Would you like to grow roses with a minimum of care?
Roses in my north Louisiana are evergreen and bloom 10 months of the year. Roses with foliage in spring are colored from pink or chartreuse to blood and bronze-red, making the plant almost a bouquet. Then grow TEA roses.
Pleasant Tea Roses
Tea roses are pleasant roses, for they are almost thornless, grow to very large bushes, and require no pruning except for weak wood or to shape the bush.
Tea roses are so variable in form and color that walking in the garden is one happy surprise.
Although they are not finicky as to soil, they should, like all roses, be planted where they are well drained.
Main Rose Garden
My main rose garden is on a slope, shaded from the west by pine trees. The roses should have half a day of sun, but I have some growing close by my house that only get four hours of sun a day.
These plants are smaller when they come from the grower than the average hybrid tea.
I plant my roses with common sense, digging deeply and using plenty of humus in the hole, tamping in well but gently, and being careful not to break or bruise the roots.
Growing of Roots
No plant is any better than its roots. I plant the bud union 3” or 4” inches deeper than it was before, for I want the plants to grow their roots, which over time they do.
I am planting for years to come for tea roses to live to a great age. I mulch well with pine straws to conserve moisture and keep down weeds.
I protect a new plant with a mound of straw for two weeks to keep the canes from drying out.
Difference Between Spring And Fall Planting
I see little difference between spring and fall planting. The main thing is a good number one dormant plant.
In February and July, I fertilize with an all-purpose fertilizer using a crowbar to make deep holes all around the tips of the branches.
This makes the roots go wide and deep. I try to do this when the ground is wet to save water. When it is dry, I water it deeply as needed.
Foliar Fertilizer
When I am spraying annual border plants with foliar fertilizer, if some get on the roses, we don’t mind.
Tea roses are most beautiful full-blown, either cut or on the bush. They last an incredibly long time, shattering cleanly.
Teas endure heat, neglect, and sudden cold snaps. Mine were in bloom and bud one Dec. 11th when in 18 hours, the temperature dropped from a balmy 74° to 18° degrees Fahrenheit.
Flowers For Christmas
After 3 days of cold and losing some opening buds, the roses and camellias returned and gave me flowers for Christmas.
In the past, my roses have stood down to 12° degrees Fahrenheit of cold with no protection or damage.
Tea roses do ball or form buds that will not open in a prolonged wet season, as does any double rose.
I have never sprayed a tea rose for blackspot. They are too resistant. If a little blackspot happens to get on them, they shrug it off and go right on about the business of growing and blooming.
Types Of Tea Roses
Here are some examples of tea roses:
‘Mrs. B. R. Cant’
‘Mrs. B. R. Cant’ (1901) grows large with luxuriant foliage. She has many soft pinks, cupped, rather flat blooms in spring and summer, and the many inner petals curled and folded.
In fall, these change to deep rose, even bordering on red.
‘Mrs. Dudley Cross’
‘Mrs. Dudley Cross’ (1907) grows to 8 thornless feet. All season she has long stout stems of large chamois yellow flowers, some with the outer petals tinged pink and high pointed buds.
In autumn she goes mad with color. No two are exactly alike. Some are even speckled and spotted with deep rose color.
Ah! to have a row of these a mile long with a fruity fragrance.
‘Mons Tillier’
‘Mons Tillier’ (1891). This rascally charmer is always different. The small round buds give no hint of the extravaganza of color to follow.
The bloom is large, many petalled, imbricated, almost star-shaped when full-blown, from light, rose to deep with tones of brick red, yellow, and violet.
It grows to 8′ feet and blooms steadily.
‘Sombreuil’
‘Sombreuil’ (1851), with round buds, opens to a large, flat bloom with many graduated petals.
It is frosty white like snow on a window, but look closely—you will see a small center of dainty pink, changing in fall to terra cotta.
I grow this rampant rose tied closely to an eight-foot post, which umbrellas in a canopy of bloom.
