A Year of Roses

by Stephen Scanniello

Stephen Scanniello, rosarian of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's celebrated Cranford Rose Garden, distills his formidable practical knowledge into "A Year of Roses," charting month-to-month the tasks necessary for keeping roses healthy and enhancing their beauty. Scanniello stresses the need for a more hands-on approach to the art of growing beautiful roses. With intelligent simplicity and inspiriting charm, "A Year of Roses" teaches how to choose, order, store, plant, protect, and maintain your roses. Also included here is practical rose culture information for all horticultural zones, significant historical facts, personal anecdotes, detailed black-and-white line drawings and, throughout, Scanniello's unique expertise.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reference book that isn't too dry to read from cover to cover!

I've grown roses with varying degrees of success and hope to start becoming serious about them again within the next year so I grabbed this book. It's a good mix of conversational anecdotes and technical knowledge. Reading it from cover to cover wasn't a chore and I can see myself referring back to each month's chapter once I get my rose garden back. The only thing I found a bit ridiculous were the references included at the end of each chapter - I appreciate knowing about certain books and associations but including long urls in a print medium is not at all helpful. It would have been far more helpful for the author to direct the reader to a website he maintained with the links there.

[Denisewiden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am obsessed with learning about taking good care of roses this summer. I will try propogating next spring. It's not really very hard to grow them if you get varietals that are good for your growing zone. My little 35 x 110 foot green space has 23 of them...and growing. Bucks are my favorite..climbers my 2nd favorite. I just have to keep the puppies from digging up the bone meal/blood meal fertilizer.