How essential are these rose books?
Rosefolly
8 years ago
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best rose books
Comments (13)Steve.... I totally agree about reading Jack Harkness ... almost any of his books. Every time I read them, I read them with new eyes and learn even more. His book The Makers of Heavenly Roses kind of gave me a time line for the development of roses over the last couple of centuries. I love it, as well as Roses. This may seem long, but this is what Harkness wrote before he listed his bibliography: "When supplying information, one should identify the authority, so that suspicious readers may check for themselves, the trusting may know in what they trust, and the enthusiastic may explore the same sources for their further edification ..... ... Rose literature is an extraordinary hodge-podge of dutiful instruction, earnest research, hopeful fictions, sloppy sentimentality, confident autobiography, bad poetry and well-intended moralizing. I think it may be said that out of the hundreds of rose books, only a few were truly worthy of being published. And the influence of those few can be seen in the lesser ones, distorted like the bottom of a swimming pool seen through well-used water. There is an imprecision of information which almost passes belief, until we remember that most of the people concerned with roses were most likely to file facts in their heads than commit them to paper; and those cheerful sons of the soil are less to be blamed than the scribes, who constructed a hypothesis upon a hint, and copied it one from the other as a fact. I cannot offhand point to any rose book in which I have failed to find an error; and i know many in which errors could justly be called howlers. When you write of something which comes not from your own experience you need to be careful indeed. Even the masters are not free from error; but I forgive them as I hope for pardon in my turn, and gladly acknowledge my debt to them ...." The man could really write. Smiles, Lyn...See MoreRegarding 'The American Rose Society Book Of Roses'
Comments (54)Here are some others not to forget: Griffeth Buck Vernon Rickard Paul Barden I don't believe Americans are dissinterested in things that were not invented here. We seem to be quite fond of things with European names like Krupps, Braun, and all those other coffee makers. We eat tons of ethnic food. Lots of us are tourists. When the Beatles came out many of us became Anglophiles and a lot of us still think the English cottage garden is the ultimate. We are a country full of appreciative people, IMO. I have never noticed anyone not wanting to buy a rose because it was bred by a non-AMerican. Excuse me for digressing. Anyway even with it's flaws I bet I could really enjoy looking at that book, Devon. I usually check the big Botanica's out from the library but have my easy to hold paperback copy which I enjoy. My library also has The Rose Bible and Antique Roses for the South, both of which were responsible for a number of roses in my garden. Linda...See MoreHAVE: Books on roses and a Perennial book
Comments (1)Do you still have your rose books? I do not have any on your list but have lots of seeds and plants. Sunny...See MoreRose Book - Women in My Rose Garden (2015) and You Tube Video
Comments (5)I was perusing one of my favorite rose blogs, and stumbled upon the book reference and You Tube video. I later noticed that the book was the topic of a thread from last year. I clearly missed the previous forum posting, and posted the information for anyone unfamiliar with the book or video. One thing I noticed is that there seems to be a Women in my Garden book released by the publisher in 2014, and one from earlier this year. I am sooo busy, and have not found the time to research the difference if there is any??? I enjoyed the video content and learned how to "properly" pronounce some of the rose names. My second language knowledge etc. is Spanish, which is not particularly helpful for so many French names. Lynn...See MoreRosefolly
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