ROSES IN DECEMBER

ROSES in December By JACK LAMAR

JUNE is known as the month of roses, but in Arizona with its mild winter climate, roses are plentiful in December.

Rose growing enthusiasts find the Valley of the Sun one of the most prolific rose producing sections of the west, with no other part of the state in season, as equally productive.

It is not unusual to drive through residential sections of the largest and smallest towns in Arizona, at all times of the year, and see climbers, bush and tree roses in orderly rows or wild confusion, depending upon the fancy of the cultivator.

In most sections of the country roses are planted from November to March 15, and this is true of planting in Arizona as a whole, while late February and all of March is the favorite planting period in the Valley of the Sun.

Here that old favorite, the American Beauty, flanked with the ever popular Francis Scott Key, Los Angeles, Autumn, Caledonia, Condesa de Sastago, Columbia, Dame Edith Helen, Etoile de Holland, Golden Ophelia, Lulu, Countess Vandal, Catalonia, Edith Nellie Perkins, Red Radiance, Pink Radiance, Rose Marie, and the climbing varieties of these bush and tree varieties, bloom the calendar around, depending on their location as to protection from frost and sun.

Here that old favorite, the American Beauty, flanked with the ever popular Francis Scott Key, Los Angeles, Autumn, Caledonia, Condesa de Sastago, Columbia, Dame Edith Helen, Etoile de Holland, Golden Ophelia, Lulu, Countess Vandal, Catalonia, Edith Nellie Perkins, Red Radiance, Pink Radiance, Rose Marie, and the climbing varieties of these bush and tree varieties, bloom the calendar around, depending on their location as to protection from frost and sun. All these, and more, may be seen in the various florists' shops, in the nurseries, in private gardens, in public parks and playgrounds, school gardens and the flower gardens of the leading guest ranches and hotels.

Rose culture in Arizona is on par with that in almost any section of the United States, with many of the show flowers being exhibited annually at both Tucson and Phoenix in flower shows, and throughout the state at the various meetings of garden clubs and similar organizations.

An example of rose culture in Arizona is seen in the Condesa de Sastago, which is described as "one of those brilliantly colored roses which draw the "Ohs" and "Ahs" from everyone who sees the rose for the first time." Cup shaped, bicolored flowers, glowing orange color on the inside of the petals and bright yellow on the outside, making a startling color flash and very fragrant.

Another which is popular, coming to local cultivators from Spanish parentage, is the Catalonia, which is described as one of the most brilliant and unique colored plants seen. "We are not sure just what to call the color," its gardener writes, "whether it be vermilion, orangescarlet or bright red with an orange underglow but certainly it is entitled to Its credit as being well named."

Those overworked adjectives-brilliant, vivid and unique.

Rose culturists in Arizona take wild rose cuttings gathered from the many areas of the state where grow the wild rose, which has a small, pink-like blossom, cultivate the wild stock to develop a hardy stalk, and then bud any of the accepted stocks.

The tree rose is standard, as to size, the wild stock being permitted to grow to three or four feet high, the branches being cropped, and then the domestic stock is budded in the spring, just as the sap begins to rise.

Gardeners report various results, depending on the care and location of the rose beds. Cuttings started in September have turned out well for some gardeners, while others advise late January and February for the planting time.

Unless Arizona receives an unusually heavy winter in the protected valleys, some varieties of roses have green leaves the year around. Blossoms are the best in November, however, usually continuing blooming the year long, depending on the time originally planted.

Expert gardeners with a healthy crop of bush or tree roses can produce a crop of rose flowers in 28 to 30 days, by proper pruning at the right time of season, average bushes taking that long to grow and produce the bud and flowers.

Every month of the year is important to the rose grower, from the standpoint of growing healthy plants. The spring is the period of most extensive growth, naturally, and it is at this time there are certain things the rosarian should know, and likewise do, if his or her roses are to continue to bloom and prosper.

Pruning, feeding and disease control are the three important things, according to Harvey F. Tate, University of Arizona extension horticulturist. Practically all of the rose bushes need their major pruning late in the winter or early spring before growth starts. A moderate pruning before the plants start and a good pruning after they bloom will be enough for the old fashioned roses that bloom once a year, Tate advises.

Climbing roses should have any dead wood taken out early in the season before growth starts, but climbing roses need their major pruning after they finish blooming.

