
fussing over is to me not a garden rose.
Before I go on and get into hot water
here, let me say this article is not about passing
judgment on what kind of rose or rose growing is
better. Exhibition and Cut Flower varieties of roses
are beautiful and there are many dedicated and
hard-working gardeners who have raised particularly the
former to an art form all its own. Nor is this meant to
be a natural vs. chemical discussion. There is enough
divisiveness in the rose world as it is and I have no
desire to be part of that debate. This series of
articles is simply about a style of roses and how to
grow them - nothing more. Statements I make like a rose
needing constant coddling not being a Garden Rose is not
meant to imply it is not a great rose. It’s just not a
great Garden Rose.
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Can a Hybrid Tea be a Garden
Rose?
I am asked this question a
lot and in short the answer is, of course.
Many Hybrid Teas are easy to care for and
make attractive plants in the garden without
a lot of care. W. Kordes & Sohne Nursery
from Germany has recently released a
“Freelander” series of outdoor cut-roses
that possess all the qualities of their
Garden Roses roses combined with stems and
blooms suitable for cutting. Breeders such
as Tom Carruth of Weeks Roses, Keith Zary of
Jackson & Perkins and Brad Jalbert of Select
Roses have some wonderful new Hybrid Teas
that fall into this category. While I lived
in Los Angeles I grew Sam McGredy’s Hybrid
Tea “New Zealand” which is a world class
rose by any standard. |
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The second criteria is does the rose have
an attractive overall shape? This refers to the entire
plant, not just the flower at this or that stage. I get
asked all the time how I choose roses to offer at our
nursery. That is always followed by me saying that it
starts with the overall structure of the plant, works
through health and the bloom is last. What do I look
for? Simple. Does the bush build itself into a
pleasing shape be it rounded, tall or gracefully
arching? Or does it grow all which way, throwing out
the occasional cane resembling the Loch Ness Monster
poking its head out of the water in a grainy
photograph. While the latter is certainly an
interesting architectural statement or a place to hang
your secaturs, it is less desirable than the former.
Third is foliage. Does it have any?
Don’t laugh! One of the comments we get at the nursery
is people are tired of rose bushes that lose all their
leaves. Assuming it does have leaves, is the plant well
foliated from the ground to the top. Any shrub with
bare legs is not very useful in the garden. Imagine the
guards outside Buckingham palace with their elegant tall
black hats, beautiful braided coats but without any
trousers. While fun for some, it would look out of
place and would greatly reduce the number of people
posing for photos next to them – at least photos they
could show at their next party. Lastly are the leaves
healthy, having a nice color of green, be it light or
dark.
Finally come the blooms themselves and
this for me is a totally individual choice. I love
single roses like Mrs. Oakley Fisher, Olivier
Roellinger™ and R. virginiana, yet many people don’t.
Others love a high pointed center, I’m ambivalent.
Some like cupped blooms, some like reflexed and some
like quartered. With roses we are blessed with so many
choices in bloom shape that there is the perfect choice
for everyone and everyone’s choice should be
appreciated. So if the plant meets the first three
criteria and you like the blooms, than for you it is a
good Garden Rose. I once read a book on wine by Matt
Kramer and he noted the question he always gets is,
“what is a good wine”. He responds by asking, “What was
the most recent wine you had and did you like it?” If
they respond affirmatively then he simply says, “Then
for you that was a good wine”. That is the way I feel
about rose flowers.
Many rose breeding programs actually draw
a very distinct line between their Garden Roses and
their Cut Flower or Exhibition Varieties. Kordes,
Tantau, Meilland to name a few. The one I am familiar
with is The Pépinières G DELBARD Nursery of France and
they are quite strict about not combining the two.
While all nurseries have their own technique for
evaluation, I find the one at the Delbard nursery to be
very insightful and go when I can. Okay, that’s the
excuse I use because it also gives me a reason to visit
central France on a regular basis, have lovely wine and
terrific cheeses. With Arnaud Delbard’s assistance I’d
like to walk you through their trialing program. It
gives additional insight into what a garden rose is.
