Imagine yourself curled up with a good book beneath a rose-covered arbor on a lovely June morning, distracted only by ribbons of fragrance in the air, and the occasional flutter of a petal to the pages. Now imagine all this in your own landscape, not faraway England.

"Yeah, right" you are thinking. The perfumed graceful beauty of old-fashioned rambling roses in a state besieged by drought and watering restrictions and dry even when there is no drought? But a combination of deeply planted "own root" rambling roses, organically improved soil, deep mulch, and a few deep waterings per month will allow you a joy in life like no other with little work and minimal impact on the environment. My front yard in Denver has 170 own root roses and there are many more out back yet I have never sprayed with fungicides or insecticides and each year my water bills are minuscule. Loving roses does not mean turning our backs on Mother Earth.

Own root roses are usually small when purchased, and after you plant them deeply they will barely peek up above the mulch, looking buried alive. But they will use that first year to form an admirable deep root system, something the grafted roses rarely get around to doing. Be patient with your wimpy-looking little rose and remember that early 20th century lingo about own root roses...."First year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap".

By "deep planting" I mean: dig a 20 inch wide and deep hole, fill the bottom half with compost and a few handfuls of "Mile High Rose Feed" into it, cover that with 4 inches of the soil you dug out of the hole, take the rose out of its pot and set in the rootball, then replace all the soil you dug till the poor dear protrudes from a raised dome of soil. Cover that dome with 3-4 inches of alfalfa hay or chipped tree limbs mulch, sprinkle a couple handfuls of "Mile High Rose Feed", then hand water deeply. A weekly soak with gray water from the kitchen or a hand-watering will settle the little puppy into its new and better home in your garden. You can plant own root roses from spring through fall, but after author Stephen Scanniello suggested I try fall plantings in 1997 and I got stellar results, I now prefer to plant in September and October, odd as that seems.... turns out they root furiously underground all winter long beneath the mulch.

Late each April I feed my roses with menhaden fish meal, or you can use a few handfuls per bush of the "Mile High Rose Feed". I'm too lazy and busy to fuss with elaborate pruning methods that require precisely angled cuts, drops of fingernail polish per cut, and holding your mouth just so as you do it.... I whack off winter damage and vigorous summer growth that blocks access to paths and such. Great way to disperse rage after dealing with traffic. But creating huge 3 foot tall and wide Victorian bouquets with entire lengths of cane in full bloom in June is by far the most pleasurable away to "prune". Take bouquets to work, retirement homes, friends and neighbors.... spread the joy. (Plus people can try to root cuttings from them).

Climbing roses generally have larger more modern looking blooms all summer long, aren’t all that fragrant, want full sun, are less vigorous (except for 'New Dawn') and can get a fair amount of winter damage since they repeat bloom in the fall. Rambling roses usually have smaller simpler blooms in pendulous clusters that sometimes remind one of apple blossoms, usually exude head-spinning perfumes (except for 'Hiawatha', the only rose I have forgiven for being scentless), bloom once in early summer, have Jack-and-the-Beanstalk vigor and growth, can bear huge autumn crops of colorful hips, tolerate light shade, and are nearly immune to winter's insults. I love the name 'Scrambler' devised for this very eclectic group that even has some with large blooms.

A few Ramblers repeat, but like iris and peonies and lilacs, early each summer they offer an ephemeral avalanche of colorful fragrance, an annual baptism in botanical bliss. Until a few years ago one had to be an obsessed rosarian scouring obscure mail order catalogs to get more than a few varieties, but now several Colorado nurseries carry a remarkable menu of lovely cultivars, some formerly rare. And thanks to Scott Scogerboe at Ft. Collins Nursery, two of my favorites, 'Hiawatha' and  'Fairmount Eglantine' will be available in a season or so ask for them now to insure sufficient numbers be grown. Hey, life is short so why not make it a little sweeter by inviting Rambling Roses into our yards as antidotes to some of those bitter pills we have to swallow now and then?

The Roses

Paul's Himalayan Musk

(late 1800's) Light pink, give it ROOM

De La Grifferie

(1845) Magenta to pastel pink Victorian style blooms

Ghislaine de Feligonde

(1916) Fully double buff yellow blooms, repeats

Rambling Rector

(ancient) Semi-double, ivory, cinnamon musk scent

Dr. Van Fleet

(1910) Large pale pink apple skin-scented roses

Francis E. Lester

(1946) like giant apple blossoms edged in pink

"Fairmount Eglantine"

Brilliant cerise pink, new leaves scented of Granny Smith apples

Seagull

(1907) Snow white semi-double blooms, sharp-sweet perfume

Fruhlingsgold

(1937) Large, semi-double primrose yellow blooms

Hiawatha

(1904) In-your-face bright deep pink, extreme vigor

Great Western

(1838) Large deep magenta blooms, heavenly fragrance

May Queen

(1898) Very double deep pink Victorian blooms

Variegata di Bologna

(1909) White striped purple and pink, a beautiful one is at the Denver Zoo by the lake

Long John Silver

(1934) Large gardenia-white fully double blossoms

"Mr. Nash"

(unknown) Discovered by Toni Tichy, large golden amber blooms followed by huge orange hips. Give him ROOM

Bobbie James

(1961) White, buff in the center, potent sharp sweet scent

Alchemist

(1956) Very large peach and gold deeply fragrant roses that predated David Austin's 'English Roses' in its old-fashioned look

Rosa dupontii

(pre-1817) Achingly beautiful single white blooms edged pink

Shropshire Lass

(1968) English Rose with large semi-double blooms open apricot and fade to cream; potent scent, gillions of orange hips in the fall

Sources: Local nurseries and garden centers High Country Roses 1-800-552-2082 Antique Rose Emporium 1-800-441-0002