Welcome to my Rose Garden. I hope you enjoy our collection of rose information. Roses are beautiful flowers. They are exquisite, romantic, and one of my favorites. The lovely music you are listening to is Finally Found Someone sung by Barbra Streisand.
During Queen Victoria's reign, there were many customs which were popular among the young maidens. At mighnight on the night before the longest day of the year, an unmarried girl would slip out into the garden of her family home so that she could pick one perfect rose just as the clock struck 12. This perfect rose would be placed in a glass of water. If it was still fresh in the morning, she would take it as a sign that the man she loved returned her affections. If the petals had fallen, it was a gin that he would never marry her.
Another custom was for the maiden to wrap a rose picked at midnight in white paper and put it away in a warm place to dry. On Christmas day she would wear it to church. It was said that if a girl did this her tru love would come up and kiss her!
Other customs for young maidens with several suitors could play a version of "He loves me, he loves me not." with a rose instead of a daisy. She picked a series of petals from a rose, indicated the name or initial of one lad on each, then cast them all into a bowl of water. The petal which remained floating after the others sank was the one with the name of the man she would eventually marry.
Cleopatra was one of the great romantics when she covered the floors of her apartments with rose petals to welcome Mark Antony home.
The Emperor of France, during Napoleonic wars, arranged a truce so that a new variety of rose could be delivered by sea as a gift to his wife, Josephine. As most of us know, roses still can serve as a peacemaker in quarrels or as a sign of enduring affection, which is why they remain the most popular flower for wedding anniversaries.
Oh, my Love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June
Oh, my Love is like the melodie
That's sweetly played in time.
By Robert Burns
In the victorian era, the language of roses is a token of love. Individual varieties have different meanings. Today the language of flowers is forgotten. However, a faint echo of this charming custom is giving one's true love a single red rose on Valentine's Day.
Some of the most popular beliefs today is that the Language of Roses have other means. Some have remained the same, while others have taken on a new meaning.
The roses we grow and love today are descended from a long line of garden roses reaching back through many cultures. Roses figured prominently in Roman and Greek festivals; Egyptians placed wreaths of roses in the tombs of their dead; and roses are mentioned on clay tablets written in cuneiform characters by ancient Babylonians. The Chinese also have a rich garden rose tradition extending back to their distant past. Interestingly, Chinese and European rose lines developed along quite independent courses until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when European explorers, botanists, and plant hunters returned from voyages to Asia with living plants and seeds of Chinese Roses.
English Roses have been around for about thirty years, but their popularity and distribution in the United States is a very recent phenomenon ~ only with the last decade have they become commercially available in American garden centers and nursery catalogs. English Roses perform in the varied climatic areas around the United States, not in England, the home of their creation, where growing conditions can be quite different. To date, the designation "English Rose" has not been accepted by the rarefied world of organized rose societies. Because English Roses are neither wholly old nor wholly new, the American Rose Society placed them in the rather nebulous, all-encompassing "Shrub" class.
Growing healthy roses is really not all that difficult. the major obstacle any rose grower must overcome is the years of brainwashing we have all received from so-called experts. Most rose books emphasize the difficulties: weeds, insects, disease. While problems do exist, they are, for the most part, cosmetic and easily overcome with simple basic horticultural practices.
Classic Roses
The Random House Book of Old
Roses
By Roger Phillips, Martyn E. Rix
The Graham Stuart Thomas Rose Book
By Graham Stuart Thomas
Review
Graham Stuart Thomas' The Old Shrub Roses was first published in 1955, his Shrub Roses of Today appeared in 1962, and his Climbing Roses Old and New came out in 1965. The three books have now been revised and enlarged for this new compiled edition, and new illustrations have been added along with "Notes on the Origin and Evolution of Our Garden Roses," C. C. Hurst's classic essay on the subject written in 1941. Thomas, now 85, is the author of 15 other garden books.
Old Roses and English Roses
100 English Roses for the American Garden
200 Tips for Growing Beautiful Roses
By David Austin
Review
This lovely little book is an indispensible addition to any rose lover's library. Small enough to take with you to your local nursery and yet has enough detail to be very informative.
By Clair G. Martin, Sylvester Arena
Review
Written by a world-renowned authority on roses, this how-to book and a field guide to English roses includes detailed descriptions for each of the 100 roses featured and provides information on background, fragrance, blooms, garden uses, and more. Color illustrations & photos.
By Barbara Ashmun
Review
Shrub roses can reach a point of lush growth in summer when the plant is about to topple over onto the paths. Save the prunings from fruit trees for just this sort of crisis. Take a nice sturdy branch with some side shoots, and stick it in the ground below the rose bush to give the rose canes extra support. You may need several such branches to prop up a strong-growing rose.
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