Brier roses

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Brier Roses

There is a huge group of shrubby or Brier Roses.

On the whole, they are hardy and grow under adverse conditions.

Some of them will be useful for making a hedge. If a Rose garden is to be made, plan it in the Winter and make preparations to surround it with a row of briers. No Rose is hardier, freer-blooming and more disease-resistant than the Japanese Rugged Rose, or Rosa rugosa. Bearing single and double, crimson, pink or white flowers, it is the first one to place in the hedge.

Of charming fragrance and exquisite colors are the Penzance hybrids. Lord Penzance, an English lawyer, strove to be a success at the bar, but his name will live as a hybridizer of Roses long after people have forgotten him as a lawyer. He used the standard garden varieties of Roses and crossed them with the Sweet Brier.

The result is a wonderful group of Roses with Apple-scented leaves and delicate pinkish orange, salmon and rose-pink single flowers. We must not pass over the early yellow Roses, two of which are of great importance. The earliest and lighter yellow Rose seen in every old-fashioned garden is the Persian yellow and a few days or weeks later the golden yellow variety, which is slightly tinged withered on some of the center petals, is Harrison's Yellow. The foliage of this Rose is charming; it is a pity that these two Roses bloom but once a year.

One other Brier before we pass inside of the Rose plot which is to be. It is the Prairie Brier, Rosa setigera, and as it has a tendency to climb, should be given some sort of a trellis or fence. It blooms late and bears huge pink single flowers in large trusses.