Smith & Hawken: 100 Old Roses for the American Garden

While gardeners often start out with hybrid tea roses, they most often end up growing the healthier and supremely fragrant old roses. Who can resist their crumpled petals in soft watercolor shades and their penetrating fragrance of baby powder and cold cream, let alone their lengthy and flamboyant histories? 100 Old Roses for the American Garden has pulled together a selected hundred of the best, with stunning color photographs and cultural information.

And the names--who could resist 'Alister Stella Gray' (a golden rambler), or 'Enfant de France' (a rose-pink hybrid perpetual dating from 1860)? You might want to track down 'Sydonie,' a shell-pink damask described as having deep, pervasive perfume and generous rebloom. This task will be made easier by the appendices at the back of the book listing mail-order sources for old roses, and public gardens that display them.

One reason so many gardeners end up enamored with old roses is that they don't need to be grown in a "rose ghetto" as do hybrid teas, but rather enjoy being mixed into borders with other plants. A chapter on companion plantings suggests perennials that work well as skirting for old roses, enabling the gardener to mix roses seamlessly into the garden picture. --Valerie Easton