All About Roses [Paperback]

Rex Wolfe (Author), James K. McNair (Author), Ortho Books (Corporate Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1995

From selecting the best variety to planting and pruning techniques, this guide contains all the information needed. It takes the reader through every step of rose care with illustrations of technique, and includes a description of almost 250 roses, a special section on rose breeding, growing tips, and an easy-to-follow chart of pest and disease control. 255 color photos.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Ortho Books; Revised edition (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897212568
• ISBN-13: 978-0897212564
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,890,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All you need to know about roses, August 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: All About Roses (Paperback)

This book is definitely very good. The first time I opened it, I was disappointed, as I saw in the first two chapters a history about roses. Then comes the good part: it explains whatever you may need to take care of your roses. It has a lot of pictures and photos, it explains what kind of soil do roses need, how to choose the right plants, planting the roses, watering, fertilizing, pruning, reproducing, combating pest and diseases, how to protect the roses from freezing, etc. It includes pictures of how roses diseases looks like, gives you an explanation of the symptoms, and the solutions available for the disease. The last two chapters describe how to enjoy roses indoors, how to make potpourri, and has an "encyclopedia of roses" with photos of a lot of different species. In short: buy this book. Definitely the "American Rose Society endorsed" logo is well earned.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good collection of roses to review, September 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: All About Roses (Paperback)

I found this book to be very helpful. in fact I found just what I wanted. It tells you what types of roses are fragrant, dissease resistant, everything you would need to know about each rose. It also had beautiful pictures and was very easy to follow.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make Ortho's All About Roses the First Rose Book You Buy, June 22, 2011

By 

Not my real name guy (Midwest) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: All About Roses (Ortho's All About Gardening) (Paperback)

I've got about seven or eight rose books and this one is, hands down, the one with the best and most helpful content, notwithstanding that it is one of the thinnest. Ortho's All About Roses (OAAR) has more pages on how to select a rose, how to plant a rose, how to prune a rose, how to identify rose problems like insects and fungus, and how to winterize a rose than probably any other book on the market. And, it is beautifully illustrated, with very clear photos and illustrations that show exactly where to snip while pruning and what a particular bug or plant ailment looks like. Additionally, it has probably the best section on how to place roses based on the type of garden and how to landscape with roses of any book I've seen, other than maybe Right Rose, Right Place by Peter Schneider, which I found to be an overall less impressive book than this one. There are many, many beautiful pictures of roses situated in gardens, which helps when planning one's plantings. Finally, as a 2007 printing, OAAR is one of the newest rose books on the market and has a lot of entries on the latest varieties that you typically will see in your local garden center or at an online nursery like Edmund's Roses - there are listings, each with a good, clear, representative photo, for newer roses like the Rainbow Knockout, Burgundy Iceberg, Night Owl, etc...

I can think of only a few cons: as a thinner book, they had to cut corners somewhere and that somewhere is with both the number of rose varities they feature in the rose encyclopedia at the back of the book, and with content on each one - rarely do they give full grown plant dimensions except with climbers and a few shrub roses, and sometimes they omit commentary on scent, as well. There are very thorough sections on miniatures and on old garden roses, of which I've only seen a few varieties here and there locally and online, whereas the section on the much more common and popular floribundas was nowhere near as inclusive as it should have been - it needs at least 50% more roses in that section.

If you're thinking about planting a rose or two, this should be the very first book you buy. And if you're already busy with dozens of roses in your garden, I still recommend this book, as I bet there's a thing or two (or four) about roses all but the most devoted rose experts could learn from this excellent book.