Rhodology

the scientific study of roses, including their taxonomy.

Reproduction
Rose culture occurs via four methods: seed, cuttings, layering and grafting. Seeding is the only means of
propagation through sexual reproduction and allows more genetic diversity. Asexual reproduction via the
other methods produces plants that are true to the parents. Cuttings are a common way to produce plants
genetically identical to the parent. Best done in summer and early fall, cuttings of young stems that have just
flowered are taken and wounded by making a slit near the base. They are then placed in a pot of sand or soil
and kept moist until roots establish themselves. Layering is a similar process, whereby gardeners wound a
stem, bend it toward the ground and cover it with soil to produce a new plant. Grafting occurs when stems are
connected with vigorous rootstocks and allowed to grow together to produce hybrids, usually producing
more uniform flowers.
Propagation by Seed
Sexual propagation of roses can be slow and not entirely successful. Hybrid tea roses have difficulty producing
rose hips and seeds, while old garden and shrub varieties are able to produce them more easily. Rose flowers
have both male and female parts. Anthers bearing pollen are on the outside. The stigma and underlying
ovaries, covered by petals, are in the center. In controlled pollination, pollen from mature anthers may be
transferred by hand to a selected flower when pistils appear sticky. To prevent unwanted pollination, cover
the pollinated flower with a plastic bag. Pollination has occurred when the base of the flower, known as the
hip, begins to swell. Rose seeds take approximately four months to form.

The History of Roses

Roses have a long and colorful history. They have been symbols of love,
beauty, war, and politics. The rose is, according to fossil evidence, 35 million
years old. In nature, the genus Rosa has some 150 species spread throughout
the Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to Mexico and including northern
Africa. Garden cultivation of roses began some 5,000 years ago, probably in
China. During the Roman period, roses were grown extensively in the Middle
East. They were used as confetti at celebrations, for medicinal purposes, and
as a source of perfume. Roman nobility established large public rose gardens
in the south of Rome. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the popularity of roses
seemed to rise and fall depending on gardening trends of the time.

During the fifteenth century, the rose was used as a symbol for the factions
fighting to control England. The white rose symbolized York, and the red rose
symbolized Lancaster, as a result, the conflict became known as the "War of
the Roses."
Roses were in such high demand during the seventeenth century that royalty
considered roses or rose water as legal tender, and they were often used as
barter and for payments. Napoleon's wife Josephine established an extensive
collection of roses at Chateau de Malmaison, an estate seven miles west of
Paris in the 1800s. This garden became the setting for Pierre Joseph Redoute's
work as a botanical illustrator. In 1824, he completed his watercolor collection
"Les Rose," which is still considered one of the finest records of botanical
illustration.
It wasn't until the late eighteenth century that cultivated roses were
introduced into Europe from China. Most modern-day roses can be traced
back to this ancestry. These introductions were repeat bloomers, making them
unusual and of great interest to hybridizers, setting the stage for breeding work
with native roses to select for hardiness and a long bloom season. Many of
these early efforts by plant breeders are of great interest to today's gardeners.

Roses are once again enjoying a resurgence in popularity, specifically, shrub

roses and old garden roses. Gardeners realize that these roses fit the lifestyle
of today's gardeners who want roses that are not as demanding with regard
to disease control, offer excellent floral quality, have excellent winter
hardiness, and fit into shrub borders and perennial gardens without seeming
out of place.
To be successful in growing roses in Midwest gardens, one needs to be aware
of some basic considerations. Attention to plant selection, a basic knowledge
of the wide array of classes available, basic culture information, and
information about potential disease and insect problems will go a long way in
making roses an enjoyable addition to the garden.
This short guide to rose gardening will hopefully help sort through some of the
confusion about roses and entice you to include one or more of these plants
in your garden.

Flowers
Although flower is the term most often used for the showy portion of a rose plant, this structure is
technically known as the corolla.
Petals
The corolla is made up of petals, whose number determines whether the rose is classified as
single, semidouble, double, or very double.
How many petals does a rose have?
A single flower has just one row of petals—usually 5 petals but as many as 12. A rose with 13 to about
25 petals in two or three rows is said to be semidouble. A rose with more than 25 petals, in three or
more rows, is called double. A very full flower having more than 45 to 50 petals in numerous rows is
known as very double.

You will sometimes see the term quartered, especially in reference to old garden roses. A quartered
flower is one whose petals open in such a way that when viewed from above, the rose appears to
be divided into distinct quadrants.

With some roses a solitary bloom appears at the top of the flowering stem; these are usually referred
to as one-to-a-stem roses. When multiple flowers appear on a stem, the grouping is known as a spray
or a cluster.

Sepals
Flowers open from flower buds, which are initially covered by green leaf-like sheaths known as sepals.
Collectively, the sepals and the bulbous structure below them—the calyx tube —are known as the
calyx. As a flower opens, the sepals turn down and may eventually be hidden by the flower. Some
sepals are small and plain; others are large and frilled. A rose has five sepals. Species roses also have
five petals above the sepals.

Stamens
When a flower has fully opened, thin filaments called stamens become visible in the center of the
flower, which is called the disc. Stamens, the male reproductive portion of the flower, release pollen
from parts at their tips called anthers. The stamens of roses are usually yellow, although sometimes
they are red or maroon. The total number of stamens depends on the species of rose. No rose plant
has fewer than five stamens, but this number can be much higher.

