Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990 TAG: 9005140355
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The poor rose has even been disparaged as an eyesore. But then, plants can reach that stage if they're not sprayed for blackspot and mildew. Disease turns foliage yellow or coats it a powdery white. The leaves fall from the stems, leaving them bare. Roses in that condition can hardly be said to beautify the landscape. That has not shaken the faith of believers, though, who never cease working to improve them. Their efforts have paid off in more rugged plants, better able to shoulder the knocks nature deals them. The new varieties bloom longer and more profusely (some are even described as ever-blooming) while at the same time lowering substantially their needs for care.
But the biggest advancement in roses is in the development of shrub roses. The modern ones are neat and compact, not ungainly encroachers, as the old species are. The big name in this category - by dint of its having won an All-America Rose Selections award the year of its introduction in 1987 - is Bonica. A member of the Meidiland (pronounced May-D-Land) family of landscape roses, all bred, among other roses, by the famous House of Meilland of Cap d'Antibe, France, it is the first shrub ever to have received an AARS award. Bonica blooms from spring until frost.
Classic, old-fashioned roses are receiving a make-over as well. One breeder, David Austin, an Englishman, has spent 40 years refining them. His creations, referred to as David Aus- The biggest advancement in roses is in the development of shrub roses. The modern ones are neat and compact, not ungainly encroachers, as the old species are. tin's English Roses, combine the best qualities of the old and the new. Plants have greater resilience and the ability to bloom over and over again, instead of just once as is the case with the early types. Yet their fragrance still is wonderful and their blossoms are just as voluptuous as they ever were.
Arriving on the scene, too, are better ground-cover roses, whose great virtue is their repeated flowering. Meidiland offers several entries in this group in shades of red, pink and white. Thus, given the many uses to which roses can now be put and the improvements made in the performance they turn in, the time has come, their champions are saying, to cast them as major players in the landscape.
When you get right down to it, there's practically no place on a home property - unless it be shady and damp - that wouldn't be well-served by one or another kind of rose. Hybrid teas combine beautifully in a mixed border with perennials, bulbs and shrubs, or you can group three or four out in the open where all eyes can focus on them. What makes this class unique is that, in general, each stem bears a single bloom. Because plants stand erect, almost stiffly, they impart a formal, aristocrat quality.
Shorter floribundas might be called the darlings of the family. The most versatile, probably, for purposes of landscaping, the effect they create is immensely appealing. Aside from the fact that they are the easiest roses to grow, they remain trim - their foliage clothing the stems to the ground - compact and manageable at 2- to 4-foot in height. Their clusters of blossoms create a massive display that packs a powerhouse of color. Floribundas work well in foundation plantings, edging a walk or driveway, encircling a birdbath, ornamenting a mailbox, or forming a low hedge. They have been called by one leading grower, "a factory that just keeps putting out blooms."
Grandifloras incorporate the best features of hybrid teas and floribundas, exceeding both in size and height. Upright like the hybrid teas, they produce smaller flowers, but in the cluster formation and greater number of the floribundas. Grandifloras are best suited to back-of-the-border positions or in a small grouping of their own as a special display or an informal hedge. Or you can train them up a wall, on a trellis or over fences.
Climbers and ramblers should both be quite familiar. There is, however, a difference in that climbers are taller, stronger and more vigorous, their flowers are larger and their stems quicker to thicken, and they are better at supporting themselves. Ramblers generally flower once in late spring or early summer, climbers bear continuously or at least several times during summer and fall. Because of their arching canes, both types of plants lend themselves to framing windows or doors, screening on ugly view, draping a tree-stump, overlaying a wall, entwining an arbor or enrobing a gazebo.
Miniatures, tiny versions of the other types, grow less than 2 feet tall. Of all roses, they are the ones best suited to container culture, but they also make a nice showing as edging for a flower bed, companions for herbs or mass plantings of their own.
