Summary: I love roses but only have a small area, or do you prefer potted roses over those planted in the ground? Learn about the polyantha rose – the potted patio rose – its history and how it may fit in your landscape.
Over the years of modern rose development, the polyantha rose has received its share of attention from hybridists. This group and its derivatives have gained popularity in many areas, with home gardeners enjoying potted roses but having small patios or spaces.
Polyanthas and their progeny merit this success in every way. No other hardy shrubs furnish a comparable bloom display from early summer to frosts. They possess all the beauty of hybrid teas and are perpetual without their shortcomings.
Rose Gardeners Welcome Polyanthas Roses
Gardeners who have found it strenuous and expensive to follow the detailed schedule of attention required to keep roses in good condition will welcome a very beguiling remedy in the superb polyanthas that have made their debut.
The group has been developed along several lines by hybridizers, and most introductions are more accurately called “hybrid polyanthas.” To make a more definite separation from the original group, these varieties with parentage involving additional species besides Chinese and multiflora roses are usually called floribundas in the US.
The larger flowers in more diversified colorings, with more fragrance, continuous bloom, and glossy foliage have been obtained by crosses with teas, hybrid teas, rugosas, and memorial roses.
Polyanthas have obtained their sturdiness from one original parent, Rosa multiflora. This rampant cluster-flowered species from Asia was sent from Japan to Lyon, France, in 1862. In 1868, a cross occurred between one of the original plants and pink Chinese rose (Rosa chinensis), a favorite in French gardens.
New Polyanthus Varieties Arrive
The first-generation seedlings of the cross were all climbers with bloom in early summer, but seedlings from these showed segregation of essential traits. Some were markedly dwarf and developed into compact bushes about 2’ feet high. Furthermore, after the muss of early summer bloom, these dwarf roses flowered on through much of the rose growing season.
Rose-breeders around Lyon were soon producing exciting new polyanthus varieties, and in the 1880’s crosses with tea roses (Rosa odorata) brought forth such delicately fragrant ones as Cecile Brunner and Marie Pavic.
Early selections of the polyanthus, such as Mignonette, Orleans Rose, Marechal Foch, were generally known as baby ramblers when brought to America. It may not be an appropriate name, and it is well that polyantha (meaning many-flowered) displaced it.
Polyantha roses are fortunate in their generally accepted common name, but their course in scientific terminology has been troubled. As a specific name in the genus, polyantha is a synonym of the older name Rosa multiflora. Under the botanical rules, Rosa multiflora cannot be used again for a different rose.
In Bailey’s Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, published in 1902, the treatment of the genus Rosa was the work of Alfred Rehder of the Arnold Arboretum, prepared with his characteristic meticulous attention to accuracy and detail.
This new group of miniature bush roses has no legitimate name, and Rehder represented the polyanthas by their formula as hybrids between two species – Rosa multiflora x Chinensis. Such a formula never seems acceptable to gardeners as a plant name, and this one has never come into general use.
In addition, it does not comply with the present rules and has been replaced with the binomial name of Rosa Rehderiana.
It seems singularly appropriate that Professor Rehder is commemorated in this way, in the Latin he used so precisely in designating a favorite group of roses whose origin and most significant development was accomplished in his lifetime.
Rehder died in July of 1949, but his vast contributions to the literature of woody plants stand as a permanent guide and influence.
Polyanthus Roses Of Simple Culture
These small shrub types of roses are the most straightforward culture in any well-drained soil and abundant sunlight. If considerable shade must be accepted, sunlight is desirable, at least during the morning. Competition from tree roots is just as fatal to good results as too much shade.
Details of soil preparation, planting, and care can be found at – “How To Grow Winning Roses.”
Gardeners who wish to grow delicate roses in very light loam or sandy soils can take fresh hope if they modify traditional cultural methods and use heavy sawdust mulch.
This must be accompanied by generous applications of organic or high-nitrogen fertilizers. Lavish bloom during summer and autumn’s hot and dry weather, even in very light sandy soil, is adequate proof of this technique.
Polyantha and floribunda roses may be used in the same ways as hybrid teas, and they give a much better account of themselves in the landscape picture. The true polyanthas are primarily compact and low, but hybrid polyanthas or floribundas are often more diversified.
Many of the latter make upright slender growth similar to hybrid teas and require vigorous pruning to keep them in shape. The new varieties are handsomely pictured in catalogs.