Amen -- nice article! I've fixed the link, I think.

Here is a link that might be useful: Why we still need roses

Why We Still Need Roses

Great article! The link in your post didn't work, so I put up a link here.

I like Huffington Green. I get taunted by trolls but I like the good information and reading everyone's comments. Flowers growing on this earth is good by me especially the ones that help bees.

Excellent article: well-written, succinct, intellectual ad emotional appeal with being too high-brow/specialized or too maudlin. I've saved and will print it out for the local garden clubs. Above all, it should go the local rose club, which is all about exhibition roses!

I certainly agree: from the beginning of my gardening here I've grown my roses without watering them after the first year and using only hay and garden detritus for fertilizer. We have an annual summer drought here, and the reservoir that supplies us with water also serves two towns and a small city. There are no glaciers on the Apennines. I don't want my garden to grow at the expense of someone else's not having water to cook and drink and wash with. However, we do live about as close as you can come to rose heaven here, with abundant annual rain (way too abundant this year) and deep soil that the roses can dig their roots into. Not everyone's so lucky.
The truths about roses certainly have a hard time entering into circulation. I don't know why. Here in Italy people seem to have a hard time separating ornamental gardening from the methods and goals of food gardening. The latter tends to be a labor intensive business which requires ongoing work, while in ornamental gardening as I practice it the tasks are more intermittent and Nature is to a greater extent a collaborator, not the Enemy. And one of the goals is to be out gardening, not only to have a garden or the products of a garden (flowers). I'm taken aback myself at times when I reflect what a generous return I get just from digging a good hole, putting a plant in it, and then waiting a few years. I do work, of course, and quite a bit, but for the size of our garden (about two acres at this point) I'd say it's pretty low labor.
Perhaps with your post you'll get the word out to a few more people. Congratulations on trying!
Melissa

Thank you for the good work getting out an important message.

Beautifully written!

Thanks, I enjoyed that very much.

Rosefolly

Thanks so much for fixing the link :) My hope is that this will encourage others to "fight back" against all the people - professionals landscape designers and home gardeners alike - who've been convinced that roses are just too fussy for modern gardeners to bother with. What would our world be without our gorgeous, smelly roses?!?!?

Very well said, Linda.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

"people seem to have a hard time separating ornamental gardening from the methods and goals of food gardening." This is such an important point, Melissa! There is some change beginning to happen here in California as more farmers and home food growers realize that without the flowers to attract the beneficial insects and pollinators like bees, there is less food produced. Even many of the vineyards have roses at the end of each row, although I've been told that's to detect mildew! Whatever the reasons, I think food gardens need flowers. And as Rosalind Creasy has demonstrated with her edible gardening movement, flower gardens can now include food too. Hopefully the artificial separation of food and flowers will wane and people will also realize that edible flowers (including roses) are an excellent source of food.

Great article! So glad to see this "out there" so more of the general public can be better informed about roses.

Hi Ibuzzell: Thank you for an extremely well-written article. I enjoy your superb writing. Why we need roses?

1) Own-roots with many to choose: own-root Austin water-hogs that handled my Chicagoland's prolonged rain with zero black spot. Or own-root carefree roses like Texas' Earthkind. Or own-root acid-tolerant like Rugosas. Or heat & drought tolerant like teas and Chinas.

2) Own-roots behave BETTER than what people are used to: grafted-on Dr. Huey that BS when it's wet and acidic.

Someone asked if Scepter'd Isle is BS-resistant, I kept my mouth shut since I didn't know why my own-root is 100% clean even in the worst spot possible (shade and constant rain). When I dug that up, I found a huge neck where the roots spread out, much bigger than the constricting bud-union on my Knock-out on Dr. Huey.

Same with Charles Darwin, I dug that up at 8 inches from the main trunk, and chopped half of his root off. I didn't know that his root spreads our horizontally, rather than go downward vertically like Dr. Huey. Own-root is more efficient in getting water than grafted on Dr. Huey, where the bud-union is constricting, and declines in cold zone, wetness, or acidic soil.

3) We need roses to protect our homes from perverts who climb into the window. I'm into real-crime stories, it's amazing how many brutal crimes were committed by intruders climbing into a window, either from the basement, or from 1st floor. I believe that roses played a vital role in the old days to protect homes from being invaded.

4) Roses are NOT invasive. I can kill an own-root rose in 10 minutes, versus 45 min. for grafted on Dr. Huey. That's much better than 1 week to kill English Ivy, 1 month to kill pink yarrow, 1 day to kill zebra grass, 4 hours to kill mint & bee-balm, and a full-time job killing dandelions and baby trees & baby shrubs that sprout on my lawn.

Good points, strawberryhill. I like your idea of using thorny roses as home protection - cool! We've noticed that birds use them for safe nesting too.
We too like the own-root roses. Right now my purchased 'Golden Celebration' (probably on Dr. H) is covered with BS while a cutting I rooted and planted nearby on OR is clean as a whistle.
I don't know what happened, but we did have one rose that was invasive: The Fairy. Not sure why it was travelling underground so madly, but it was worse than a blackberry.

Hi Ibuzzell: The Fairy is a cross between Paul Crampel and Lady Gay (hybrid wichurana). Dr. Huey is also Hybrid Wichurana, Large Climber. That class has extending invasive root, hard to kill.

I have the same experience, Ibuzzell. People reported Golden Cel. blackspots, but my own-root had only 3 BS leaves the 1st year as a band in rainy late fall. It has been 100% clean ever since, going into its 3rd year.

My belief that the more efficient the water flow to the leaves, the more it can cope with wetness. Dr. Huey can fetch water well with his invasive root, but the water has to travel UP through a constricted BUD-UNION, that might be dried out in stores, or damaged by winter, or acid soil. That's the downfall of grafted roses.

