40 
House & Garden 
AMONG THE NEW NATURAL ROSES 
The lorebcars of Our Infinite Rose Family Were Simple and Single, Qualities Which Are Still of 
Great Garden J alue and Characterize a Number of Splendid Modern Sorts 
J. HORACE MckARLAND, Editor of the American Rose Annual 
H OW did Dame Nature make the rose? 
Did she produce offhand the sweet La 
France, the queenly Druschki, the glowing 
“Jack,” and with them gladden the eye of the 
first man who glimpsed the rose? 
Not at all! The first roses, the purely 
natural roses, are the so-called “wild” roses, 
native in all the arable lands of the earth, and 
spreading mostly by mere chance as the seeds 
are sown by the winds and birds. 
Count the petals of the 
wild rose—the lovely Rosa 
setigera of the east and of 
the prairies, the sweetbriar 
of England. They are five 
in number and the rose is 
therefore single, having but 
one row of dainty and more 
or less colorful petals. Then 
tear apart, if you are suf¬ 
ficiently hard-hearted, a 
modern greenhouse rose, 
and your count will show 
twenty-five or more petals, 
up to ninety or so on the 
very double varieties. 
Old Double Roses 
The rose has, it seems, a 
natural tendency toward 
varying into the production 
of more petals, for double 
roses were known to the 
gardens of long ago in 
Europe. For a long while 
the estimation of the value 
of a variety was in close 
proportion to its doubleness, 
and the open rose was al¬ 
most despised and alto¬ 
gether disregarded. The 
bud received all the atten¬ 
tion; the search for rose 
perfection a generation and 
more ago, and even yet in the estimation of 
some growers, would be at an end when a 
variety had been produced that would be “full 
double,” and would remain as a bud, without 
opening, until it faded. 
I can remember how, as a boy, I was con¬ 
sidered unconventional and somewhat queer 
because I loved a certain rose which remained 
but a few hours in the bud form, quickly 
opening into a glorious flat ivory-tinted flower 
*: <■ 
wm 
A •. 
showing a golden heart of stamens. That 
lovely old Sombrieul—I haven’t seen it for a 
full two score years! 
The more completely double roses are not 
now in the greatest favor, even with the folk 
who know only what the florist forces for or 
on them. The looser Killarney type has taken 
deep hold on the preferences of the rose-buy¬ 
ing public, and in gardens such semi-open 
sorts as Gruss an Teplitz, Ecarlate, Los An¬ 
geles, Willowmere, Mrs. 
Aaron Ward, Duchess of 
Wellington and many 
others are now cherished. 
New Single Sorts 
But this is a story of 
natural roses, of single 
roses, and not of the petted 
greenhouse sorts or of the 
scarcely less petted garden 
hybrid teas and the more 
rugged garden hybrid per- 
petuals. I want to tell of 
some newer forms of these 
natural roses, and to urge 
their proper placing and 
planting, as shrubs for the 
driveway and border, hold¬ 
ing place with the lilacs 
and spireas and hydran¬ 
geas, or climbing wide and 
high over trellises and 
fences, or serving as hedges. 
North America has nearly 
a score of these native 
roses, several of which are 
not hardy north of Ten¬ 
nessee. They are all de¬ 
scribed and many of them 
are illustrated in the 1921 
American Rose Annual. 
The familiar prairie rose, 
R. setigera, is a good shrub, 
.4 climber of far-reaching power, but which may readily 
be trained to post or pillar, is Paradise, large and of uncon¬ 
ventional form, in color a light but not pale pink. It is one 
of the newer natural roses 
The hybridizing of our fa¬ 
miliar prairie rose with the 
Japanese. R. Wichuraiana 
has produced American Pil¬ 
lar. Its flowers are of 
white-eyed crimson to pale 
pink, with golden stamens 
“W. M. 5,” one of Dr. Van 
Fleet’s creations not yet 
available in the trade, bears 
superb 2-inch blossoms in 
clusters which combine the 
crimson of Moyesi with the 
white of Wichuraiana 
