How to have success with roses: an electronic transcription

How to have success with roses.

Duncan, Frances. "How to have success with roses." Ladies' Home Journal 25 (June 1908): 26.
[https://library-projects.providence.edu/rosarium/view?docId=tei/rg0056.xml]

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Rose-growing has come to have much the same aspect as wedlock—a thing not to be entered into lightly, but soberly and most advisedly. The counsel given to beginners in gardening is usually "Don’t." When some home gardener disregards this advice and sets about making a rose-garden he quickly reaches a state of dazed and helpless bewilderment—first, at the multitude of roses that throng the catalogues, each one as desirable, apparently, as its fellow; next he finds himself in a maze of disconcerting classifications, lost in a labyrinth of Bourbons, Noisettes, Polyanthas, Teas, Hybrid Teas, Hybrid Perpetuals (the T., H. T., H. P. of the catalogues); added to this is the lengthy and sobering list of possible diseases, the portentous array of insect enemies, all of which make rose-growing seem a most hazardous undertaking. Yet our grandmothers grew roses—probably not prize roses, but still abundant and lovely, and they had them in their gardens as a matter of course.

Now rose-growing is not a thing of extraordinary difficulty. Of course, if you expect to take prizes at exhibitions then rose-growing is an art; but if you simply want roses enough to delight your eyes and perfume your garden, that is a thing from which no array of bristling difficulties should stop you. Sometimes obstacles which look like lions in the way can be "shooed" aside as easily as if they were hens.

The best way to buy roses

If you want roses that will do something directly, then don’t experiment with slips or cuttings, except for the fun of it, but get two-year-old plants from a worthy rose-grower who has grown them himself. Do not try imported plants, even from a bargain-counter. Imported gowns may be alluring, but imported plants are by no means as satisfactory as home-grown ones. The climate of both England and the Netherlands is quite different from ours, and seems to have been made especially for gardening purposes, and plants from those countries feel the difference sorely. An expert knows how to manage imported plants; it is wiser for an amateur not to try it unless he has a good deal of garden wisdom. Climate is an important consideration with roses. The Crimson Rambler; which in the North will grow for any one, is in the South rather liable to disease, and for beauty cannot compare with the Banksias or the wild Cherokee Roses. On account of the difference in planting season buy your plants preferably from a nurseryman in your own latitude. If you have wisdom enough to recognize "suckers" from the roots, and resolution enough to cut them out, then a wide range of budded roses is possible. But if you cannot tell a "sucker" when you see it, then never buy roses except on their own roots.

Some things which roses require

There are a few details of diet and environment which roses insist upon, and if the gardener won’t or can’t supply them he might better leave the rose-bushes at the nursery, for they "won’t be happy till they get them." The first is plenty of sunshine; the second is shelter from north or west winds (the sturdy Crimson Rambler grown on a wire netting will often give protection enough); thirdly, they like a place to themselves and show little interest in blooming if they have to be closely associated with other garden-folk; they are aristocrats by nature, and very exclusive ones; for diet they like rich food and plenty of it, enough water for drink, but fresh water, not persistently moist ground— "roses abhor wet feet," as one writer expresses it. Don’t try to grow roses near trees—there is little nourishment for anything in such a place, and roses will do nothing if starved.

The best place for a real rose-garden is a southeastern slope. Roses love the early morning sun. The next best place is a southern or southwestern slope from which winds are cut off. Though aristocrats in the matter of other flowers roses are perfectly happy in many situations which are not in the least distinguished. They will grow luxuriantly over the wire netting of a hen-yard—the south side of a barn-yard and the neighborhood of a compost-heap are places they delight in. In the country a congenial spot for climbing roses is near a kitchen porch, where, in spite of precept, the water from the washing of hands is apt to be thrown. Not only do they enjoy the diet but they also keep many a germ from finding its way into the well. I am inclined to think that the sixteenth-century notion that roses were peculiarly health-giving came from the unsanitary condition of the houses and the fact that roses have healthy appetites for germs, so that the more rose-embowered the cottage the less typhoid.

How roses should be planted

June is the time to admire roses rather than to plant them; but it is the time of all others to plan a rose-garden. It needs a bold and flighty imagination to see roses in one’s garden in January, but in June it is a very simple matter to know where we would like to have a climbing rose. One can visit nurseries, look over the fence at one’s neighbor’s garden, and decide intelligently what roses one must have and precisely where they should go. Roses can be ordered at any time; the proper time for planting is the orthodox shrub-planting time—late October and November in the North, also early March. In the South and in California February is the usual planting month.