I moved Golden Cel., the trunk is big, the root spreads out horizontally, easier for water to flow up as own-root. Dr. Huey goes straight down, which sap and nutrients have to fight gravity to move upward.

Fifteen years ago I gave up on roses since I planted hybrid teas grafted on Dr. Huey in an acidic soil, they black spotted despite spraying. Now growing own-root roses in alkaline soil is a piece of cake, no spray and less watering.

I have an own-root Frederic Mistral, zero BS in our constant-rain late-fall. It was blooming at 90 degrees heat. Below is 100% clean Frederic Mistral, taken late fall. Own-root Romanticas like my alkaline clay.

Why I need roses? Frederic Mistral's scent is pure heaven, like a brief glimpse of paradise:

This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Sat, May 18, 13 at 14:14

I really need my roses. As long as I have some roses and some pets, I can be happy. When my pets are out there with me in the garden, it's the best day ever.

I liked your article too, Linda. My garden plump with flowers and roses adds a dimension of abundance and beauty to my life that I wouldn't otherwise have. Food and shelter I have. Beauty and life, I crave. I sat on the ground and trimmed grass from the flower beds this afternoon and sat at eye level with the bees in the columbine. That is living at its finest, I think. Gean

Oh, and I meant to mention that, in my former life, I spent 10 years earning my living as a rose fanatic garden designer. I don't think a single client escaped my proselytizing, and I can't think of a single design, not even one of those contemporary "exotic" purple and orange foliage-oriented explosions, where I failed to sneak at least one rose into the mix. ):-)

That was a wonderful article, Linda. Thank you! And there have been so many thoughtful comments on this thread.

I agree with Gean, that the moments spent in our gardens and with the creatures that benefit from them are some of the most satisfying moments in life -- when you feel like THIS is what it means to be alive and living well. Others will feel differently of course, having different interests, different passions.

And without question some gardeners will belittle the rose gardener. Earlier this year I extended my flower gardens and added a great many roses. My husband was so proud and boasted to an old friend of his who has been gardening his land for almost 30 years. The friend's response was, "Is she crazy??? What does she think she's doing growing roses in North Carolina?" Maybe when I was younger I would have been hurt or questioned myself. My own grizzly response was, "That doesn't surprise me, that he said that. His gardens are purely functional." :)

I don't know how I would get through my troubles without my gardens and roses. And there is a certain kind of content with knowing you will never learn everything there is to know, not even if you live to be 123.

Hi Ibuzzell: Why we need roses? Roses is a safe hobby. What if the mother of Sandyhook killer, Nancy Lanza, was into roses rather than guns?

There's the true story of a orthopedic surgeon who had a fine gun collection. He was showing them off to the boyfriend of his daughter. That same day, she broke up with him. The boy took one gun from her father's collection, and shot her. She was paralyzed and was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. What if that surgeon was into roses, rather than gun?

Unfortunately roses get the bad rap of needing spraying with chemicals ... no one want to bother with that. I have to spray my shower stall with vinegar or hydrogen peroxide to kill mold, and it's the most unpleasant task. Thank God I don't have to spray my 45+ own-root roses.

People don't realize that the German chemical giant Bayer makes other crop-control products, and NOT just for roses. 94 million acres of corn are planted with seeds treated with pesticides. There's also the Oberon-insecticides spray for corn.

There's a book about fighting cancer written by an M.D. with a brain tumor. He wrote about growing up in France and watching farmers nearby spraying their corn field. There are 3 studies that linked bee decline to Bayer Pesticide. If our crops are sprayed, and if our flowers are sprayed, then how will the bees survive?

No flower can smell as good as roses, I grow plenty of fragrant flowers: peonies, lilacs, daffodils, gardenia .... and none of them can match the beauty of roses either. Below is a hedge of Carefree Celebration at the rose park, after October frost. They spray, and I don't see any bees among their 1,200 roses.

Here is a link that might be useful: New studies linking bee decline to Bayer

This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, May 20, 13 at 10:18

With the news of Angelia Jolie's double-mastectomy, I was checking on pesticides and cancer risk, and found a large study of 30,454 farmers' wives in Iowa and North Carolina, and here's the study's conclusion:

"The authors found no clear association of breast cancer risk with farm size or washing of clothes worn during pesticide application, but risk was modestly elevated among women whose homes were closest to areas of pesticide application."

Here is a link that might be useful: American Journal of Epidemiology on pesticide

In our very visual world where things need to look "perfect", 24 hour on demand contact (cell phones/email) that lets us never truly be off work and cheap gardening services that relieve you of gardening "work" and make easy "perfection".

Many are looking for what a mow and blow service can maintain quickly. We need to educate the mow/blow services as well.

Since I have been working in the upper part of our lower veggie garden this past week. I realized once again how scent is so very important.

A rose with no scent is like the rest of landscape plants with out wafting scents in the wind. But a rose that sends out ribbons of scent can stop you in your tracks and remind you of the past. Maybe a grandparents home or garden or a friend that wore a rosy perfume.

So many aspects to growing a good rose are lost to many of the new gardeners today.

"I sat on the ground and trimmed grass from the flower beds this afternoon and sat at eye level with the bees in the columbine."

Thanks, Gean. I thought I was the only nut that loves this! I hand weed and hand-trim my grassy paths and find it a strangely meditative practice.

Love this, PortlandMysteryRose! So beautifully put:

"If all those people who came before me placed such an enormously high value on growing, picking, inhaling, tasting, and sharing roses, shouldn't I at least pause to consider the importance of the underlying psychological and emotional mechanisms at play in all those lives across all those cultures?"

StrawberryHill, I'm totally with you on toxic pesticides - we need to ban them! Or at least ban them from our gardens.