Robust roses

The subject is roses, and they are getting under my skin in the best possible way. I am thinking about my garden right now and pondering what I can rip out to include more roses. I go through this every year when the shrub roses start to bloom.

I am even wondering how I could fit in a trip to Belleville Michigan this weekend to hear Mary Buck speak. She is the daughter of Dr. Griffith Buck, and I just met him on the internet.

I was researching the background of a stellar rose called 'Prairie Princess'. I have grown it for 15 years, and to me it is without a fault. I have it climbing an arbor; it also provides the support for a clematis called 'Blue Belle'.

Prairie Princess has perfect, pink fragrant flowers that have the sweet, delicate profile of a hybrid tea blossom. But it has none of the physical frailties of a hybrid tea. Prairie Princess is hardy to Zone 4, Dr. Buck introduced the rose in 1972, only after it met his exacting standards. He was a plant breeder at Iowa State University, and his roses had to survive unprotected, in a windswept field, where winter temperatures bottomed out at 30F degrees below zero.

In Canada we can also be thankful for Prairie Princess because it has been used prominently in the breeding of our own hardy shrub roses.

I have spent many hours in the various rose collections across Ontario, and I have filed away roses that I someday want to plant. Two that are burned in my memory are 'Country Dancer' and 'Carefree Beauty'. So, my jaw dropped when I read that Dr. Buck also bred those beautiful roses. Dr. Buck died in 1991, after he gave us more than 80 roses to be thankful for. Like so many artists, his work is more appreciated now, after his death.

Wouldn't it be fun to make the pilgrimage to the University at Ames, Iowa, where Dr. Buck's roses are lovingly cared for.

Windows down in the car, The Days of Wine and Roses by Henry Mancini, and Misty Roses by Tim Harden playing on the radio. To complete the fantasy, I'd like to sit among his roses, 'Summer Wind', 'Distant Drums' and 'Mountain Music', and have someone, Liam Neeson maybe, recite poetry. I'd choose Somewhere I Have Never Traveled by E.E. Cummings, which contains the line, "I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses."

While I was in Iowa I would visit Davenport, where my father was born. He died ten years before Dr. Buck, and maybe before I really appreciated him. He loved roses too.

That is the strong pull roses exert on us. They remind us of family reunions, picnics and proms. The happy events of June.

I remember planting the rose Jens Munk in our garden 16 years ago. It is planted in sandy soil, on a very steep bank. It's so hard to get to and I have pretty much ignored it for a decade, no mulch, compost, fertilizer, and nothing but rainwater. All it does is bloom its fool head off.

Jens Munk is one of the Explorer series of roses bred in Ottawa at the Government Research Station. It is hardy to Zone 2, and extremely disease resistant. It should be every Canadian's duty to plant at least one Explorer rose (named after great Canadian explorers, or those who explored Canada) in the garden. They are coveted around the world. When I searched Jens Munk on the internet the first hit landed me in Sweden where Jens Munk is recommended for planting in the North. Hit number two came from New Zealand where the Explorer series is a favorite with mail-order nurseries. If you don't plant an Explorer rose, then opt for one from the other famous Canadian group, the Parkland series. These are from a breeding program in Morden Manitoba at the Agriculture Canada Experimental Farm.

Another shrub rose with an iron constitution in my garden is the rugosa rose, Dart's Dash. (Rugosa refers to the "rugose" leaves which are deeply veined.) It is intensely fragrant with glossy, crinkled foliage and mauve-pink flowers. It grows so densely it can be used as a ground cover, or background shrub in a perennial garden. Though this rose was bred in Holland, Canada has introduced more noteworthy rugosa roses than any other country.

My roses survive on tough love. The only thing I make sure to do each year is apply a layer of compost over the roots, and only to the ones I can reach. They grow in full sun, with good air circulation, and no winter protection or chemical treatment. They are a gardener's dream.

My tiny garden can support just a few roses, so I polled a couple of other garden sages about their favorites.

Karen York of Mississauga, author of the just released book, The Holistic Garden, emailed me:

With my sandy soil, I don't do great roses, but I have a shrub rose called 'Lavender Dream' which has performed wonderfully - very little disease, long-blooming with two good flushes of fragrant, mauvy-pink flowers that go on till frost, followed by quite attractive small hips.

My other favourite (which I no longer have, sadly) is Zephirine Drouhin, a climber that is thornless, a welcome feature when you are trying to tame and train long canes onto a lattice! Lovely deep pink, fragrant, old bourbon type flowers.

And Chris Graham, Director of Horticultural Services at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, writes:

I have several favorites, all of which would be what I describe as "hardy landscape roses", that is, a rose that is hardy without winter protection wherever you happen to garden, is disease resistant and shows repeat blooming. I suppose if limited to one, it would have to be 'The Fairy', a wonderful and tough little polyantha. Five to ten minutes of pruning in early spring to remove winter-damaged wood is all the care it requires for the season if you don't mind a few aphids now and then. Its small stature - about knee high - and continuous soft pink flowers make it ideal for any sunny location in foundation plantings, mixed borders or even in a pot.

The Canadian Rose Society is an excellent place to learn more about hardy roses, and all other types. The Rose Society also recommends sources for roses across Canada. In Ontario, they list a total of six nurseries noted for good selections of hardy Canadian roses and antique roses including: Hortico in Waterdown, Martin and Kraus in Carlisle, and Pickering Nurseries in Pickering.

But first, get a book of poetry, some sentimental music, and surrender to the power of roses.