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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Garden -> Joan Franson's Roses
 ROSES
FROM ALBA TO ZEPHIRINE: Joan Franson’s
Arvada Laboratory of Roses
By Niki Hayden
Joan Franson is ushering a garden group through her pie-shaped Arvada garden
on a rainy, wind-swept day. Donned in pink pith helmet and rose-printed jacket,
Joan leads the foray winding through giant thorns and aggressive brambles. Like any rose
judge, she’s quick to point out the good, bad and the ugly: "marvelous thorns,"
and "fabulous monstrosity" follow "such resplendent blooms."
 Through trial and error, she has turned her suburban lot into a rose
laboratory, where the fine and finicky come to lodge. Some thrive and others do
not. Flanked by protective pine trees on a corner lot, one bush, the 19th
century rose, ‘Desiree Parmentier,’ is taking over. Close by, a new rose
with a cinnamon tinge, ‘Hot Cocoa,’ will have to struggle through a Colorado
summer and winter to determine if it is worthy of calling Colorado home.
 "We live on solid bentonite clay," Joan says about her property.
Bentonite is problem clay that shifts and often causes cracks in a building’s
foundation. It’s a problem for gardeners, too. "It’s a thick, heavy
clay, almost leaden," Joan says with an exasperated sigh. Heavy clay requires
amendments that will allow the plant to absorb minerals from the soil. So, in
1975, just after a cold and snowy night before Easter, a worker with a backhoe
arrived to dig beds for a rose garden.
"I asked him to leave two-thirds of the soil," she says, "and
move the other third to another part of the property." After two
crescent-shaped beds were dug two feet deep and four feet wide, Joan added
squeegee road base, which is gravel used under road construction. Here, it
serves to provide quick drainage. She then mixed mushroom compost and sphagnum
peat moss in the remaining soil for humus. Super phosphate fertilizer was
sprinkled into the beds. Finally, sulphur, an element that amends alkaline soil
over a period of years and brings it closer to a neutral base, went into the
mixture. "And then we soaked it and planted in two weeks," she says.
 Since then, Joan has planted roses of all kinds, from the species roses
designed by Mother Nature, to finicky hybrid teas. Many will not make it through
a Colorado winter, but Joan wants to find out what will. She has one of a kind,
when it comes to roses. "I bought three 'Morden Blush' bushes (a Canadian rose), and I never buy three of anything," she announces. It’s
rare to find more than one rose bush unless, like 'Desiree Parmentier', it has
volunteered another plant without prompting.
 Odd, found roses that don’t fit into any category like ‘Victorian Memory’
grow alongside other sturdy bushes. 'Gourmet Popcorn' releases it’s tiny white
puff blooms and Harison’s yellow is in full array. Harison’s is a hybrid
rose, the offspring of species
roses thousands of years old, most likely from Iran. Botanists believe it to be
an immigrant, carried to the American West by
pioneers. Found on many old farms, the Harison’s yellow is filled with tiny
yellow blossoms on thick thorny canes.
 One vigorous rose that arches into the street,
its long canes dotted with
lavender pink sprays of blossoms, has remained a mystery species rose, although visiting rose
lovers bend over an impressive cane, carefully scrutinizing the blooms. "No
one knows what that rose is," Joan concedes.
Others like ‘Banshee,’ are old European roses that have been discovered
and collected by those, like Joan, who prize their tough constitutions and
intoxicating fragrances. "This is one of the most mysterious of roses," she says,
"not much has been written on it. I don’t care what kind of winter you
have, it doesn’t die back and it has great hips."
 A few rose lovers are as drawn to great hips as to the bloom. Hips are the
fruit of a rose, the globular product filled with tiny seeds after the flower
has faded. It’s the real purpose of the rose bush--to regenerate another
generation. But rose hips also feed birds and in the Middle Ages, provided
vitamin C steeped in a tea that cured a list of ills. The rose family includes
apples, pears, pomegranates and cherries. What we eat as fruit are the
magnificent hips that develop from insignificant flowers.
 For rose lovers, like Joan,
the hips are gifts for wildlife, but flowers
are the prize, loved for color or fragrance, size or rarity. Sometimes, they simply are
loved for oddities or even thorns. "These thorns are exciting," Joan
notes about a striking rose bush with bristles in between--a Rosa
serica omiensis. Like something out of a science fiction movie, it’s a
rose that can defend itself.
