ROSA. Rose. Widespread in the Northern Hemisphere. We are assembling a diverse collection of roses, including a few common favorites, some of the best of the old roses, modern extensions of the same themes, and species from California and elsewhere. Most of them have the typical spiny stems and leaf stalks which make being a rose enthusiast such a bloody business. Their classic five-petalled (or ten to hundreds in the double-flowered selections) flowers are borne in clusters at the shoot tips. Many are wonderfully fragrant (oddly enough, their intensity and specific variations in scent often go undescribed in rose texts, as if all were alike). The “hips”, or fleshy seed capsules, which follow can be quite decorative, usually more so in the species and the hybrids closest to them. Most of the following prefer sun but tolerate a wide variety of soils and watering regimes. Hardy to 0^oF or less, except as noted.

banksiae. Lady Banks' rose. A slender stemmed climber, rising to 15' or more if supported. The stems have few thorns and are bright green, as are the shiny leaves with narrow 2" leaflets. The flowers are small but borne in large, open sprays during late spring and early summer. ‘Alba Plena’ (actually multiple clones) has double pure white flowers, 1" across in the common form, 2" in the better form, and sweetly fragrant. ‘Lutea’ has light yellow 1" flowers, also double. Evergreen in mild climates.

chinensis ‘Mutabilis’. China rose. This is my recent favorite. It is bushy in growth, with rather slender, arching stems, eventually making a rounded bush around 8' tall. The stems are purplish and the few-parted leaves, dark and shiny, giving a very clean impression. The single blossoms are close to 3" across and uniquely colored: they open buff to salmon, then shift gradually to rose.

sericea forma pteracantha. Imagine growing a rose for its thorns, and you have the beginnings of an acquaintance with this one. It is a robust shrub, with arching stems 8-12’ high. Closely set along them are dark orange-red thorns with a wide, triangular base; when backlit, they seem to glow from within. The leaves are narrow and dark, the flowers pure white and attractive but borne only briefly in early summer. Winter is actually the time to enjoy it most.

wichuraiana. I am hoping that this trailing/climbing rose will get a better reception in this new round than in the first. It has performed magnificently in my own garden, making a solid, trouble-free carpet up to 10' broad. The leaves are small, dark and wonderfully shiny. The subspecies poterifolia has slender, profusely branched stems and single, pure white flowers, about 1½” across. The cultivar ‘Hiawatha’ has stouter, more rapidly extending stems and single, vivid red flowers with white centers. ‘Variegata’ is more delicate in appearance, like poterifolia, and has cream-yellow margined leaves and white flowers.