Sampling the Cream of the ’88 Rose Crop

A big part of the rose-planting season is the new roses introduced each year, especially those designated All-America Rose Selections, which means they have been tested in gardens across the country.

These AARS roses are supposed to be the cream of the crop, the very best. But sometimes the process of selection seems to produce an averageness in the roses introduced. They all tend to look alike to those of us who are not rose experts.

The experts are looking for a certain shape and style.

They like high, pointy buds, and if you happen to like roses that are low and squat, like the old-fashioned cabbage roses, you are out of luck.

Hardiness a Plus

They also look for disease resistance, so many new roses are tough roses (to their credit), but they also look for roses that can survive winter in Chicago. So a few roses that might be perfect in our mild winters never make it to first base.

Some of my favorites are AARS roses of years past, including Double Delight, which people in Chicago complain about because it doesn’t survive their winter.

This year’s new AARS roses are, in my opinion, just more of the same. My wife, the rose expert in our family, feels differently.

“I really like this yellow rose, the one from Fred Edmunds, though they should have named it Butterscotch,” she says.

‘One Is Nice ...’

“There’s probably a rose with that name already,” I say. (There is.) “What’s wrong with (the name) Amber Queen?” I ask.

“I just don’t like it and it looks like butterscotch. I’m glad it’s a Fred Edmunds rose though, they’re such nice people and I love the way they mail the roses to us, all wrapped in real sphagnum moss, tied with real twine. It’s like a gift.”

“Well, at least one of the new AARS roses is nice,” I remark.

“Oh, I think they’re all nice and I love that one that is yellow and red. It’s such a pretty color and it almost glows in the garden, but you could have planted it in a better place. It hardly gets any sun.”

Magenta, or Not?

“I think it’s named Mikado, and I just ran out of places for roses,” I add lamely.

“And the other red one is a very strong grower, but I don’t really think we need another magenta rose. It seems as if there are too many magenta roses.”

“It’s supposed to be a deep pink,” say I.

“It’s magenta,” she says, and now, looking closely, I agree.

I’m always expecting something really different, something with stripes or flowers with more petals, or something. My wife, on the other hand, appreciates the finer differences and thought all three new roses were very pretty.

Yellow Is Favorite

Her favorite, and mine, is the deep butterscotch yellow named Amber Queen. It’s a floribunda, which means it has smaller flowers (though these were pretty big), but more of them, and they grow on a short bush. Ours never grew above three feet. It really is one of the prettiest of the yellow roses and though we only grew it a year, it is certainly the strongest and most disease-resistant. It even tolerates a little shade. It’s tough.

As the year wore on, Mikado looked better to me. It does seem to glow, its colors are so intense. It mixes red with scarlet, pink and yellow, shading lighter near the center of the flower. It’s a little like my favorite rose from last year, Summer Dream, which wasn’t an AARS rose.

Mikado is a hybrid tea, which means it has large flowers on a tall plant; ours didn’t get above four feet. It was hybridized in Japan, as was the other all-America selection, Prima Donna.

Least Favorite

Prima Donna is our least favorite. Its color in our garden was only so-so, a magenta-red, though it is supposed to be a deep pink. It’s a grandiflora, which means it is a tall plant (to six feet), and it does have very long stems beneath each flower so it is good for cutting. In fact, it came from the florist trade.

One year is really not enough time to judge a rose. I have seen roses that are fantastic the first year and then do nothing, and almost as often, roses that improve. I can’t wait to get a preview of the 1989 AARS roses.

Maybe there’ll be one of those striped roses I’ve seen in test gardens.