Pistils
The female portion of the flower, the pistil, is located at the center of the stamens. Only its topmost
portion, the stigma, can be seen. Hidden below it is the style, a slender tube that leads to the ovary,
where seeds form if fertilization takes place. Seeds develop from ovules, egg-like objects that are
borne on structures called carpels within the ovary.

How many pistils does a rose have?

The amount of pistils or a rose depends on the variety of a rose. Most roses have several pistils.
Hips
Once a rose has been pollinated—either by its own pollen or by pollen from another rose—the ovary
swells and a seed-bearing fruit called the hip forms after the flowers fade. Although hips are found in
some form on all roses, they are largest and most striking in old garden and shrub roses. The hips of
these roses are often bright red or orange, with a characteristic pear, oval, or urn shape. So
distinctive are the hips of many roses that experts can often identify the variety by its hips alone.

Canes
The main branches of rosebushes are known as canes. These arise from the crown, the point where
the canes are joined to the root shank.
Shank
The main stem of the rootstock rose. The ‘preferred’ roses has been grafted onto the top of the
shank. (On roses that have been budded [grafted] to more vigorous root systems, the point where
the canes are grafted to the roots is called the bud union; the bud union functions as the crown.)

Bud Union – the area between the roots and the stems where the bud of the desired variety was
grafted onto the rootstock.
Roots
There are two types of roots.
The ‘anchor’ roots are thick and strong, they hold the rose bush upright while it is growing. They also
store nutrients during the winter season.
The ‘hair roots’ are the feeder roots. Their main job is to absorb the nutrients in the soil as they
become available.
Basal break
A new cane that arises from the crown or the bud union is often called a basal break. These new
canes are the way the rose renews itself. Sometimes mistaken for the ‘sucker’ cane which does not
emerge from the bud union.

Stems
Stems are growths emanating from the canes and terminating in flowers. Roses produce stems of
differing lengths, depending on their class. For example, most hybrid teas have longer-than-average
stems, making them good for cutting. Both canes and stems are usually covered by red or green
thorns (also known as prickles), although some roses are thornless. Thorns vary in size, shape, and
number. They can be so distinctive that they alone can be used to identify certain roses.

Leaf
Roses have compound leaves, which are made up of several leaflets. Most modern roses have five-
leaflet leaves except in the area near the flower, where three-leaflet leaves usually appear instead.
Old garden roses may have seven, nine, or even more leaflets. The top leaflet, called the terminal
leaflet, is attached to the rest by a small stem known as a petiole; the other leaflets have stalks known
as petiolules.

Stipule
The base of a leaf has a winglike appendage known as the stipule.

Auricle
The tip of the stipule is known as the auricle.

New stem growth emanates from a bud eye in the leaf axil, the point at which a leaf joins the stem.
The part of the stem between the highest leaf and the flower is known as the peduncle, sometimes
referred to as the neck. Peduncles are generally thornless and soft wooded, and vary in length and
thickness according to variety. Often, a small leaflike structure known as a bract appears partway
down the peduncle.
TYPES OF ROSES

Old European Garden Roses

There are five classes of roses that make up what is known as the most venerable group of cultivated
roses. They are Gallica, Damask, Alba, Centifolia, and Mosses, and represent the hybrid groups that
prevailed in European gardens prior to the widespread trade of Rosa chinensis in the eighteenth
century. They are typically very fragrant and extremely cold-hardy (USDA zones 3-5). European roses
tend to do better in cooler zones and may suffer when planted in zones 7 and higher. Also, contrary
to common belief, the old European garden roses are not as disease-resistant as some report.

Gallica Roses Damask Roses Alba Roses

Centifolia Roses Moss Roses

 Hardy Repeat-Blooming Old Roses

As can be seen, hardy old garden roses offer just about everything a gardener could ask for in a rose: extreme
winter-hardiness, excellent tolerance to disease, exquisite blooms, and outstanding fragrance. The one thing that is
lacking is recurrent bloom throughout the summer. Gardeners wanting to combine all of the qualities mentioned above
with rebloom capabilities need only to look toward the Bourbons, Portlands, and Hybrid Perpetuals.

Bourbons Rose Portland Rose Hybrid Perpetual Rose

Modern Roses
The modern age of rose growing began officially when a new class of rose was developed from a tea/hybrid perpetual
cross. The year was 1867, the hybridzer was Jean-Baptiste Guillot, the rose was 'La France,' and the class that was born
was the hybrid tea. The most popular roses sold and the ones that have the most name recognition in the modern rose
class are the hybrid tea, floribunda, and grandiflora.

Hybrid Tea Rose Floribunda Rose Grandiflora Rose

Shrub Roses
This class of rose is a "catch all" for roses that do not fit well in other classes. This "duke's mixture" of a class includes
everything from hybrid rugosas developed in the late 1800s, to hybrid musks developed in the 1900s, to floribundas and
the latest and newest introductions in landscape roses.

"Shrub rose" may be a poor choice of words, and as a result the term is largely artificial because all roses are in fact
shrubs –just as is a lilac or a forsythia. "Shrub," as applied to roses, is more a case of definition by usage rather than by
description.

Shrub roses are noted for their well-rounded shape, their exceptional winter hardiness, and their better than average
disease resistance.

Hybrid Rugosa Hybrid Musk

Roses with long canes David Austin Rose

David Griffith Buck Rose