Ramblin’ Roses
It’s not surprising that antique roses are growing in popularity— only that they took so long to make their comeback. Where to see them and how to grow them: a selective guide.
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I saw a simple propagation technique in Mike and Mary Herr’s garden in Splendora, where they collect and grow old roses to sell and use in their landscaping business. In the dappled shade of East Texas hardwoods, dozens of one-gallon Ziploc bags hung on a clothesline. If I had been in New York City, I’d have sworn it was some kind of avant-garde art installation. Inside each of the carefully labeled bags were four peat pots with rose cuttings sticking out of the top and white roots tangled around the bottom. (Peat pots, available at most nurseries, are those little containers made from compressed sphagnum moss so that the fragile seedlings grown in them can be planted pot and all when the time comes.) The cuttings stay damp and protected, soak up just enough sunlight in their suspended location, and are easily transported into the house during a cold snap. And you can see without a doubt whether they’re ready to be transplanted into one-gallon containers.
Roses can also be grown from seed, but it’s a serendipitous and time-intensive process. The seeds are found inside the hips of only select rose varieties (after a rose’s petals fall, a small, round, usually red fruit called a hip is left behind). These seeds produce a plant that’s completely different—botanically speaking—from the parent plant, and some seeds take years to sprout and more to bloom.
For a Few Dollars More
WHILE NURTURING A RUSTLED ROSE from cutting to flowering shrub will earn you major bragging rights, this time-consuming process is not for everyone. There’s no shame in simply buying your old roses, but choose wisely. If you order your roses by mail, look for those grown on their own roots. Sometimes less vigorous roses are grafted to the more hardy root stock of a different rose. If the grafted rose succumbs, you’ll be left with whatever rose shoots up from the mystery root—not always a bad thing, but rather unpredictable.
Some mail-order suppliers, such as the Antique Rose Emporium, ship roses in containers as well as in the more commonly available bare-root form, which initially look more like kindling than plants. One problem with mail-ordering roses from outside your area—especially bare-root—is they are shipped only during that nursery’s dormant season, which can differ entirely from the optimum fall planting time. Out-of-state growers may also specialize in old roses that do best in their climate, not yours. Always ask growers if a rose is recommended for your particular climate, and unless you live in the Panhandle, disregard “cold-hardiness” as a seal of approval. (It’s our summers that kill, not our winters.) The only full-service mail-order nursery in Texas is the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence (800-441-0002; catalog $5), but several out-of-state concerns, like California’s Greenmantle Nursery (3010 Ettersburg Road, Garberville, CA 95542; send an SASE for a free rose list) and Arena Rose Company (805-227-4094; catalog $5), are hip to our heated gardening demands and carry dozens of varieties of Chinas, Teas, and Noisettes.
Or you can pick out your roses yourself from one of the state’s smaller nurseries that operate by appointment, like Herr’s Lawn and Landscape in Splendora (281-689-7776) and Yesterday’s Roses near San Marcos (Leo and Carol Arguien, 512-357-2269). (You can find out about other specialty nurseries by joining one of the old-rose groups and perusing its newsletter; see “Rose Buds,” page 96.)
According to Shoup, the classes of roses that do best in most parts of Texas are:
Species roses: These are roses that grow wild in nature. The Prairie Rose, with clusters of five-petal pink flowers on arching canes, is native to North America, but Texans may be even more familiar with the Lady Banks (or Banksia) Rose (don’t you love that name?), the heat-loving climber from China that throws its sweeping canes over buildings and up trees, exploding in small, pale-yellow or white blooms at the end of winter. Species roses typically bloom only once a year, but, oh, what a show. “They herald the spring,” says Shoup. Consider the nearly thornless Swamp Rose for areas with poorly draining soil. Plant Mermaid on the side of your house and you can do away with burglar bars.
Chinas: Long-lived and often everblooming, these are the “nuts and bolts of the garden for hedging or foundation plantings,” says Shoup. Try the raspberry-scented Cramoisi Supérieur (which some insist is a Louis Philippe, the rose brought here from Europe in 1835 by Lorenzo de Zavala, who had been Mexico’s minister to France), with its lush red flowers; or the ubiquitous Old Blush.
