Whenever anybody wants to see an ideal private rose garden in or around Columbus, Ohio, he’s taken to look at the one built by Mr. and Mrs. Ezra C. Anstaett in the Upper Arlington section.
Members of the American Rose Society—expert rosarians themselves—made a special point to visit it in 1946 and again in 1953 when the Society met at Columbus.
Garden clubs, from far and near, include it in their tours of beautiful gardens. People from everywhere, gardeners and nongardeners, stream through it.
Mr. Anstaett’s Rose Garden
Mr. Anstaett, an insurance company executive, is a veteran member and ex-president of the Columbus Rose Club, a men’s group.
He’s also a member of the organization that supervises the Columbus Park of Roses, planted for the first time during the fall of 1952 but already famous for its comprehensive collection of plants and vast size.
Mrs. Anstaett, too, is an experienced gardener and garden club worker and as ardent a rose fancier as her husband.
Anstaett Roses
The Anstaett roses always look wonderful because they’re properly and regularly watered, fed, sprayed, and mulched and because they’re set artistically against beautiful trees and shrubs at the rear side of their property in a raised area constructed on several levels and made charming by velvety lawns and architectural detail.
A paved courtyard is at the rear of the garage and adjoining a garden workshop. Across the yard, raised a few inches above it, is a small lawn.
Beyond this lawn, a few inches higher, is another, smaller grassy plot equipped with decorative chairs and a bench. This space is often used for outdoor living by the Anstaetts in the summer months.
Raised Bed
The largest bed in the garden, running north and south on the west side of the lawn, is 79’ feet long and 12’ feet wide. It is raised above and separated from the lawn by a low stone wall.
There are four rows of roses, or a total of 234 plants, in this bed. The first half was planted in 1937, and the rest when the bed was enlarged in 1940.
Across from this bed, along the east side of the larger lawn, is a curved bed, 51’ feet long and 6’ feet wide, planted in April 1940 with 102 roses.
At the rear, bordering the smaller, higher lawn, is a bed 40’ feet long in which eight climbing roses—supported on chains looped from post to post-bloom to provide color on a higher level.
Floribunda Hedge
Opposite these, separating the rose garden from the paved courtyard is a floribunda hedge of 20 plants in a bed 15’ feet long and 4’ feet wide.
A good collection of roses, mainly hybrid teas, is planted in the two beds. The Anstetts are more interested in having varieties they like and know will do well for them than they are in being up to the minute with the newest introductions.
Newer varieties, however, are usually planted when a replacement is needed.
Some newer ones that have won a place are the following:
- Chrysler Imperial
- Peace
- Sutter’s Gold
- Debonair
- Tally-Ho
Among the older standard varieties, their favorites are the following:
- Crimson Glory
- Charlotte Armstrong
- Christopher Stone
- Eclipse
- Good News
- The Doctor
- Angels Marteau
- Rex Anderson
- McGrady’s Ivory
- Grand Duchesse Charlotte
- Soeur Therese
- Etoile de Hollande
- Mme. Cochet-Cochet
- K. A. Viktoria
- Greer Garson
The climbers are Mary Wallace and New Dawn.
There is also a plant of Mermaid, one of the few which has ever thrived in this area. The hedge is Else Poulsen.
Water And Food
Early in the season, two lines of ¾” inch galvanized pipe are installed down the length of the beds, flat on the soil. Little spray valves about an inch high occur at 36” inch intervals along the pipes.
When it is time to water the beds, hoses are connected to the pipes, and water is forced out as a rather fine mist on a horizontal plane hardly 3” inches above the soil, low enough to soak the soil but not spatter the foliage by even a drop.
Valve Sprays
Each valve sprays a circle more than 36” inches in diameter, so the edges of the circles overlap a bit.
It takes about three hours to water the beds well. They are watered once a week all season unless there is a rainfall of at least an inch.
These valves are made by the Skinner firm, which manufactures garden irrigation equipment and can be inserted readily into the standard pipe. A few other gardeners in the Columbus area are now using them.
Feeding
Plants are fed methodically with either a 4-12-4 or a 6-10-4 fertilizer (Sacco or Vigoro) once a month from April to the end of the summer. The fertilizer, applied by hand, is scattered in a circle around each bush.
Controlling Insect Pest And Diseases
At times, general-purpose dust is applied with a standard crank duster. More generally, plants are sprayed once a week or more often, if necessary, with Triogen, an all-purpose product that controls rose insects and diseases.
Spraying is done with a 25-gallon power sprayer. This larger-sized sprayer is available because it is also used to spray fruit trees and ornamental plantings around the place.
Mr. Anstaett has used barnyard manure as mulch for many years. Each spring, he hauls in and covers the surface of the rose beds with 2” inches or more of it, letting it stay on all summer.
Growing Rose Bushes
Climbing and shrub roses grow elsewhere about the place, and to the west of the rose garden, hidden unless you look for it, is a little kitchen garden.
To the east of the courtyard and back of the residence, annuals and perennials grow, and to the east of the house, where the land plunges into a ravine and is partially wooded, wildflowers and bulbs have been naturalized.
Nursery workers are allowed to plant their new rose bushes now and then, and every so often, a man hired by the day does some of the more routine chores.
Most of the work the Anstaetts do themselves. They water, feed, spray, and mulch plants regularly and are rewarded with thrifty plants and exquisite blossoms year after year.
44659 by Donald K. O’Brien