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Roses for Noses
(Fragrant Roses for a Florida Garden)
Copyright John Starnes Jr.
Tampa, Florida
All Photos by John Starnes Jr.
Put your mouse over the photos to see
the captions
Letting
your eyes and nose be drawn into the
sensuous
velvety folds of a richly fragrant rose is a tonic for
the soul, like getting lost in the allure of love
itself. Perhaps that is why lovers and roses are linked
in
 literature
and life itself. But these days, a dozen cut roses often
smell no better than the cardboard box they came in! Add
to that the myth that “roses are hard to grow in
Florida” and most of us long ago gave up on
the dream of sweetly scented home grown bouquets.
But since 1989 I have created for my
clients many no-spray, low-care rose gardens of truly
perfumed roses that thrive in our climate now as
they did in Victorian era Florida gardens. Plus certain
modern
varieties offer huge, brightly colored scented blooms
when grown on the rootstock ‘Fortuniana’ that resist the
nematodes in our sandy soil. Of my approximately 170
roses, all but a handful are “own root” vs. grafted, and
all grown with no spraying. My focus instead is on
keeping the soil healthy and fertile and biologically
active. And the cool upcoming autumn months are a great
time to order and plant them.
Grown on their own roots (vs. grafted
onto short-lived rootstocks like
 ‘Dr.
Huey’ that so often struggle and fail in Florida),
several classes of Victorian roses may well outlive you
as year after year they bless you with bountiful blooms.
Known as Chinas, Noisettes, Polyanthas and Teas (very
distinct from modern Hybrid Teas) and Wichuraianas,
they are genetically subtropical and thus love it
here if their simple needs of full sun, a deep weekly
watering and rich mulched soil are met. Available from
trustworthy mail order houses and even some local garden
shops (!!), they offer rich reds, sultry magentas,
pristine white, warm apricot and salmon, plus feminine
pastel yellows. So don’t
let your previous “bad luck” with roses stop you from
trying a few this winter and spring, when the cool temps
help them get rooted and established.
But they aren’t perfect: the blooms
are smaller and on shorter stems than modern Hybrid Teas
and Grandifloras, but they look charming in petite vases
when picked half open and will scent your home like few
modern roses can. When well fed, they need no chemical
sprays and thus you can sniff and inhale deeply with no
fear of breathing in toxic fungicides and insecticides.
Want larger blooms in bright modern colors that also are
heavenly scented? Try some 20th century
hybrids that are sometimes sold on the ‘Fortuniana’
rootstock. In my clients’ gardens they thrive just as
well on that all-organic regimen, defying the “truism”
that they require all kinds of fuss and muss and
elaborate pruning and toxic spraying schedules. See the
lists below for some that offer irresistible “nose
candy”.
Another approach is to buy modern
roses on that ‘Dr. Huey’ rootstock but grow them in pots
filled with compost vs. in the garden; this seems to
protect their fragile roots somewhat from the harmful
nematode worms. In 2005 I got several for just $2 each
at Lowe’s so I was able to grow ultra-fragrant reds like
‘Oklahoma’ and ‘Mirandy’ for use in my breeding work.
More and more are finding this “roses in pots” an
effective third alternative. BUT...they will still be
short lived as a rule, almost an annual.
Hey, like is short and sometimes a
battle...why not invite in the sweet surrender of
fragrant roses? Just scan your landscape for a full sun
location and plan on indulging very soon in the innocent
decadence of fragrant roses on your dinner table.
VICTORIAN ROSES (own root):
Cramoisi
Superieur ( 1832) cherry red
Ducher
(1869) Ivory white
Le
Vesuve (1825) lilac pink
“Maggie”
(unknown date) deep magenta
“Spice”
(unknown date) palest pink
Jean
Bach Sisley (1889) salmon pink
Blush
Noisette (1817) pastel pink, potent cinnamon scent!
Mme.
Alfred Carriere (1879) pale flesh pink
Souvenir
de la Malmaison (1843) pastel flesh pink
Lady
Hillingdon (1910) rich apricot
Mme.
Berkeley (1899) salmon and gold
Perle
des Jardins (1874) pastel lemon yellow
Duchesse
de Brabant (1857) conch shell pink
“Portland from Glendora” (date unknown) magenta pink
Rival de
Paestum (1848 or prior) creamy white
Clotilde
Soupert (1890)cotton candy pink
Climbing
American Beauty (1909) deep pink
Autumn
Damask (ancient) rich pink, amazing scent
MODERN
ROSES (on Fortuniana or Huey rootstocks)
Oklahoma
(1964) darkest red
Abraham
Darby (1985) apricot-salmon-gold
Mirandy
(1945) crimson red
Evelyn
(1992) apricot and warm pink
Don Juan
(1958) red and black shadings
Sterling
Silver (1957) pale lavender
Double
Delight (1977) strawberry red and white
Mary
Webb (1985) pastel apricot; anise scented!
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