46 
House & Garden 
ROSES PLANTED IN THE FALL 
October and Early November Are Not Too Late For Hybrid Teas and Many 
Others that Are Better for Being Set Out in Autumn 
j. Horace McFarland 
Editor of The American Rose Annual 
''T'HIS year of 1920 has been one 
X of unusual rose prosperity in 
the eastern United States. The cool, 
moist spring built up good foilage 
and strong twigs from which arose 
lovely flowers, in the case of the 
bush roses, and the climbers fairly 
jumped in growth and bloom. The 
colors were more brilliant than 
usual, it seemed to me, and the dis¬ 
play one to be either proud or envious 
of, as one owned or only gazed at 
the healthy, wholesome plants. 
Undoubtedly many who were 
mildly envious of roses seen would 
now move over into the pride of 
possession if the suggestion came at 
the right time. As the rose display 
ends and the growing year closes, 
rose planting does not suggest itself; 
wherefore, believing that fall is the 
right time for much of the rose plant¬ 
ing America needs, I here provide 
the suggestion. 
Probably ninety per cent of the 
outdoor roses are planted late in the 
spring, and of that ninety per cent a 
very considerable proportion in con¬ 
sequence loses speed, prosperity, and 
even life. 
Cause of Failure 
There is a good reason for the 
failure of late spring planting of 
roses, in the fact that rose roots be¬ 
gin action very earl}’, are happy in 
cool and moist soil, and resent dis¬ 
turbance after they have sent forth 
the delicate, almost in¬ 
visible “root hairs” 
which do the wondrous 
work of transmuting dull 
soil into exquisitely alive 
rose petals. 
I have advanced the 
theory that there is a 
“critical date” in spring 
rose planting, after which 
the plants are very seri¬ 
ously handicapped for 
the current season at 
least, if not for all their 
life. This is not the 
place to argue in support 
of that theory’, but it is 
the place to urge that 
there is no critical spring 
date for roses carefully 
planted in the active and 
comfortable soil of fall. 
Hybrid Teas 
"But won’t they 
freeze?” someone in¬ 
quires. Answering for 
the Hybrid Tea class, 
the nearest we have in 
the north to constant 
blooming, or continually 
recurrent blooming roses, 
The pink flowering climber, Mrs. F. W. Flight, produces a 
mass of lovely colored blooms that remain beautiful for sev¬ 
eral weeks. The effect is especially good when used to form 
a low hedge or division fence 
At the sunny corner of the house, back of rhododendrons or other low shrubs, a glorified 
Mid rose, single-flowered type of climber will be very effective. Suitable varieties are 
Hiawatha, American Pillar or Leachstern. If there is abundant room, Paradise, Evangeline 
or Milky Way. The foliage will remain good all summer 
I would say, “Not more, probably, 
than if they had been planted late 
the previous spring.” If carefully 
and promptly transferred from the 
nursery to the well-prepared soil, 
some time during October or early 
November, and if reasonably cut 
back or pruned, their chances of 
surviving an ordinary winter are, 
with suitable protection in the lati¬ 
tude of New York, and north, very 
good. 
No close and accurate observa¬ 
tions have been reported, but there 
is reason to believe that roses so 
planted in the fall make some root 
growth before spring, and they are 
obviously ready to make the earliest 
and best start for bloom prosperity 
in the spring. 
The Hybrid Perpetual roses,— 
which are certainly hybrids and just 
as certainly not at all perpetual as 
to bloom—are much more hardy to 
the winter, and consequently there 
is even more reason for planting in 
the warm and kindly soil of October. 
The splendid hardy climbing 
roses of the newer types, including 
the Multiflora class as represented 
by the Crimson Rambler, and the 
Wichuraiana class of which Silver 
Moon is a good example, do much 
better when planted in the fall. For 
these protection is desirable only in 
the more arctic portions of our 
American climatic range from sub¬ 
tropics to North Pole contiguities! 
Near Chicago, for ex¬ 
ample, they require pro¬ 
tection every winter; my 
good friend Egan at 
Highland Park lays 
down his climbers and 
covers them with earth 
and boards, to make 
sure. 
Rugosa Hybrids 
Rugosas and the Ru¬ 
gosa hybrids are seem¬ 
ingly immune to the as¬ 
saults of Jack Frost’s 
American legions, and 
they also are better when 
fall planted, being early 
to start and earliest to 
bloom, save the wonder¬ 
ful Hugonis and its hy¬ 
brids, likewise hardy but 
not likew’ise in full com¬ 
merce as yet. (Great 
rose advances are in 
sight, when some of Dr. 
Van Fleet’s wonderful 
and rugged hybrids, in¬ 
tended to take a rose 
place in the shrub-bor¬ 
der with the lilacs and 
(Continued on page 68) 
