If you are a gardener whose rose horizon is widening, you are ready to consider the old roses—the ideal background for your collection of moderns.
Here they will add the perfect note of elegance and quaintness, terms which have become synonymous with the inherent beauty of the old-fashioned roses.
If you are wondering if some of these “roses of yesterday” might not provide a lot of rose beauty, with a minimum of winter protection, spraying, and fussing, you will not be disappointed.
Old Rose Varieties
There are good, bad, and indifferent old roses. Each kind must be judged on its own merits.
For much too long now, old roses have been grown chiefly to please the experienced collector, whose interest has often been academic.
The new enthusiast seeking beauty and garden value needs guidance in selecting the best varieties.
Otherwise, their hopes for a beautiful collection in the background of their modern roses will fade in the first season.
Frequently, it is said that “old-fashioned roses are all singles,” “they bloom only in small, rosette clusters,” or “they only flower in the spring.”
I am reminded of Artemus Ward’s definition of ignorance: “Knowin’ so many things that ain’t so!”
I think it will not be disputed seriously that old roses, as a class, are bigger, stronger plants than their inbred descendants and are thus better able to withstand the ravages of excessive cold, heat, drought, and—alas, neglect.
Many also are free of the usual rose diseases. So much for a few virtues of the old roses!
Related: Two Rose Experts Share Their Experience In Growing Roses
History Of Old Roses
Now let us look at their history—a history that is as old and almost as complicated as the human race.
Types and classes have flourished, scattered, and interbred.
There are bigger gaps in rose history and longer silences, but roses and man have traveled through history on the same broad paths of change, decline, and failure.
Great men and women have lived and recorded themselves in history.
Alas, they are gone forever, but the rose still survives in its infinite variety—identically as it grew and flowered even before the Christian era.
The best is still available to us. And who is qualified to say they are less beautiful than today’s rose generation?
In all her youthful loveliness, is teenage daughter Susan more charming than her grandmother in taffeta and old lace?
Is not each enhanced by the other?
If you have none of them in your garden, you are missing half the pleasure of your rose hobby—and maybe the better half!
30 Best Old-Fashioned Roses
Recently I was asked to select the 30 best old-fashioned roses out of my already carefully tested collection.
My questioner asked, “the 30 which are as good as you say they are.”
The list represents “the creme de la creme,” from which an old-rose collection may be started with certain success.
To qualify for such a rare company, I set the following high standards:
1. The rose must have distinctive beauty and charm.
2. It shall be of sufficiently vigorous growth to fit into background plantings behind the low-growing hybrid teas and polyanthas.
3. Flower form, type, and color must be different and interesting.
4. Growth and flowering must increase and improve with each season.
5. Fragrance is an important requisite.
6. It must be tougher and hardier than modern varieties and be relatively immune from pests and diseases.
7. Bloom must be heavy in spring and continue all season.
I made the following selections from the old roses well-known to me with all these excellent qualities in mind.
From The Hybrid Perpetuals
- Baronne Prevost (rose-pink)
- Henry Nevard (dark red)
- Ferdinand Pichard (striped red and white)
- Reine Des Violettes (violet-red)
Among My Rugosas
- Delicata (soft-pink)
- Frau Dagmar Hastrup (single pink)
- Pink Grootendorst (the carnation rose)
- Rugosa Magnifica (deep carmine)
- Sarah Van Fleet (blush-pink)
Of The Species Hybrids
- R. Soulieana (cluster small white)
- Chestnut Rose (R. Roxburghi) (deep pink)
- Eglantine (for its apple-scented foliage)
- Mermaid (sulphur-yellow single)
Shrub Roses
- Belinda (rose-pink)
- Fruhlingsmorgen (yellow edged cherry-pink)
- Hon. Lady Lindsay (soft pink)
- Nevada (pale blush)
The Hybrid Musks Furnish Three Lovely All-Season Bloomers
- Cornelia (copper blend)
- Kathleen (the “apple blossom rose”)
- Wind Chimes (rose-pink clusters)
Among The All-Season Blooming Mosses
- Alfred De Dalmas (pale blush-pink)
- Deuil De Paul Fontaine (dramatic dark-red)
- Old Pink Moss (mother of them all)
The Bourbons Supply
- Commandant Beaurepaire (crimson splashed pink)
- La Reine Victoria (rose-pink)
- Souvenir De La Malmaison (flesh-pink)
The Tea Roses For The South And Warm Climates Only
- Duchesse De Brabant (pearly pink)
- Maman Cochet, (cream and deep rose)
- White Maman Cochet (satin white)
At this point, let no irate rosarian challenge me to a duel with weapons or words, for I agree that such a selection is a matter of personal taste and point of view.
But it will serve as my answer to those who say, “I don’t like old roses because they bloom only once.”
And to those whose idea of rose beauty is confined to the fashionable, high-centered bloom of the latest hybrid teas.
Start Your Old-Rose Interest
I urge that you start your old-rose interest within that list, just a few—or several—as you wish.
Then, as you judge them in your own garden, determining those you like best expand your interest.
The field is unlimited—a great new rose world is opened to you!