Rose Suppliers and Their Catalogues

I hesitate to recommend a bareroot supplier with whom I've not personally dealt, so my list of American nurseries is limited to the four from which I have purchased.  They are Jackson & Perkins, Box 1028, Medford, Oregon 97501; Roses by Fred Edmunds, 6235 S.W. Kahle Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070; Spring Hill Nurseries, Box 1714, Peoria, Illinois 61656; and Stocking Rose Nursery, 785 N. Capitol Avenue, San Jose, California 95133.

Suppliers such as these have lots to recommend them--they have wide selections of rose varieties and efficient shipping methods that assure healthy plants, timely in their arrival.  If shipment is unduly delayed or stock is beneath your expectation, most suppliers will replace plants with no questions asked.

Catalogues can be misleading.  They sometimes suggest that certain varieties have highly desirable qualities (powerful fragrance, extreme vigor, disease-resistance, bountiful bloom), which, if you grow them, you're apt to find they don't have at all.  Color photos can make a variety look better than it looks in real life or lend a hue to which it can never truly aspire.  Others are pitifully unjust and either rob the poorly depicted variety of its true color or fail to capture its exquisite form.  Order catalogues anyway.  They're free, and you can compare them for varieties on which suppliers agree.  Above all, learn catalogue lingo.  "Tender" means the variety is likely to freeze.  "disease-prone" suggests rampant mildew.  "Powerfully fragrant" describes roses from which you can safely count on scent.  "Light fragrance" may very well mean no discernible aroma.

Visit your closest municipal rose garden.  There you can see numerous varieties and decide for yourself which appeal to you and which obviously perform well.  Also, you can usually preview new introductions not yet rated by the ARS.

One catalogue I believe you should have will cost you two dollars.

Roses of Yesterday and Today on Brown's Valley Road in Watsonville, California 95076, specializes in old roses, though they carry some modern ones too.  Varietal descriptions are accurate and charming.  When I first grew roses and didn't yet know of this wonderful supplier, a woman I met, who grew not a single rose, lent me her copy.  After a week, when I was still reading it with delight and calculating how many varieties I could squeeze into my yard the next year, my friend called me.  She wondered if I might return her catalogue soon, confessing that, although she wasn't actually doing any planting, she missed it, since she read it from cover to cover at least once a week.

If you live in the United States, you are permitted to import plants directly from Canada with no restrictions.  Importing from Europe is quite another matter.  Permits are necessary, and you will be required to plant any imported bushes at least twenty feet, farther in some areas, from anything else.  Representatives of government agencies responsible for this area of agriculture must visit you yearly and attest to your compliance.  Don't even consider such a hassle for anything you can buy within the United States or Canada.  For some few rare varieties, you may decide it's worth the trouble.

As long as Canadian bushes are allowed into this country without quarantine restrictions, let me give you one final recommendation.  There is a perfectly wonderful rose nursery in Pickering, Ontario.  Before writing to Pickering, though you should know some things.

First, only a fraction of the available varieties are pictured in the catalogue, so you need to know exactly what you want to order.  Second, the bushes are shipped during two periods.  If you live in a temperate climate, you may have rosebushes for fall planting from late October through November.  Otherwise, shipments for spring planting are made in March and April.  Third, bushes bear little resemblance to those grown in Wasco, California, where the majority of bareroot bushes sold in the United States originate.  Canadian bushes are diminutive compared to their American cousins.  When I received the first plants I ordered from Pickering, I questioned the soundness of my choice of suppliers.  They were tiny, not half the size of those from Wasco.  They had, however, vastly more developed root systems.  While I was dubious at planting, all doubts were long gone by the end of the first growing season.  The Canadian bushes became as large as any from American suppliers.  I'm convinced that their complex root structure, including masses of hairlike roots, is the reason.

Finally, prices are cheaper than those here, but Pickering will send to the United States only roses whose patents have expired.  The nursery adheres to this regulation in recognition of royalties due American hybridizers.  So don't ask for any new varieties, even if they're offered for sale to Canadians.  There are, however, numerous worthy non patented varieties, as you'll learn in Chapter 9.

To receive its list of available roses, including a large selection of old varieties, write to Pickering Nurseries, 670 Kingston Road, Pickering, Ontario LiV iA6.

