374 
The Garden Magazine, August, 1920 
A NY honest Rose-lover will admit that the highly-developed 
L Hybrid-tea Roses of the day, lovely as are their blooms, 
are difficult and elusive as plants. They are subject to bugs and 
bothers, and Jack Frost lays his chill hand upon them with an- 
nual frequency. When they are at their June best of bloom, the 
flowers are marvelous, but the bush has little to commend it, 
and in the heat of our July and August days it is all too often 
leggy, leafless, and lorn. We coddle it then with sprays and 
manures, and hope for the fall days of regenerating coolness, 
in which before freezing we may expect to have some new growth 
and some wonderful blooms. 
Yet the fact remains that most American homes having a bit 
of ground to serve as a garden are practically Roseless. Indeed, 
the total sale of Rose plants in the United States in 1920 did not 
provide more than one fifth of a Rose plant for each home in the 
land — and when I consider that my own little garden had about 
a hundred new plants 1 feel like a Rose robber! 
The truth is that the Roses of to-day do not commend them- 
selves as universal and easy shrubs, and therefore most of us 
know them by grace of the florists and by tradition of our grand- 
mothers’ gardens. 
It is to meet this need, to put the influence of the Rose into 
more homes and lives, that Dr. Van Fleet is laboring. He hopes 
to furnish the land with Roses that are not only lovely when in 
bloom, but are sightly garden plants when out of bloom. He 
wants to provide these Roses with resistance to cold and to dis- 
ease, so that they will be as dependable as Mock-oranges. 
Several visits to his Rose factory in May and June show- 
progress, gratifying and astonishing to those of us who admire, 
but merely encouraging to the Doctor himself. He has new- 
varieties of entrancing loveliness, covered with broad single 
and semi-double blooms from purest white to clear lemon yellow, 
and with tints of salmon and pink. He has shrubs with carmine 
blooms, and the whole gamut of reds is being run through his 
working in the deep-toned Roses (especially R. Moyesi) of far- 
away China. 
Hardy yellow Roses have been more of a hope than a fact in 
America. We have several, but they are painfully deficient as 
shrubs. The introduction in recent years of the Chinese Rosa 
Hugonis has added very notably to our resources, both as to 
color, floriferousness, and shrub quality. Hugonis is a lovely 
rose, and it adds not only color and good habit to the garden, 
but as well is desirably early to bloom, anticipating other roses 
by half a month and continuing for about three weeks to furnish 
its arching wands of clear and lively yellow. 
Despite its reluctance to produce fertile seeds w-hen crossed 
with other species, Dr. Van Fleet has succeeded in doing wonders 
with Hugonis. With the fine Rosa altaica it gives forms of great 
beauty in bloom, foliage 
and plant. Flowersmeas- 
uring as much as three 
inches across are seen on 
the plants of these hy- 
brids, with foliage that 
is different and pleasing, 
and with a graceful shrub 
habit. 
C ROSSED with the 
familiar and excel- 
lent Japanese Rosa ru- 
gosa, Hugonis has yet 
dominated even this vig- 
orous form to a notable 
extent and the resulting 
hybrid seen in May was 
semi-double, full and 
large, beautifully cupped, 
and in pleasing pink 
shades. Some of these 
rugosa crosses are dwarf 
in habit, giving promise of a desirable border form, utterly 
different from anything now in our gardens. 
Another intermixture of Hugonis is with a white form of 
rugosa, and the hybrid surprisingly shows pink shades, the sul- 
phur heart of the full flowers— averaging nineteen petals each — 
being the Hugonis contribution. This beautiful bloom does not 
fade to pure white, retaining its distinction to the end. 
Hugonis crossed with the fine American Hybrid-tea Rose 
Radiance has given, five years from the seed, a plant of good 
form, covered with very fragrant semi-double blooms of light 
salmon pink, tipped with a deeper hint of Radiance. This 
hybrid is a Rose delight. 
Rosa Moyesi is a very distinct Chinese wild Rose, the sizable 
flowers of which, in the best forms, are a peculiar and pleasing 
deep dark red, while the hint of blue in the green of the foliage, 
and the strongly upright growth of the canes, further distinguish 
it. Dr. Van Fleet has worked wonders with Moyesi. One hybrid 
with Wichuraiana shows large single blooms of glowing crimson 
surrounding a white eye, which in turn encircles bright yellow 
stamens. The bush is of vigorous pillar habit. 
Another Moyesi hybrid is with Rosa Engelmanni of the 
American west, and it seems to Dr. Van Fleet a conspicuous and 
desirable sort. The flowers are large, of even bright carmine, 
which does not fade blue, though the foliage has in it a distinct 
bluish tint. 
Along the approach to the Rose factory, on one visit to it, were 
blooming certain brilliantly crimson double Roses, which proved 
to be of an unnamed rugosa hybrid — just an incidental treasure. 
Dr. Van Fleet has used rugosa effectively for many years, and is 
yet at it, as we have seen. He has some fine hybrids between 
Wichuraiana and forms of the “China” Rose, one of which, 
“W. C. 24,” blooms its pink flowers constantly on a dwarf and 
very attractive bush. A hybrid between the favorite white 
climber Silver Moon and the old Tea Rose Isabella Sprunt, 
provides full flowers in clusters of a delicate lemon shade. What 
the hybridizer calls a first-rate hedge Rose, because it is of suit- 
able form and blooms throughout the season, has in it a mingling 
of rugosa with Triomphe Orleannais. It has been sometimes 
called Rosa Iwara. 
B UT 1 may not continue to catalogue the exhibits, lest I run 
out of adjectives, or commit the familiar solecism of de- 
scribing each of these really “ new creations” as “the best ever.” 
The whole display is fascinatingly interesting to a Rose lover, 
not only because of the sheer novelty and beauty of the Rose 
hybrids, but because of their great importance to this yet Rose- 
less land of ours. 
Here, 1 firmly believe, are some sorts that will put Roses in 
the yards and in the 
hearts of hundreds of 
thousands of Americans, 
when once the official red- 
tape and the unofficial 
but very real terror of 
Congress have been over- 
come. If the American 
Rose Society can be an 
instrument in arranging 
to help inpropercommer- 
cial distribution of some 
of these new Roses, it will 
again justify its increas- 
ing influence and mem- 
bership. Recent corres- 
pondence with the 
Secretary of Agriculture, 
Mr. Meredith, provides 
hope for a working ar- 
rangement for dissemin- 
ation under equitable 
conditions. 
A FEW FACTORY SAMPLES 
Part of the Rose garden where Dr. Van Fleet gives his "creations” their try-out. 
In the foreground a promising Wichuraiana and Pernetiana hybrid. Blooms 4-in. 
in diameter, cream-white with salmon centre, "as double and as perfect as a Dahlia" 
