Practical Rose Gardening

Yet another book devoted to roses might elicit sighs from some readers, as there are already plenty of publications on the topic in print. However, this book is different from others. While it deals with roses, to be sure, this book’s emphasis is on how to use roses in a wide variety of settings, rather than simply being a collection of individual rose portraits. As one might expect, a flower of such renown has had a lot written about it. Even as a child, I turned the pages of the Dutch advertising catalogs again and again, drawn in by the beautiful pictures of the flowers within. So you can imagine my disappointment when, in the 1970s, I began working in a garden center, and realized that the stark-blue dream rose ‘Mainzer Fastnacht’ resembled a washed-out dishcloth, the deep red ‘Hanne’ wilted quickly into a faded violet, and the orange ‘Super Star’ was more salmon pink than brightly fluorescent orange.