Ortho's All About Roses (Ortho's All About Gardening)

I've got about seven or eight rose books and this one is, hands down, the one with the best and most helpful content, notwithstanding that it is one of the thinnest. Ortho's All About Roses (OAAR) has more pages on how to select a rose, how to plant a rose, how to prune a rose, how to identify rose problems like insects and fungus, and how to winterize a rose than probably any other book on the market. And, it is beautifully illustrated, with very clear photos and illustrations that show exactly where to snip while pruning and what a particular bug or plant ailment looks like. Additionally, it has probably the best section on how to place roses based on the type of garden and how to landscape with roses of any book I've seen, other than maybe Right Rose, Right Place by Peter Schneider, which I found to be an overall less impressive book than this one. There are many, many beautiful pictures of roses situated in gardens, which helps when planning one's plantings. Finally, as a 2007 printing, OAAR is one of the newest rose books on the market and has a lot of entries on the latest varieties that you typically will see in your local garden center or at an online nursery like Edmund's Roses - there are listings, each with a good, clear, representative photo, for newer roses like the Rainbow Knockout, Burgundy Iceberg, Night Owl, etc...I can think of only a few cons: as a thinner book, they had to cut corners somewhere and that somewhere is with both the number of rose varities they feature in the rose encyclopedia at the back of the book, and with content on each one - rarely do they give full grown plant dimensions except with climbers and a few shrub roses, and sometimes they omit commentary on scent, as well. There are very thorough sections on miniatures and on old garden roses, of which I've only seen a few varieties here and there locally and online, whereas the section on the much more common and popular floribundas was nowhere near as inclusive as it should have been - it needs at least 50% more roses in that section.If you're thinking about planting a rose or two, this should be the very first book you buy. And if you're already busy with dozens of roses in your garden, I still recommend this book, as I bet there's a thing or two (or four) about roses all but the most devoted rose experts could learn from this excellent book.

This book is amazing by way of explaining roses! If you are thinking about putting a rose anywhere in your garden or home...this book is for you! It starts out telling all about the history of roses and where they originated and so forth. Then it goes into which type of rose is best for certain areas of the yard. Then it actually includes photos of each type of rose....i.e.: climbing, hybrid tea, rambler, floribunda, etc.....and you can compare sizes and figure out what rose you want to plant and where you want to plant it. There is a "calendar" of sorts, for each US zone, and it tells everything about rose care for each month of the year.....when to plant, when to prune, etc. It goes into color and petal shapes and bloomed-size and fragrance/no-fragrance....everything you could possibly want to know about roses. It tells you how to plant.....how to transplant....how to prune....how to fertilize.....and when to do all these things. It has a section devoted to all the diseases that roses are susceptible to.....it shows a photo of the diseased roses....and tells remedies for each disease and even pointers on how to avoid the disease to begin with. The final section is basically an encyclopedia of roses....it has photos of hundreds of roses and describes them briefly....how they smell, where they grow best, how many petals, colors, how many times they bloom a year...etc.,etc.,etc! There is a ton of information in this book and very clear, beautiful and descriptive photos. This is a "must" for anyone interested in growing roses! Worth every penny! I was a novice beginner....this book was brilliantly helpful!

I took a "How to Grow Roses" seminar at my local nursery and this books was recommended by the lecturer. It's a good basic rose book and I've enjoyed it. It has some good information and lots of great roses photography.

I got this from the library and had to add it to my gardening collection. It's compact, but has lots of useful information, from rose care to good ideas on how to select and use particular rose varieties and a big photo section showing favorite roses. I've had a lot of fun looking at it again and again. If you only want one rose book, I don't think you could go wrong with this one. If you already have lots, like me, you'll still find this useful and enjoyable!

This book and a couple others are the best reference books for roses. We had years of enjoying roses following this guide

I bought this book because I was looking for a simple and comprehensive overview of planting and growing roses. This book has been very helpful to me. The sections on planting and pruning are very good. Well organized and easy to read.

This is a pretty book suitable for someone who is just getting into roses. It's enough to educate without overwhelming.

Roses are new to my garden. Reputation that they are difficult made me nervous. But this book gave a great introduction as to their care and gave me confidence I can handle them.

It's very interesting, however I miss a chapter about how to cultivate your own roses, Very good photos and great variety of roses.

Exactly what I needed to keep my roses healthy and growing

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