Jane Eastoe - Vintage Roses: Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden

JANE EASTOE
photography by
GEORGIANNA LANE

OLDER THAN WE ARE BUT YOUNGER THAN THE DINOSAURS, THE ROSE HAS BEEN LINKED WITH HUMAN BEINGS ACROSS MANY MILLENNIA. IT HAS INSPIRED ARTISTS, SCULPTORS, WRITERS AND POETS, AND IS THE SUBJECT OF MYTH AND LEGEND. THE ROSE CAN HINT AT POLITICAL AFFILIATION, SPORTING LOYALTY, NATIONAL PRIDE, BEAUTY, VIRTUE, ROMANTIC YEARNING, LOVE, SEX AND SECRECY, AND IT IS ALSO HEAVY WITH RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM. FAMOUS AS A FRAGRANCE, USED AS A CULINARY FLAVOURING AND A SOURCE OF VITAMIN C, AND BELIEVED TO HAVE MEDICINAL AND THERAPEUTIC PROPERTIES, THE ROSE IS ONE OF OUR OLDEST CULTIVATED FLOWERS.

There are around 150 species of wild rose. These modest, five-petalled flowers are the fecund species that grow true from seed, content to reproduce merrily as nature intended. All other types of rose, of which there are literally thousands upon thousands of varieties, have been propagated, both accidentally and by design, to create exceptional flowers with a beauty of form and an intoxicatingly lovely fragrance.

This human meddling has created a bewildering array of Old and Modern rose classes, all subject to intense horticultural scrutiny. The characteristics, growth patterns, care and pruning regimes of the poetically named Damasks and Bourbons, the China and Tea roses, the Centifolias and the Portlands, the Floribundas and the Polyanthas, have all been helpfully and lovingly detailed. The sheer weight of information might lead you to believe that rose growing is a devilish business requiring a level of commitment akin to raising a child. Not so. It couldnt be simpler.

Arguably one of the hardest tasks in growing a rose is selecting the ideal one for your situation from the thousands that are on offer. There are fashions in roses, as in everything else, and our quest for perfection has taken us in some extravagant and colourful directions. The focus in this book is on the classic, ageless and enduring flowers, which we have dubbed Vintage roses.

This user-friendly term encompasses both the true Old roses and the best of the Modern roses. All Vintage roses have one thing in common; they are garden-friendly roses that celebrate the style and grace of the old. They are willing to integrate in mixed borders, to clothe walls, fences, pillars and pergolas, and to ramble picturesquely over the unsightly, without dominating or showing off. The modern Vintage rose salutes the Old rose, while improving on its form and fragrance, and adding an ability to repeat-flower as well as resistance to disease. Both Vintage roses and Old roses have seductive qualities, and they all produce graceful, generous, fragrant and accommodating flowers. As these glorious pictures by photographer Georgianna Lane illustrate, they are simply bewitching; a delight to both the eye and the nose.

So much has been written about the technicalities of rose growing that it is easy to forget that, in their vintage form, roses are user-friendly garden plants, easy to grow and easy to look after. So lets dispel the notion that roses are hard work and require high levels of expertise. Many will settle for a light annual prune its not rocket science, just cut them back a bit and ideally give them some annual feed.

I should own up that for me, growing roses is all about creating a cheap supply of fabulous, fragrant blooms. Im no Martha Stewart; I just love cutting flowers and bringing them into the house where I can focus on their beauty. They dont have to be perfect: indeed I love them more for their imperfections their blotched leaves, their colour-spotted petals and their earwigs. And without wishing to upset flower growers, the commercial roses sold by florists, with a few notable and expensive exceptions, bear no comparison with their magnificent garden relatives.

For a meagre investment in one rose plant, youll be picking fragrant garden roses for years to come. They may not be as perfectly straight and leggy in stem as commercially grown roses, but a couple of fulsome home-grown blooms popped into a jam jar will be infinitely more charming. Not only do garden roses unfurl fully in the vase unlike so many florists roses they even fade and die with great style. Every bunch is a painterly still life.

The selection in this book serves as an inspirational introduction to the many forms of Vintage rose the frilly tutu, the pleated masterpiece, the full-bodied and the modest five-petalled rose. The key information given here relates to how each rose performs in a temperate climate; in other conditions they are likely to behave differently for example, they commonly grow somewhat taller in warmer climates. There are 39 National Rose Societies dotted around the world and they are a great source of information. Never underestimate the benefit of good local advice.

Some of the roses listed are old; some are very new. Some varieties are more readily obtainable than others. In all cases, I have listed an alternative variety with similar visual appeal. Dont be discouraged if you cant get hold of the exact rose in your area and remember that internet shopping can make it much easier to find the precise variety you are looking for. Roses are cheapest bought bare-root in winter, when they can be dispatched by post.

I have deliberately steered clear of dividing the roses into technical classes such as Moss, Noisette or Hybrid Musk. I am more interested in the individual peculiarities of each rose and am not convinced that such a daunting level of information is entirely relevant if you are merely looking to plant a rose or two in your garden. Please use this as an inspirational source book; your knowledge and expertise will grow along with your roses.

One could argue that all roses are vintage, since all have the genetic characteristics of their forebears and they do not grow true without human help. But not all take their style lead from the glorious Old rose. I could suggest that in developing the Hybrid Tea, we created something different, showier and inherently vulgar, but I am biased and such an assessment is not entirely fair. Hybrid Teas have their place and they excel on the show table, where their manicured sculptural perfection gains plaudits.

Hybrid Tea roses invaded and annexed suburban gardens in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and nearly saw off their gentler, beautiful old relatives. They dominated gardens, haunted my youth with their stiff form and bilious colours, and propagated the myth that rose growing is only for devoted fanatics. Without the supreme devotion of a few Old-rose fanciers and the inspirational work of a handful of innovative rose growers, the source of wondrous beauty that is the Old rose might have been lost.

Franois Debreuil (see )

This book is, therefore, a celebration of the Vintage rose its seductive beauty, its ability to enhance our environment, its intoxicating perfume and its dramatic statements. Above all else, the book is designed to encourage you to plant your own roses, so that you, too, can share the sheer joy and delight of watching them bloom, of picking them and of bringing them into your home.