Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #605555 in Books
• Published on: 1997-06-30
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 9.25" h x 7.25" w x .50" l, .95 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From the Back Cover
The world's bestselling rose book is now completely revised, expanded and updated.

* Essential information on today's top 400 roses. * Over 150 new varieties illustrated. * Two new categories - patio and ground cover roses. * Covers everything from choosing plants to planting, pruning, propagation and pests and diseases.

About the Author
Dr David Hessayon initiated a major innovation in gardening publications in 1959 with the first of his Gardening Expert guides. These best-selling guides have had an unparalleled influence on gardening over the past 50 years. There are over 51 million copies in print. He was awarded the 1993 Gardening Book of the Year Award from the Garden Writers Guild and received the first-ever Lifetime Achievement 'Oscar' at the National British Book Awards. In 1999 he received a Guinness World Record Award as 'Britain's best-selling living author of the 1990s'. He lives in Essex, and has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Excerpt
Looking at the roses in your neighbour’s garden may suggest that nothing has changed in the world of roses during the 1990s. Queen Elizabeth, Silver Jubilee and Peace are still there, the climbers still stretch against the wall and the bushes are pruned as usual every spring.

In fact there have been many important changes since the previous edition of this book. New varieties have continued to appear in garden centres and catalogues, and in this edition about 150 new ones are illustrated and described. But it has not been just a matter of new varieties. Patio Roses and Ground Cover Roses have now been moved into separate Groups, Miniature Climbers with tiny leaves and small flowers have been introduced and the type of modern Shrub Rose with an old-fashioned look known as English Roses have become popular. Some of our techniques have also changed – a greatly simplified method of pruning has been introduced.

These changes which have occurred in the last couple of decades of the 20th century are only the latest chapter in the constantly changing rose story. In the first half of the 19th century roses were either large shrubs or climbers with a limited colour range and a limited flowering season. Things changed during Queen Victoria’s reign – the tough European varieties were bred with repeat-flowering types from the East, and the blood of Persian roses brought in bright yellows and oranges.

Hardy, colourful, repeat-flowering and vigorous – it is not surprising that the new roses became Britain’s most popular garden plants in the early years of this century. In came the Floribundas, out went the Hybrid Perpetuals – a continually unfolding story.

There are now more than a thousand varieties offered for sale. Nearly all are grown for the beauty and/or the fragrance of the flowers, but there are varieties noted for their decorative hips, colourful leaves and even for their beautiful thorns. The plant may struggle to reach a height of 10 cm or it may tower 10 m into the sky. Obviously making the right choice is not easy.

More roses are purchased from shops and garden centres than are ordered by post from nurseries, but for many people one of the joys of the gardening year is to study the rose catalogues which come through the letterbox in autumn.

New varieties get the largest photographs and the most alluring descriptions, but this does not always make them the best choice. For the ordinary gardener who just wants a few reliable bushes or climbers it is sometimes better to wait a year or two to see how the new ones have fared in other people’s gardens. Before making out your order read the description carefully, but do not expect to find all the faults listed.

The approach in this book is rather different. In the A-Z chapter (pages 10–90) you will find information on the important properties of many roses, together with an overall assessment of their value for garden or exhibition use. There are two important features of these 388 descriptions. First of all, there has been no attempt to list the ‘best’ roses. The ones selected have been chosen solely on the basis of their popularity and the probability of finding them in garden centres, stores, catalogues and in the popularity and reliability polls conducted by the Royal National Rose Society.

Secondly, catalogue-type descriptions have been avoided. Bad points as well as good ones have been listed, and in some cases the drawbacks outweigh the advantages.

Apart from the information on varieties, guidance is provided on planting (Chapter 5), upkeep (Chapter 6) and the prevention and control of problems (Chapter 7). For some gardeners the rose is more than a pretty flower – it is an absorbing hobby. For them Chapter 8 provides more specialised information on such topics as propagation, exhibiting and rose gardens to visit. The display produced by these rose hobbyists is often spectacular, but remember that the bloom from a single bush in a beginner’s garden will smell just as sweetly as its twin in their gardens.