center-rose-garden

The Center Rose Garden

There are about 220 roses in the center rose garden, consisting of 30 Hybrid Teas, 10 English Roses, some polyanthas and a lot of miniatures. The garden is a circle 40 feet in diameter, divided into 6 sections separated by brick paths radiating out from the center. In four of the sections there are Hybrid Teas towards the center with miniature roses and some polyanthas toward the outside and along the paths. In the remaining two sections there are the English Roses.

The miniature climber Jeanne Lajoie is not in the center rose garden but is off by herself, devouring my bird feeder.

The Roses by David Austin, often referred to as English Roses, are his attempts to create roses that have the look of the Old Roses but with the ability to repeat like the modern roses. At first I was very exited about having roses like my Old European roses only with with repeating bloom. But after growing some English Roses, I find them to be much closer to hybrid teas in winter hardiness, disease resistance than the Old roses. Some, like Mary Rose, are pretty hardy though and form a nice shrub.

Hybrid Teas and Floribundas are the modern roses seen everywhere these days. They are *just* barely hardy here. Those that are grafted will have to have the bud union protected in the winter, either by mounding dirt around the graft or by planting the rose with the graft several inches below ground. What ever remains exposed to the cold and wind will be dead the following spring. Besides protecting the bud union, the other tricks to making they survive the winter are watering them throughout the winter, and making sure they go into dormancy healthy.

Miniature Roses are wonderful little roses that come in all the colors possible for roses. They vary a great deal in flower form and size, some being a short as 4 inches while others are close to a floribunda in size. Despite their tiny size, they are not fragile. In fact, they survive the winters much better than their taller hybrid tea cohorts in the garden. Mine are all on their own roots so there is no bud union to worry about protecting in the winter.

Polyanthas are usually smaller roses, flowering in clusters. They were popular in the 1920s but now there are only a few commercially available.

[ The Old European Roses ] [ Shrubs and Species Roses ] [ The Center Rose Garden ]
[ The Netter Page ] [ [The Rose Tour ] [ Credit where credit is due] [ Gardening links ]

Copyright (C) C Netter 1995

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