I am often baffled by the reputation of difficulty ascribed to roses - they are just like any other tough flowering shrub. We certainly do not froth and fulminate about philadelphus (trickier, in my opinion) or escallonia or dogwoods so why roses are perceived as hard is beyond me. Certainly, the evidence of their survival in neglected conditions is usually all around us. Ditto for the sunny perennial border. I have a couple of these, one for early summer and a late summer border and both require a certain amount of graft at each end of the year but nothing even begins to compare with the intensely hard work of maintaining a vegetable patch or a good lawn. No gardening is maintenance free, not even total hardscaping but there are so many things we can do to mitigate the endless work that all these discussions of effort and difficulty are a bit moot. Of course, someone else's perennial border will be different to mine - one is a hot dry gravelled area (piece of cake) and the other contains tough prairie perennials and grasses. Dahlias, Cannas or anything which has to be lifted and put under winter protection can be hard going. Similarly, plants which need constant division in order to keep them in a juvenile state of floriferousness.....but in general, at this end of the season (which has been wretched in many ways) the roses are flourishing with little attention, no extra feeding and none of the staking and thinning associated with some perennials. Frankly, if I never bothered to do anything at all to the roses, they would survive - I have the evidence of this since the next plot to me has several completely neglected roses which refuse to die - they have not been fed, watered or pruned for 8 years and live in weed pits.(they are coming to my plot next year though since invisible plot owners have just lost their right to ownership...they won't even notice)

I certainly do not agree because if chosen correctly, roses are the easiest. Although I am a "low-spray" gardener and do not ascribe to perfection, I am willing to put up with a few spots and lower bloom time during the heat.

If you are a strictly hybrid tea person, I can see having this opinion... I remembered this from growing up in the 70s. And when I first got my Austin roses and a rugosa - I was hooked! From there I learned about earthkind roses and now everyone is on the bandwagon with knockouts.

Seriously established roses are very drought tolerant, moreso than many perennials which just dry up and wilt in the heat.

No, I disagree with her on the roses....but then I grow mostly shrubs and OGR's that may need an annual pruning that leaves me scarred and bleeding, but that's about it for care...and when it comes to that, I may just hire it done when I'm 85, God willing.

And anything that has to be divided every few years in my stony soil; either learns to do without or I let it die. God knows I've blunted enough shovels.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings

Thanks for your input; I tend to agree that roses are not as time consuming or labor intensive as perennials. It may well be that her definition of a rose is not the same as mine, as Jim says. She is not, however, a little old lady from a garden club who doesn't know any better.

Here is her bio taken from her book on color in the garden:

"Sydney Eddison is the author of five books on gardening and writes regularly for Fine Gardening and The Gardener. She has also been featured in Martha Stewart Living, Country Living Gardener, and other magazines. Eddison teaches classes at the prestigious New York Botanical Garden and the Institute of Ecosystems Studies in Millbrook, New York. Eddison's own acclaimed Connecticut garden has been featured on television on "Martha Stewart Living" and "The Victory Garden."

She is obviously a very savvy gardener and writer, but still thinks of roses as more trouble than sun perennials. I don't know why she thinks that. Maybe I'll write her a letter and ask. I plan to read the rest of her books, as I really liked her writing and gardening ideas.

Harborrose,
Yes, read all her books; I have read most of them and they are a delight. She writes well which makes for easy reading. She wrote a wonderful book on daylilies and the early hybridizers of the fifties. It is a GEM! I have my own used copy now but would check it out of the library to reread every five years or so. You get to know those early daylily hybridizers as friends and she interviewed them all; most in person. The sad thing for me is every time I finish the book, I want to put my head down and bawl because they have become my friends by the end of the book and are now all deceased. Moldovan, who was quite young when the book was written just died last year. These are the early daylily pioneers of the fifties, especially in the area of tetraploids.
Yes, I agree she is a savvy gardener and writer and I think much of her gardening interests were developed by those she met in her early gardening years-her deep interest in rock garden and alpine plants for example which she goes into in great detail in an earlier book. I think she has no interest in rose competition and that's what the avid rose gardeners were into mainly in her day. The OGR growers were few and far betweeen..... Now that you mention it, Elizabeth Park in Hartford is not that far away and is famous for its early ramblers and some of the OGRs. I would think she would have visited it. If you write her, it would be interesting to see what she says.
Jim

Jim--you sure rang a bell for me--I remember well my only rose catalog back in the 50's was Roses of Yesterday and Today--BTW--I still have a couple of those old catalogs (somewhere) along with Jackson and Perkins
-I will be 81 in Nov. and I've had 4 surgeries in the last 10 years---my gardening has certainly changed ---Dr's orders--not permitted to do much---
I remember way back when I thought HT's were the "real" roses but gradually I came to appreciate the value of OGR.Plus I realized I had some in my garden.
I still know people who think Clair Matin is not a "real" rose---LOL---still trying to educate them----
Interesting post-----I have not read her books yet----

Florence

Hold on to those Tillotson's catalogs Florence, they are collector's items. I have a few and treasure them dearly. His prose is to die for and he also encouraged comments from his catalog readers and printed the best (I think they got a free rose bush if they were printed) which are just as wonderful. As my old English teacher would call it, poetic prose. I had never seen such rose descriptions before nor since. Good bedtime reading, LOL.
Jim

I'm one of the ones who wrote on Ann Peck's thread about scaling back my garden with age and injuries. So I agree that roses do take quite a bit of work. I grow OGRs organically and no-spray so that reduces the work compared to growing HTs, but it is still WORK! I've stopped watering the established roses during summer which helps some. I find training climbers on ladders to be the hardest, but I don't like the wild look I want everything to be tidied in spring. Mulching, weeding, and fertilizing the beds are harder than pruning for me because more physically demanding. I am only 5'2" so it's always been difficult. I also find perennials to be hard work due to mulching, weeding, fertilizing demands, probably equal to roses but roses take additional work in pruning/training. My roses and perennials are totally mixed in beds and borders. All in all, it's the size of the garden and the intensity of training that I want to scale back on.

I've also read Ms. Eddison's other books and, as stated, they are all a delight. I don't have a favorite, really, although the last one is hitting home at my present stage of life; but they're all good; A Patchwork Garden, A Passion for Daylilies, Gardener's Palatte, all good...the Unsung Season okay, but the 5th one, can't remember the name right now, is great for beginning gardeners, maybe the best ever written.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings

Jim----I'm going to dig through my piles of treasures----I feel sure I saved most of them---they were much too poetic to throw away.

He sure knew how to describe the roses-----I wish I had kept better records back in those days ---guess I was too busy working and raising children

Florence

Requesting these books from the Library. I am taking a month off of my graduate studies (a sanity break) and would love to read something for pleasure. Thanks!!

Ronda