Shrub roses, naturally, make perfect hedges, and as barrier plants, they can't be beat. Spreading laterally, densely growing and branching from the base, they create a living fence, combining beauty with beastly thorns that trespassers would be loathe to penetrate. They can also be used as a background for a border or as a centerpiece planted in the middle of a patio.
Ground-cover roses make their contribution in carpeting hillsides or slopes, providing an alternative to grass or blanketing a berm or a mound, at the same time choking out the weeds.
For a large area you don't know what to do with but want to be colorful, or to screen off from your neighbors, says Sam Rizzi, plant Bonica.
Rizzi is senior vice president of the Conard-Pyle Co., a wholesale nursery in West Grove, Pa., that introduced Bonica and its Meidiland sisters, besides holding the patents on the plants. Bonica, he says, will smother itself with blooms from early summer into fall with no need to prune or remove the dead ones. When flowers fade, they are followed by stunning rose hips that last into winter. For a hedge, space plants 3 feet apart; for ground covers, allow a foot more between them.
Another rose, Rosa moyesii Geranium, also offers a brilliant show of bloom from late August to October.
Rizzi also noted that roses obtained by gardeners in containers rather than in a bare-root state can be planted right through summer (so long as they're kept watered) because their root system has already become established.
Richard J. Hutton, who, as chairman of the board of Conard-Pyle can have his pick of roses, would naturally be expected to feature them heavily around his home, and he does. Offering proof of his belief that "roses are becoming increasingly integrated into the landscape," he displays on the fence enclosing the swimming pool two large-flowered climbers, Golden Showers along the center, and Rhonda, a coral-colored bloomer, at the posts.
On the bank behind the pool, groupings of Bonica mingle with dwarf conifers and dwarf flowering shrubs. In one place he has Snowmound spirea in scattered plantings around Bonica. He even likes chrysanthemums mixed with roses. For repeat flowering in a shrub, he declares, "nothing compares to a rose - unless, that is, you live in the tropics."
Viki Ferrendea, assistant horticulture director at Wayside Gardens in Greenwood, S.C., depicts the "new old-fashioned roses" as shrubs, more weeping in their habit of growth than the hybrid teas from which they are descended. Wayside, a retail mail order nursery, is America's exclusive authorized distributor of the David Austin roses, which it introduced last year.
Her favorite rose is Blanc Double De Coubert. It bears white semi-double flowers and beautiful foliage that's the darkest green of all. Because of its incredible fragrance, she planted it by a window, where it also serves as a background for other plants. The rose has yet to be sprayed.
A rose rarely bothered by bugs is Iceberg, which Weeks, its producer, calls "one of the top 10 roses of the world and the best landscape white around." A wholesale distributor in Uplands, Calif., it also carries one-of-a-kind Old Smoothie, a hybrid tea that's unique for its lack of thorns. Weeks, which bred it, is the only source. Stems are so long and strong, says the firm's manager, Ron Stanley, the plants could almost function as a hedge, and a fragrant one, too.
J. Benjamin Williams, an independent rose breeder based in Silver Spring, Md., is known the world over for his patio-type Mini-Flora introductions: Red Fountains, an exceptionally drought-and disease-resistant climber; and Rose Parade, a taller-type floribunda that in 1975 won an AARS medal. He, too, calls Iceberg the "world's No. 1 rose" for landscaping in any situation. He compares floribundas to a mass of azaleas. Along a wall, 3 feet or higher, he recommends Sea Foam, a shrub rose originated by the late Ernest W. Schwartz.
Although roses normally require six hours of sun a day, if set out in an open place that received full morning sun, and if well watered and fertilized, a vigorous grower like Mr. Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth or Tropicana could get by on only three hours a day.
One final bit of advice from Williams could save the day for a buyer attempting to make a choice from a bewildering array of varieties. If all else fails, he says, opt for an AARS winner. It's a benchmark you can depend on.
by CNB