First mark out the beds; if you make them wider than four feet you will find them difficult to manage. Dig the bed to the depth of at least two feet and a half; three feet is better—some gardeners, when the soil is poor, have the beds no less than four feet deep. Throw all the soil aside. If it is sandy don’t use it. Unless the subsoil be of gravel—in which case the drainage problem is solved by Mother Nature—put in the bottom a six-inch layer of broken stone. Then fill the bed with good, heavy loam mixed with manure in the proportion of one part of manure to six parts of soil (only well-rotted manure should be used; the very best is cow manure). The soil and manure should be mixed very thoroughly. Hybrid Tea Roses will grow in lighter, much more sandy soil than Hybrid Perpetuals.

Set the plants from eighteen inches to two feet apart; if in rows it will be found more convenient to dig a trench eighteen inches deep and a foot or more wide. Be sure that the bud or graft is two inches below the soil, or else you may have trouble with suckers. Water thoroughly when planted, and if the weather be dry the ground should be kept moist for some time after planting. If you dislike the look of the brown earth carpet the beds with Viola cornuta or with pansies.

Pruning comes next, and in rose-growing is very important. It is one of the first things that a rose-grower must learn if she would have roses in abundance. Single roses may for the most part be treated as plain "shrubs" and require little or no pruning, but garden roses, the Teas and Hybrid Perpetuals, these require careful and intelligent pruning and plenty of it.

Rose-enemies and how to meet them

This brief list of possible evils need not terrify an amateur. Forewarned is forearmed. The possible diseases of children make a large volume, but few parents are afraid to try raising them on that account. Strong, healthy rose plants are not liable to be afflicted, and rose-enemies are like other evils—if nipped in the bud little damage is done, and roses are well worth the bit of watchfulness they entail.

Rose-beetle. Probably the first insect whose acquaintance the rose-grower makes is the rose-beetle or "rose-bug" , which sometimes comes in hordes like the Egyptian locusts. The only sure way of vanquishing this enemy is the primitive method of "hand-picking" or jarring off the insects into a pan of kerosene. For this work the early morning is the best, for then the insects are more stupid and inert than ever. Most remedies that kill the beetles kill the roses also.

Black spot. This is a fungous disease, apt to appear late in the season, and usually confined to Hybrid Perpetual Roses; Teas are rarely afflicted with it. The black spots are first noticed on the leaves at the base of the plant, later the disease works upward. About the middle of June gardeners begin to watch for "black spot." As soon as a spotted leaf if observed the spray should be cut off and also two or three leaf-stalks above the unfortunate, although they may seem unaffected. These should be taken away and burned. Spraying in April before the foliage appears and again in late June with Bordeaux mixture is the best preventive, but even this is a bit uncertain: it discolors the foliage and cannot be applied while the plants are in bud.

Aphis. This is a tiny, green, sucking insect which, if you let it, swarms over the stems of plants; whenever aphides are noticed no time must be lost, for they increase with incredible rapidity. Tobacco dust applied when the foliage is moist will discourage them. The surest remedy is tobacco tea; this should be applied with a sprayer or a whisk broom. If the tea is in a wide dishpan the head of the plant may be bent down and the affected branches dipped in it and the aphides both poisoned and drowned, thus making assurance doubly sure. If you have but few plants five cents’ worth of the cheapest smoking tobacco will be enough to make two gallons of the beverage. Pour on boiling water and let stand until cool.

Green worms: various larvæ which in their adult stage become different winged insects. As larvæ they are alike destructive to rose foliage. Take a small powder bellows and while the leaves are moist dust them with powdered hellebore. This will not improve the appearance of the rose-bushes, but in a day it can be washed off with a hose and the enemy will be found to have been expunged also.

Mildew. When roses haven’t an abundance of air and sunlight mildew may appear, especially after cool nights. The symptoms are a crinkling of the foliage, which becomes grayish in tinge. The moment you notice this, dust not only the afflicted rose-bushes bit all the others, as well, with flowers of sulfur. Repeat in a few days, for the sulfur is more a preventative than a cure.

Some roses for beginners in gardening For California gardens

Bush roses
Kaiserin Augusta Victoria
Paul Neyron
La France
General Jacqueminot
Maman Cochet
Helen Keller
Papa Gontier
Ulrich Brunner
Etoile de Lyon
Mrs. John Laing