‘Rosette Delizy’
‘Rosette Delizy’ (1922) has perfect, medium-size flowers with high pointed buds, yellow centers with a whisper of apricot, and outer petals of dark rose.
The colors deepen with the advent of autumn. It has an ideal boutonniere bud and rarely stops blooming.
‘Mme. Lombard’
‘Mme. Lombard’ (1877) is a low and wide plant, giving large double high pointed buds opening with reflexed petals.
What color? Madame will oblige with rose, salmon rose, or sometimes flesh color with rose center and intense fragrance.
‘Marie Van Houtte’
‘Marie Van Houtte’ (1871) with double yellow, pink-tipped blooms are almost consistent on a huge plant.
Perhaps her blooms do have slender necks . . . but who minds when they look down politely at viewers?
‘Duchesse de Brabant’
‘Duchesse de Brabant’ (1857), the 100-year-old darling, always has satin seashell pink cupped blooms, making delightful bouquets with sprays of heliotrope, the scents mingling pleasantly.
‘Mme. Camille’
‘Mme. Camille’ (1871) grows to 4′ feet with double flame-colored blooms, faintly patterned and veined in white. In spring, the colors shade lighter.
‘Snowflake’ or ‘Marie Lambert’
‘Snowflake’ or ‘Marie Lambert’ (1886) is 4′ feet of the dense, twiggy, thornless, fresh green bush with small pointed foliage.
It bears an infinite number of pointed, shining white buds opening into two-and-a-half-inch roses.
It is the only tea I grow that is prettiest in the bud. It is beautiful with red roses.
‘William R. Smith’
‘William R. Smith’ (1908) is much like a hybrid tea except for its hardiness and variation of color.
It has large, high-pointed, flesh-colored blooms with pink at the petal base. Other blooms may be pale pink with creamy outer petals. All are lovely.
‘Lady Hillington’
‘Lady Hillington’ (1910) could be used as a husky foliage plant with burnished bronze foliage.
She gives generously of semi-double cupped blooms, apricot yellow in spring and almost orange in fall.
The buds are pointed and full-blown, with the stamens showing.
Climbing ‘Gloire de Dijon’
Climbing ‘Gloire de Dijon’ (1853). When April comes, I wish Dean Hole, the fabled English rosarian, could be with me to enjoy my two huge climbers.
One covers a large pear tree that blooms before the leaves come. The white pear blossoms and sunset colors of this rose to intermingle.
The other I trained up a 25-foot iron pipe where it cascades down, making a huge ball of buff, yellow, salmon, and sometimes orange double roses.
Only a few token blooms come in the fall, giving a solid 6 weeks of splendor in the spring.
‘Climbing Perle des Jardins’
Climbing Perle des Jardins’ (1874) is a heavy bloomer, spring and fall.
It has large, shining golden, high pointed, very thick double blooms, quartered when open, and deliciously fragrant.
Climbing ‘Devoniensis’ or ‘Magnolia’
Climbing ‘Devoniensis’ or ‘Magnolia’ (1841) blooms all season with many petalled 5”-inch flat roses, fully quartered when full-blown.
Some are white with pink hearts. Others are blush pink. Two numbers with 2” inch-thick trunks cover an archway, and mockingbirds nest in the boughs.
Sweet Sentiments
Two I grow for sweet sentiments are ‘Soprano’ (1839) and ‘Old Blush’ (China 1796).
‘Soprano’ with bright yellow (almost orange in fall) semi-double roses takes me back to childhood when my sister and I played “milliner” under a huge bush in Papa’s garden as little girls.
We made hats of leaves and trimmed them with these blooms and with the loose double pink blooms of ‘Old Blush.’
As this was in the willow plume era, we used pampas grass plumes. These two old roses grow in the shrubbery border for color when the shrubs are resting.
Many more I grow for their true worth and beauty. Many tea roses may be planted with the proudest hybrid teas and hold their own.
44659 by Kitty M. Simpson