Customer Reviews

Botanica's Roses: The Encyclopedia of Roses

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I have grown roses for many years but each year I manage to find room for more so I need a book that will give me a description and photo of the rose I am looking to buy. I use lists of roses to grow in my area from the local rose society. These lists only contain names so I needed to look up their descriptions in my books but I could never find a book that had every rose I needed to look up, invariably I would have to search through several books and even then miss a few. It was so aggrivating, most rose books are small, they cover only a couple hundred which increased the chances that you wouldn't find the rose you wanted in a particular book. FINALLY I have one source to use, everything I need in one book. The photos are numerous and beautiful. The descriptions give you the type of information you need. This book is superb, you will only end up spending the price of this book on numerous smaller books and still be unsatisfied so you might as well get it now. I cant say enough good things about this book, I waited a long time for it.

Botanica's Roses has displaced five books on my desk. It's become the first stop rose reference in our office for dealing with inquiries about roses from overseas. The descriptions are authoritative and the photographs are accurate. With 6,000+ roses listed, chances are that you'll find what you're looking for.

The list of contributors reads like an all-star team of rosarians from around the world: Peter Beales - UK (on Wild Roses), Dr. Tommy Cairns - USA(Introduction), Walter Duncan - Australia, Gwen Fagan - South Africa, William Grant - USA, Ken Grapes - UK (on Cultivating Roses), Peter Harkness - UK, Kevin Hughes - Australia, John Mattock - UK (on The Rose and Its Heritage), and David Ruston - Australia.

Second only to a good pair of pruners, Botanica's Roses should be considered a must-have by all rose lovers.

Although BOTANICA'S ROSES is described as an encyclopedia, the floral entries are more like annotated dictionary entries than encyclopedia articles. Each entry is succinct, ususally a paragraph or two, and contains pertinant information for the rose grower such as recommended growing zone, but I would have liked more information. ROSES is probably relatively exhaustive, that is it lists most of the extant roses. I was able to find information about two roses I purchased at the garden center last year that I could find no where else.

I own several other rose books, and find that no one book has all the information I require. For example, I have just purchased a 'Blanc Double De Corbert' rose. BOTANICA'S tells me the rose is a modern, hybrid rugosa, white, repeat flowering. A paragraph of about 100 words in tiny type tells me something about the doubtful heritage of the plant and that it might produce orange-red hips. The entry also lists the growing zones, the parentage prefaced with "possibly" and awards the rose has received.

THE ULTIMATE ROSE BOOK by Stirling Macoboy tells me the double white from the village of Corbert in France is a cross between Rosa rugosa and the Tea Rose 'Sombreuil' according to Cochet-Cochet who raised the rose in 1891. the ULTIMATE entry also tells me the flowers rot in wet conditions and there are no hips.

SMITH AND HAWKINS 100 OLD ROSES FOR THE AMERICAN GARDEN says 'Blanc Double de Corbert' will grow and thrive under extreme conditions and produce stongly scented blooms with a bumper crop of tomato-rose hips. "All in all this is one tough customer."

In THE ORGANIC ROSE GARDEN, Liz Druitt says 'Blanc Double de Corbert' is a hybrid rugosa introduced in 1892 and wonderful for growing in the upper south. It can withstand heat, probably because it has a little Tea blood from it's 'Sombreuil' ancestor. Blanc even works well in partial shade. In fact, she says, it likes a little afternoon shade. And, Blanc produces successive crops of orange-red hips as it blooms all summer.

What is the gardener to believe? Well, Macoboy is English and undoubtedly, Blanc, which comes from a warmer dryier area of France does better in a warmer drier climate--not England. These various entries show you cannot hope to grow roses unless you were born with a green thumb and/or can consult more than one reference. BOTANICA'S ROSES is a pretty good reference book for American gardeners attempting to grow roses.

This is the most complete rose book I have ever read because it has pictures for over 4,000 of the roses it describes. You local nursery of course has rose bushes in bloom for your inspection, and the larger mail order nurseries have color catalogs that at least give you an idea of what your rose would look like. But when ordering a unique or lesser-known rose from a smaller source, a catalog description is all that is available to you. This book has clear and beautiful pictures of almost any rose you would consider. My copy of the book also came with a CD, which has all the pictures from the book plus a search tool that lets you sort the pictures by attributes such as color, fragrance, size or awards. I have used the CD even more than the book.