All the crosses are made in one
greenhouse but with the different intentions in mind;
Garden Roses or Cut Flower Rose. During this first
stage they are raised in the same bed and the first
selection is made. The evaluation at this stage is
almost exclusively for bloom as they are too small to
evaluate for anything else. From the time the seedlings
are planted to the first bloom is as short as a matter
of weeks. Arnaud points out, “While it might seem
difficult to choose among thousands or even hundreds of
thousands of seedlings, the good ones make themselves
known very quickly. As you walk among them their beauty
catches your eye.”
Seedlings deemed worthy are carefully
transplanted into pots. Those not passing the test are
simply discarded. This may seem cruel but it must be
done and quite frankly what is left isn’t worth
bothering about. The freshly potted up seedlings are
placed in a greenhouse or poly tunnel so their
evaluation process can continue.
During this next stage foliage begins to
come into play. Many rose breeders now no longer spray
their seedlings with chemicals in order to quickly wean
out the disease prone ones. They are simply given good
soil, perhaps some organic fertilizer and of course
water.
Several people evaluate the roses. Each
is given a different colored bamboo stake. As they go
through the seedlings they place their stake by any rose
they like. Arnaud explained to me this is done over
time because it is difficult to judge a rose based on
only one or two viewings. “It must be observed over a
long time and all the seasons before the true character
of the rose makes itself known” After a many passes a
consensus emerges and the roses having multiple stakes
are the ones that move on to the next testing phase. In
addition, they evaluate for different characteristics at
different times. In the spring they evaluate the
bloom. Color, shape, fragrance, do the petals fall on
their own once the bloom is done; all of these are taken
into account. Later in the season they go through the
roses again but this time the flower is completely
ignored. They focus only on the plant itself. Health,
abundance of foliage, does the plant push up new canes,
initial impression of growth habit; are looked for.
“Looking at the bloom and plant at
separate times allows us to evaluate both parts
independently of each other,” adds Arnaud. “This has
great advantages in that you are not so willing to put a
stake next to a mediocre plant just because the bloom is
beautiful. However, if a rose does have one outstanding
characteristic like great foliage it might be separated
and used as future breeding stock but not released to
commerce.”
During this initial phase of testing the
potted seedlings begin to be separated into two distinct
groups. For the Garden Roses both bloom and plant must
pass the tests based on criteria discussed earlier. Cut
Flower/Exhibition Roses have a set of benchmarks all
their own. Does the bloom sit well on the stem? Does
the plant recycle the blooms quickly, meaning does it
rebloom often? The florist industry needs roses with
little “down time” because they make their money from
selling the flowers. The plant also needs to rebloom
predictably in terms of a schedule. If you are a
greenhouse needing to provide ten million long stemmed
roses for Valentines Day, it is very important to know
exactly how many days it takes to get the perfect bloom
to form. The most important test is vase life. If the
cut flower does not last long in a vase then it cannot
be a Cut Flower/Exhibition variety. Essentially these
varieties must be predictable and consistent in all
aspects of its growth habit. Understand that there is
nothing wrong with that, because that is what it they
are bred for and where there beauty lies
Another thing to understand concerning
roses bred for the cut flower industry is they are
rarely grown outdoors. Instead, they are grown in huge
greenhouses, often covering hundreds of acres and never
exposed to the elements.
They are kept protected from the elements, sprayed and
fertilized regularly. After a few years hard work they
are worn out and thus discarded. The point being there
is never any real demand for the plant to be disease
resistant and able to handle the outside elements like
rain, fog, heat etc. Plus they are not expected to live
very long. They are raised for their ability to produce
long stemmed cut flowers in a very controlled
environment. Hardly a Garden Rose.
The Garden Roses that pass the second
test while in the pot are budded onto three to four
different kinds of understock in the Delbard fields.
Why different understock can be answered by a brief
explanation of what is understock.
Roses are produced for the marketplace in
two ways. The vast majority are budded onto an
understock that is known for being vigorous and
therefore has the ability to push the rose along. An
alternative method gaining great popularity in the
United States is to propagate the roses through cuttings
in greenhouses. These are known as own-root-roses.
