Roses exist in almost every size and habit — shrubs roses, climbing roses, and miniature roses. New ones will be announced in the future, as they have for so many years.
Each generation of rose growers gleefully acclaims new styles, types, or colors, just as those with other interests are excited by new books, theatricals, autos, or hats.
Here are some roses, introduced in recent years, that I think is good. They will add glamour to any garden and grow sturdily beside.
Modern Varieties
I’ve given some background about them and told about a few old-timers to accent the fine qualities that have been developed in modern varieties.
In the Twenties and early Thirties, the rose talk was about the new type, originated by J. Pernet Ducher, called the Pernetianas.
The still-popular Souvenir de Claudius Pernet (1920) and Talisman (1929) are good examples.
Slender buds characterized the Pernetianas, flaring tulip-wise as they opened, but more especially by the pure yellow color of the former and the washed and shaded red over the yellow of the latter.
Present Style Of Rose
The present style of rose has absorbed the colors and other distinctions of the Pernetianas, and starting with Charlotte Armstrong has set a new pattern.
Plants are taller, broader, more vigorous, and more resistant to climate and disease, with blended or pure colors and larger and longer-petaled blooms.
Golden Anniversary, truly golden at its tip but shaded with apricot lower on the petals, is replacing the more frail plants of Souvenir de Claudius Pernet in many gardens.
Diamond Jubilee and Mrs. Paul Bosley may not be as delicate for cutting but have glowing yellow tones for garden display.
Most Talked-About Rose
Peace, the most talked-about rose of the present day, is yellow touched on the outer edges with the sunset alpenglow reflected from the snowcapped mountains not far from its birthplace in France.
A few people may not like its extra large flowers and heavy, sturdy growth, but most gardeners admire it.
Rubaiyat Rose
Recently, an instant objection was voiced when I listed Red Radiance in a collection for beginners.
Dull color, little fragrance, globe-shaped buds, and cupped, flat-topped blooms were the criticisms.
The ruby-red, clear-toned Rubaiyat was suggested instead, and I approve of this. It has long buds, rose fragrance, and long-lasting, well-stemmed flowers for cutting on clean, sturdy, tall plants.
Crimson Glory
There is no more popular dark red garden rose than Crimson Glory, although this variety has rather spreading plants, short stems, and a color that “blues” a little as the flowers age.
Rome Glory For Cut Flowers
Rome Glory and New Yorker, clear-toned scarlet to cardinal-reds, easily replace lower-growing, shorter-stemmed Christopher Stone and Charles K. Douglas.
Rome Glory, at all times a choice for cut flowers, holds its color well and has a delightful fragrance.
Sutter’s Gold
If Talisman is superseded by any other variety with a similar, though clearer, variable mixture of carmine and orange-yellow, it will be Sutter’s Gold, which originated in a sunny valley in California.
Remarkably clean, strong plants with large, slowly opening buds, unfold long-petaled semidouble flowers that vary in color with weather and local conditions, Sutter’s Gold is a home gardener’s prize as well as a top award winner in competitions.
Californian Roses
Two other vigorous, fragrant, and disease-resistant Californians are Capistrano and Mission Bells.
Excellent, dark foliage provides a good background for large full-petaled flowers. The former is a clear rose pink with a touch of reflected silver at the petal edges.
The latter, an All-America winner, is clear pink shaded with salmon. Mission Bells have a pervading, tea-scented perfume.
Floribunda Types
Floribundas, cluster-flowered roses on strong, tall bushy plants, are new in this generation and largely replace the smaller-flowered polyanthas, which were seldom knee-high.
Though I’m sorry that the floribunda type seems to be creeping into the very large-flowered, hybrid tea range, this lovely and useful rose-class has some fine varieties.
One of these is Fashion. Coral and gold are blended in sprays of small blooms with the petal and grace of full-sized hybrid teas.
They are effective not only in the border but also for floral arrangements. The flowers are semi-double, but the golden stamen cluster illuminates the centers.
Yellow floribundas are very rare. I have been especially pleased with the seemingly everblooming Goldilocks.
Spreading Bushes
The plants are spreading bushes with clean, rich foliage. Marionette is more erect in bush habit, the petals are quite double, and the color is white, tinted lightly with yellow on the inside and base of the petals.
We are accustomed to blended and mixed colors and nearly pure color tones in roses. However, a new look that may set the color fashion for the next decade is the shading with gray.
Lavender Pinocchio is such a color, a dusky pink to pink-lavender. It is a floribunda of moderate vigor, light fragrance, and good flower clusters for startlingly interesting flower arrangements.
Glamour Parade Of Fashion-Plate Roses
The glamour parade of fashion-plate roses goes on and on, with such hybrid teas as the following:
- Show Girl, deep rich pink with a touch of gold at the base
- Tallyho, whose autumn blooms of pink to cardinal I thought were the finest ever
- Peach-pink Enchantment
- Red and gold Forty-niner
- The exquisitely fragrant Mme
Henri Guillot, with its urn-shaped, Turkish-red buds, touched with yellow flame. Surely every rose grower thrills at the prospect of his dooryard rose show.
By planting Multiflora Roses at the top of a stream bank and Purpleosier Willows on the sloping sides, you can prevent much of the stream bank erosion caused by swift currents.
44659 by E. A. Piester