Customer Reviews

Climbing Roses of the World

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This is a comprehensive, world-wide study of climbing and rambling roses. The topic is a huge one, especially as the writer refuses to be constrained by the contributions of any one country. Most of the leading writers on roses have been American, English or French. The writer adds in the considerable contributions of rose growers in Australia, Germany and Italy as well as other countries.

Despite difficulties in taxonomy and in tracing the history of each rose, the writer has included some 1600 currently grown climbing and rambling roses. I was happy to see an explanation of the differences between the two. Climbers have a small number of stiff stems. Ramblers have a larger number of more pliable stems, and these often trail along the ground. To confuse the issue, some ramblers are known as semi-climbers, and some small climbers are known as "pillar roses". Let's confuse it even further - climate can make a considerable difference in growth. A rose that is a climber in one country may be a shrub in another.

The writer is Director of England's National Rose Society and he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the topic as well as the resources to research it throughout the world. The book covers the origin and history of each of the roses and the reader learns about the people and circumstances behind each of the different varieties.

The colour photographs of the roses, taken by the author in gardens around the world, are exceptionally fine Each rose is identified, of course, but we also find out in which garden and which country the photograph was taken.

This is a book for the gardener who loves roses. It contains a vast amount of information, well organized and presented.

This book is exclusively devoted to climbing roses and is a welcome addition to rose reference works (as the author states, only two have previously been published, one by G.A. Stephens in 1933 and the other by Graham Stuart Thomas in 1965).

Over 1600 roses are covered here. They are arranged in chapters by classes (Chinese Synstylae and other species, Rosa gigantea and Rosa chinensis, Aryshire and Evergreen roses, Rosa setigera and the Boursault Roses, Noisettes and Tea roses, Rosa multiflora, Turner's Crimson Rambler Race, Wichurana hybrids, New Dawn and its descendants, Kordesii hybrids, Climbing Sports and Large Flowered Climbers). Within each of these chapters, the author divides the roses by hybridizer. A richly detailed biographical account of the breeder is usually given which is followed by a list of the roses he/she hybridized and a brief description of each rose. A final chapter, "Cultivating Climbing Roses" discusses growing roses in general. A section of 200 beautiful color plates is featured in the center of the book.

Only one gripe - sizes of roses is given in the metric system which is annoying but at least it will help you to learn meters and centimeters!