Not far away is an exquisite pink rose with elegant petals that dates to 1868
when it was hybridized by a Frenchman known only as Bizot. 'Zephirine
Drouhin' is classified as a Bourbon, a romantic antique rose, "Bizot only hybridized
one rose," Joan says with awe, "but what a rose!"
Joan’s roses can be divided into old European roses collected and
hybridized before 1867 by amateur or court-sponsored botanists, species roses
that are thousands of years old and designed by nature, or modern roses
hybridized after 1867.
 Modern roses are the most eclectic category, including roses that will never
withstand the rigors of the Rocky Mountain foothills. But it also includes
modern roses that are as tough as many old standbys. ‘Golden Wings,’ a
five-petal rose by the contemporary hybridizer, Roy Shepherd, hangs
over her front sidewalk. "Such a superb bloomer" she says,
"Disease resistant foliage and fantastic hips. It always leaves a little
crown of golden stamens after the petals have fallen away."
Other modern roses like the Canadian roses or Buck roses have joined the list
of popular roses to grow in Colorado. Joan grows ‘John Cabot’ and ‘William
Baffin’ from the Canadian list and ‘Applejack’ from the Buck category.
Buck roses were developed by Griffith Buck at Iowa State University to satisfy
demands for tough roses. Canadian roses have been hybridized by Canadian growers
to withstand frigid winters. They carry names of Canadian explorers or Canadian
cities. Both have found a respectful following in Colorado.
 When asked what advice she might give to the novice gardener who would like a
rose garden, Joan says site location with six hours or more of sunlight and good
drainage is the first step. She shaped her crescent-shaped gardens four feet
wide, allowing her to work into the rose beds without stepping on the soil. The
two beds are centered in the middle of her front yard surrounded by a canopy of
trees.
The next step is to imagine how to blend roses into your landscape. "Is
it a formal bed--or what blends with what you have?" Joan asks. "Do you
garden for cut roses, or multicolor display? Are you looking to put a few select
things in a mixed perennial bed? A hybrid tea rose garden would usually be a
formal bed with a geometric outline, like a circle, or a rectangle. A more
informal setting would influence the type and individual varieties."
 Once you’ve decided how roses might grow best in your garden,
there is
a world of blooms to choose from. Joan says some are Colorado stalwarts that she
can recommend to nearly everyone. 'Jeanne LaJoie', as a miniature pink rose that
turns into a vigorous climber is a first choice. 'Banshee', the fragrant
antique rose is beloved. ‘Linda Campbell’ named for a friend of Joan’s is
a modern rugosa and holds a special place in her garden.
 For an old Gallica rose, Joan chooses
'Alain Blanchard'. And while hybrid tea
roses are the most finicky in our climate, ‘Yankee Doodle,’ has real staying
power. Other hybrid tea roses that stand the test of time are: ‘Audrey Hepburn’
for pretty and reliably repeat blooms, ‘Ivory Tower’ and ‘Pristine’ as
well as ‘Ivory Fashion’ for white roses. Miniatures, too, are allotted a
garden of their own in Joan’s front yard with ‘Baby Grand,’ as a pink
miniature with abundant blooms, ‘Popcorn’ for its hardiness, ‘Gigi’ and
‘Single’s Better.’
"I’ve divided my garden into styles of growth," Joan says, and
many of the old garden roses reside alongside the newer hybrid teas. Rose trends
come and go, but as rose lovers everywhere will tell you, there’s a rose for
every gardener. That waft of heady fragrance, a shade of brilliant color or a
robust bush that climbs over a trellis, will grab attention. As members of a vast family, roses have
adapted to nearly every terrain—even the extremes of Colorado. Every year,
Joan discovers new roses that adapt and appreciate the climate we offer. Even in
bentonite soil.
Photos from top to bottom:
'Audrey Hepburn' hybrid tea, 'Hot Cocoa' hybrid tea, Joan Franson answering a
question during a tour, 'Desiree
Parmentier' 19th century rose, 'Harison's yellow' favorite 19th century rose, the mystery rose
that has never been identified, 'Zephirine
Drouhin' 19th century rose by Bizot, thorns of Rosa serica omiensis, Victorian
Memory found rose, 'Linda Campbell' modern rugosa rose, 'Abraham Darby' modern shrub rose
hybridized by David Austin, green rose is Rosa chinesis viridiflora.
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