Everyone has their preference but for Garden Roses my
personal choice, if they are suitable for where you
garden, are own-root roses. The answer why is found in
the definition of a Garden Rose.
Recall how we discussed that a garden
rose should first and foremost be an attractive shrub,
well foliated and full. In my experience you get a
fuller rounder plant with an own-root rose because the
base can develop many more canes. Instead of 5-7 canes
you usually end up with 15-20 – a much more attractive
plant. Other pluses are if an own-root rose is damaged
during a severe freeze it is more likely to come back
“true”, meaning the rose you paid for will grow back.
I’d like to bust one myth about own-root
roses. The perception they are slower to establish.
Nothing is farther from the truth. The difference lies
in how old the plants are at the time they are sold.
Budded roses are usually 2-3 years old if you include
the time the understock was in the ground before
budding. Most own-root plants as currently sold are no
more than one year old and some less than that. Plus
most are sold in pots, an environment that grows a much
different root structure than a ground grown rose. A
“pot” root structure does take more time to get
established in the ground. However, as more own-root
roses are grown in the ground for the same length of
time as budded roses, I think this perception will
cease. Having grown a few crops of own-root roses in
the ground myself I am quite comfortable in saying that
an own-root rose, the same age as a budded rose, raised
under the same conditions will easily establish itself
as quickly. The difference is not own-root or budded,
but in the length of time a rose is grown at the nursery
before it arrives in your garden – how old it is when
you get it. However, I cannot disagree that as they are
sold at the moment, which are as younger plants,
own-root-roses take a bit more patience.
Where might own-root-roses not be the
best choice you ask? Since at the moment they are
generally sold as younger plants, in cold climates is
the first answer that springs to mind. During your
shorter growing season it is imperative young plants
become well established in order to survive that first
winter. An older budded plant is an answer to that. If
you cannot find a more established own-root-rose a two
to three year old budded rose could be better than a
young own-root-rose. Upon planting however, bury the
bud union because over the time the rose will become an
own-root rose, giving you the desirable qualities I
mentioned earlier
Delbard tests Garden Roses on different
understocks to be sure the rose will do well under as
many varied conditions as they can create at their
nursery. They are also beginning to test them on their
own roots, as are many other breeders. Some breeders
like Brad Jalbert in Canada initially test their Garden
Roses only on their own roots, bypassing the budding
process all together. I like this because as I
mentioned earlier the very definition of an own-root
rose is one vigorous enough to survive without the
assistance of an artificial understock. To me a rose
than cannot survive in a Garden without artificial
understock should never be released as a garden rose in
the first place. That you choose to bud it later for
reasons already discussed is one thing. But that it is
budded because it cannot survive on its own-roots is
simply ridiculous. The method of testing Garden Roses
only on their own-roots to me is just another way of
thinning the herd.
The roses are now tested in the fields
for several years. The same process of bamboo stakes is
used, as is the separation of evaluating for bloom at
one point and foliage/plant at another. The superior
varieties slowly make themselves known and they may be
sent to other locations around the world for further
evaluation under different testing conditions.
Arnaud feels strongly testing around the
world is a key part of determining a good Garden Rose.
“That is one reason we enter our roses in many
International Trials. These trials judge and score the
entire plant over two growing seasons and give us good
information into a rose’s performance under different
conditions.” Note that Arnaud mentions the entire
plant. I’ve judged many a rose trial and the plant that
won may not have had the quintessential high pointed
center bud and flower, but it certainly was hands down
the best Garden Rose.
The time it takes to breed a rose,
evaluate it and ultimately bring it to market takes
around 10 years. From hundreds of thousands of
seedlings some 10 years later emerge perhaps 3-5 roses
worthy of being released to the public, which in my mind
make any rose breeder a hero of the garden world. Along
the way the roses have hopefully been tested, stressed
and observed under all kinds of natural outdoor
conditions. And that is what makes a great Garden Rose.
Next issue – Selecting Garden Roses and
Laying out a Rose Garden |