A devoted rosarian specializing in rose-plant availability can tell you where to find obscure varieties.  Beverly Dobson annually compiles an exhaustive list of rose varieties, with a coding system telling where they can be bought.  Her lists are invaluable, for they include European sources and instructions on how to obtain importing privileges.  Her Combined Rose List can be obtained by writing to Beverly R. Dobson, 215 Harriman Road, Irvington, New York 10533.

Grading

Bushes being marketed by growers and suppliers must be graded according to specific standards.  For the most part, you shouldn't consider any grade but 1.  For hybrid teas and grandifloras, this means that bushes, after having been field grown for two years, must have at least three vigorous canes (main stems), each of a specific length.  Floribundas are required to have the same number of canes, but they can be shorter.  Grade 11/2 denotes fewer canes, but may be acceptable if no grade 1's are available.  Never buy grade 2.  Most suppliers sell only grade 1 to the general public, so you'll never have to make the choice between 1 and 11/2 unless you are notified that only grade 11/2 is available, at a lower cost.

As for those wax-coated, packaged rose plants available in supermarkets, I can't honestly tell you never to buy them, but I'm tempted to.  First, one rarely receives a guarantee as to variety or replacement (such assurances are routine from suppliers).  More important, the waxing, while theoretically a sound procedure that permits prolonged and safe storage, is actually problem-ridden.  Plants that are wax coated tend to dry out, and later growth and root development can be inhibited.  Finally, the sun is supposed to melt the wax, but you may very well be planting long before heat from sunlight is going to be anywhere near intense enough to melt wax.

All-America Rose Selections 

Each year since 1940 (except for 1951, when nothing seemed worthy) the AARS (All-American Rose Selections) has granted its ultimate award to one or several roses by declaring them the All-America Rose Selection for the following year.  The selection is, of course, of great importance to a variety's likelihood for popularity.  Hybrid teas, grandifloras, and floribundas are all candidates.  For the most part, this designation is to be heeded; the majority of the roses I'm suggesting for you in Chapter 9 are also All-America Rose Selections.  But for one reason or another, some real duds have earned this title; we'll talk about several of them.  For the record, a list of the winners chosen since the award began appears on the opposite page.

All-American Rose Selections need not originate within the United States.  Rose varieties from anywhere are eligible if an American supplier decides to introduce and subject them to the whims of the AARS standards committee.  More than one-third of the roses listed as "Best Bets" in Chapter 9 are from abroad.  The rest are American, though that has no bearing whatsoever on my choosing them.

Roses of the Year

Some growers annually declare a "Rose of the Year" award on their own.  Be wary of them.  Often such "winners" are being pushed on you because the grower invested heavily in planting the variety while it was under consideration for All-America Rose Selection and got caught with a surplus when it lost.

In defense of the growers, I must admit that sometimes their selections do pan out.  When the great American hybridizer Bill Warriner came up with Pristine and had it available for introduction in 1978, Jack & Perkins, for whom Warriner works, knew they had a real winner on their hands.  They could have endured the two-year test period imposed by the All-America Rose Selection committee with confidence that Pristine would emerge a winner, but why?  Instead, they named it their rose of that year and hoped the buying public would endorse their decision.  It did.  Pristine now enjoys the number-two spot on the list of top exhibition roses in the United States.

All-America Rose Selections are hardly the last word for identifying great varieties, but they're the best guide we have short of testing everything ourselves.  So learn the difference between them and "roses of the year"--titles growers pragmatically confer themselves.  All-America Roses have emerged triumphant from test gardens authorized by All-America Rose Selections Incorporated.

When to Order

When you place an order for bareroot rosebushes, you get to choose the delivery date.  It can be ASAP or at the tag end of the shipping season, depending on when you think you'll feel like planting and when it's safe to do so where you live.

There's a move afoot among rosarians for fall planting, based on the theory that roots put in the ground in November have a chance to settle in before they have to start growing in the spring.  I match with this group, but I can afford to because my winters are never severe enough to damage new, tender growth that's bound to appear soon after I stick a bush in the ground.  If I lived where temperatures plummet regularly, I'd ask for rosebushes to be shipped after dangers of hard frosts are past.

Regardless of when you want plants to arrive, order them early to make sure you don't end up with substitutions, especially if a variety you like is "in short supply" or a catalogue specifies "one per customer, please."  If you dilly dally, you'll get your money refunded or you'll be placed on next year's waiting list.

After you order whichever roses you decide on, dig holes at designated sites and prepare to do some planting. If you want to begin pampering your roses, dig planting sites early and give soil additives a chance to mellow.