Product Description

Sooner or later every gardener comes around to roses. Of all flowers in all the gardens of the world, roses seem to exercise the greatest powers of attraction while at the same time generating the greatest apprehension and fear of failure. Let Christine Allen guide you as you choose your roses and care for your rose garden. Christine Allen is a writer and gardener. She joined the Vancouver Rose Society in 1987 and was its president in 1997 and 1998. She teaches courses on rose care and cultivation at Van Dusen Garden in Vancouver, where she also works as a volunteer. Christine lives on a farm in Langley, British Columbia, and grows over 200 roses, among herbs and perennials in her large country garden. Chapters include: Choosing a Rose; Suitable Roses for our climate; Preparing and designing the site; Amending your soil; Care and cultivation; Year round maintenance; Pruning; All-important pest control.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #999888 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 172 pages

Customer Reviews

Good PNW resource
While the pictures are terrible, the information is provided in a very straight-forward manner, with good, but not overly romantic descriptions of the various roses. I'm a newcomer to roses, and I've been frustrated by the tendency of most writers to describe every rose in very general terms. I've grown weary of reading: "One of the best of it's class." Allen does none of this; moreover, she is up front about what probably won't work well. Bourbons, she says, are likely to ball and be a disappointment in the rainy parts of the PNW. Now, for someone like me, just getting started, that's very useful information I have not seen elsewhere.

I'm withholding one star because of the pictures. It's just a guess, but I think the printer, not the photographer is to blame for the poor quality

a very good book on roses for the PNW
This is an excellent reference book for growing roses in this region, including specific rose recommendations. I wish there were a new edition, as this one is about 5 years old and therefore doesn't include any newer roses (and has a fairly small section on David Austin's English roses). Don't buy it for the photographs, though, which are almost all dreadful - terribly underexposed, and the colors of the roses are completely off (for instance, Fragrant Cloud, which is a bright orange-red, looks almost purple in this book's photograph).