One of the biggest problems with buying rose plants from reading a description in the nursery or elsewhere, is guessing exactly what your blooms will look like when they appear. The pictures in this book are lovely. What a pleasure to just browse through the pictures. (We now need a scratch a sniff version of this book, for what is a rose without a fragrance!) My BIG complaint against this book is the many inconsistencies between the main entries and the reference table. For example Tiki is described as "fragrant" in the main entry, and in the reference table, the fragrance amoount is given as "none". Big John bloom color is described as "medium red" in one section, and "pink blend" in another.

A beautiful and useful book nonetheless. I would still go out and buy it if I didn't already have it.

... buy this book. It was extremely helpful to us as we planned and planted a large rose garden from scratch this spring. The pictures are superior to those you will find in most catalogs. The descriptions, while maddeningly inconsistent in the information they provide, give an independent check to the glowing descriptions that catalogs use to promote rose purchases. Some roses are less desirable -- less robust, less fragrant, less orderly in their growth -- than others. This book will help you more than any other book we have found to make an initial pass through the catalogs and concentrate on roses likely to fit your needs. There is no substitute for the experience and advice of local growers and nurseries who have grown roses in your area, but this book will prepare you to inquire and process information from those sources efficiently. If we could own only one rose book, this would be the book.

I've only had this book for 9 months, but I've used it so much that it looks ten years old. As a fairly new rosarian, I really need a lot of advice about selecting roses, and this book gives excellent descriptions and frank opinions about just about every species, heirloom, modern and miniature rose on the market up until approximately 1999. The pictures are wonderful also. This book is a must for new and experienced rose lovers alike.

At one level it is a coffee table book. Its large format, heavy glossy white paper, and crisp photography all put it up there with the best gardening 'picture books.' At another level it is a reference. Only Modern Roses has more entries - but it costs much more and has few if any photos. And it is the photos that make this book a great one. It may be the best single source of rose photos one can get at any price.

The entries are spare, but there is very little crucial information missing. Virtually every entry indicates whether the rose is vigorous and which diseases it is prone to suffer. When roses fare better in one climate than another, Botanica tells you so. If a rose has fragrance, it says so. If a rose is spindly and lacks adequate foliage or branching, it will usually be indicated in the entry.

The entries have been scrubbed clean of personal bias as one would expect of a good reference. Unfortunately, it is a rosarian's personal connection with a rose that really makes reading about roses fun. Thus, most people who like to read about roses will find Graham Stuart Thomas' Book on roses more engaging, despite the comparative lack of photographs. Most will also find Stirling Macoboy's Ultimate Rose Book more engaging for the same reason. Even Claire Martin's 100 Old Roses and 100 English Roses have a litte more zing.

My interest in growing roses started around the time I picked up The Ultimate Rose Book. And it's still a good one to consider. It may be the closest thing to this book; but the photography in Botanica's roses is more accurate, more colorful, and far more exhaustive.

If one has to choose the first book to get when starting down the path of growing and enjoying roses, this might be the best.

This book exceeded my hopes. It has wonderful, high quality photographs and concise information, including on frangrance pages of reference charts. I was thrilled when it arrived. You DO get what you pay for!

WOW! Was I shocked when this huge bundle of joy showed up at my door! I anticipated a lot of pics but holy cow! I was able to use this hummer to identify 2 roses I had scoured other resources for in no time! (So far I only have 40 roses.)

It is beautifully written and the photos--pure eye candy! I adore roses so it was like giving a gourmet dinner to a starving person.

Those are the good points. I only have 2 nit-pickies that are hardly worth mentioning because I ADORE this book and recommend it 100% to any and all garden lovers. 1) The Cd-Rom tweeked on my computer--probably because I have version Windows ME..., 2) on the rose descriptions they forgot to share how big the roses would get. They used words like " a medium shrub". I figured that they meant about 5 feet but if you dont know roses its a necessary tid-bit.

So there. if you are unsure of spending the hefty sum on this book, don't think twice...BUY IT TODAY--And BTW Amazon has it the cheapest. GO ROSE HAPPY!! Do it...you won't be sorry.