Teas: These are the roses in your grandmother’s bouquets and can evoke all the romance of her time. Teas typically grow into vase-shaped shrubs perfect for hiding a house’s foundation, and are also used as specimen bushes in the landscape. Duchesse de Brabant sports large, fragrant blooms of soft pink that defy the hottest summers. One bush of Mrs. B. R. Cant, whose flowers are fat cabbages of silvery pink, is a garden in itself, growing eight feet up and out as long as it gets plenty of sun.
Noisettes: “When I give a talk and wear a tie,” says Shoup, “I tell people that I wore this tie not only to classy up my presentation but also because it gives vertical influence to this otherwise wide body. Noisettes are the ties of the garden. The vertical influence is the most important quality to an exceptional landscape.” Lamarque, with sweet-scented double-petaled blooms of the palest yellow, will happily climb and drip nostalgically over any structure it’s provided. Rêve d’Or’s large double-petaled butterscotch-colored flowers are shown to perfection if it’s trained to climb up a post.
The other classes of old roses, which are less enthusiastic about our hot weather, offer fewer choices, but you can find suitable varieties of Polyanthas, perfect for container gardening; lush-blooming Bourbons, the accidental cross between Old Blush and Autumn Damask; the versatile Hybrid Musks, which can be more shade-tolerant than other roses; and best suited for the northern reaches of the state, some old European Roses, which date back to the Middle Ages, and Hybrid Perpetuals, whose full, fragrant flowers almost make up for the plant’s spindly form.
A Time to Plant
FALL IS THE BEST TIME TO PLANT rooted cuttings, since the youngsters will get stressed out if transplanted in the heat of the summer. In Texas you can plant your established, store-bought roses anytime—unless you live in the Panhandle, where young plants should be protected from freezing temperatures.
The spring and summer before planting are the best times to prepare your beds. Keep two things in mind: sun and fresh air. While some roses might survive in the shade, few will thrive without six or more hours of direct sunlight, and stagnant air will make them susceptible to fungus problems. Consider, too, the growth habits—the size and shape—of your rose when choosing a site and provide a sturdy trellis or other structure for your skyrocketing climbers.
As for soil preparation, ideally the pH should be between 6.0 and 6.8 (test kits are available at most nurseries), but this isn’t nearly as critical as good drainage. With the exception of the Swamp Rose, no rose likes to keep its feet wet. Although old roses will sometimes tolerate even hard-packed clay, the better prepared the soil, the healthier the rose. “Good soil is usually dark, with an earthy fragrance that makes you want to dig into it immediately with your bare hands,” says author Druitt. If this is not the natural state of your garden soil, dig down at least a foot, mixing in compost until you can’t resist fondling the dirt. If you hate to dig (or live on a limestone ledge like I do and can’t), consider planting roses in raised beds at least eighteen inches above ground level and filled with good garden soil.
To plant a rose, dig a hole slightly larger than and as deep as the container it’s in. When the hole is filled, make sure the level of the soil around the rose remains at the same level as it was in the container. A bare-root rose should be soaked in water for about an hour before it’s planted in a hole large enough to comfortably accommodate its roots; spread the roots down around a pyramid of soil in the hole and fill it in. Then water the plants well and ignore them. Sort of.
Pamela Puryear and Margaret Sharpe both cautioned against babying old roses, but the plants will enjoy a good soaking once a week during dry spells, a top dressing with composted manure a couple of times a year, and a blanket of mulch. You can prune out dead wood or lop off wayward canes anytime, but don’t cut the plant back severely in the stressful heat of summer or chop off all your buds in late winter before they have a chance to bloom. If you want hips—decorative, seed-bearing, and good for making vitamin C—packed tea—to form on those varieties that produce them (Old Blush, Archduke Charles, and Rêve d’Or, to name a few), don’t remove the dead blossoms in the fall.
So, throw away your pruning calendar and your sulfur spray and just sit back and enjoy the show created by centuries of horticultural exploration and sometimes accidental propagation. And when the first spring bloom of rosebuds lights up your landscape, tip your clippers to the original rustlers—Sharpe, Puryear, Welch, and Shoup—who gathered up the forgotten blooming belles of Texas and saved them from mere memory.
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