The second essential in growing good roses is to feed the rose plant. Tate recommends that the mixture of manure with soil, preferably clay loam, be included in preparing beds in which to plant roses. This should be worked deep. A top dressing is recommended for the rose beds and around the individual plants at any time. A number of successful rose growers who use commercial fertilizer recommend a mixture consisting of one ounce nitrate of soda, four ounces superphosphate, and one ounce of nitrate of potash dissolved in 20 gallons of water. About a pint of that solution may be given each rose plant about once every three weeks during the growing period.

The third point is control of rose diseases. Downy mildew and rose-leaf blackspot are the most important. If the rose grower has not used an "ounce of prevention to get a pound of cure," he should dust the foliage with sulphur or spray with bordeaux mixture. The dusting sulphur is manufactured especially for this purpose.

Tate suggests that a pound of lead arsenate should be added to nine pounds of dusting sulphur to kill leaf-eating insects. Unless there are insects in the roses, the arsenate should not be added.

The dusting should be started early in the season, and applications should be made every week to ten days during the early part of the season and about half that often during the summer and early fall. The use of a dust gun that will shoot the dust upward beneath the leaves of the roses where the disease is most likely to start is recommended by Tate.

But don't let the talk of disease control discourage you in your consideration of rose culture in Arizona, for in Tomb-stone there grows the largest rosebush in the world, substantiated by Robert Ripley's "Believe It or Not;" John Hix' "Strange As It Seems," and Reg Manning's "Big Parade."

It is a White Lady Banksia, about 50 years old, with a trunk that is more than 40 inches in circumference, a spread of the branches over the patio of the old Tombstone Arcade Hotel, now known as the Rose Tree Inn.

The tree is cared for by Mrs. J. H. Macia, who was born in Tombstone and who has lived there practically all her life. Mrs. Macia, with her husband, operates the Rose Tree Inn, which faces on old Fourth Street, known to the bad men of Tombstone's heyday as "Lawyer's Row" because of the large number of attorneys' offices along the block.

Mrs. Macia informs visitors of the legend surrounding the rose tree, of true tales of Tombstone and the southwest, and of the work of the Federated Women's Clubs of Arizona, of which she is state historian.

According to Mrs. Macia, the White Lady Banksia received national publicity first in 1933, when John Hix' "Strange As It Seems" featured, a sketch of the rose bush in his drawing; Robert Ripley's "Believe It or Not" column featured the rose bush the same year, as did Reg Manning in the "Big Parade" Sunday feature in the Arizona Republic.

Pictures of the tree have appeared in the Mid-week Pictorial of the New York Times; the Denver Post; and most of the leading pictorial papers of the United States. The "Rose News Magazine" published an account of the tree and a sketch of Mrs. Macia's life. The New York Times captioned the picture, "They Planted Roses as Well as Men in Tombstone."

Following agitation as to the age of the White Lady Banksia and its relation to Tombstone's early history, the Bisbee Review in an editorial tracing the origin of the tree, quotes "a native of Tombstone, with a strange dreaminess in his eyes" related "That the original of the rose bush was a rose worn by Lotta Crabtree in a performance of 'Carmen' in the old Bird Cage Theatre."

Said the "Dreamy Eyed Native of Tombstone," "I can see her now as tho' It was but yesterday, purty and sweet, but full of fire, as the little Spanish gypsy-the leetle cigareet gal, you know -in Bezeet's opry of Carmen. That was strong stuff for us old desert rats and I ain't been able all these years to rid my mind o' that scene where little Carmen is pig-stuck by that son of a excuse me stranger, I mean her lover, Jose, the danged greezer! I seen him at the Crystal Palace next day and twus all I cud do to control my trigger finger_an mebbe I'd adunnit at that if'n here hadn't come Lotta herself traipsin' along the board sidewalk-"And according to the "dreamy eyed native," glamorous Lotta threw her rose, worn tantalizingly over her ear in the Carmen scene, into the rubbish can as she left the theatre, and it sprouted in the evil surroundings of early Tombstone, so that a sturdy English rosebush blossomed in the alley behind the Birdcage Theatre.

From the rosebush, which grew from the rose Lotta cast into the alley, a sprout was taken, transplanted in the spring of the following year, and lo, according to the "dreamy eyed native," the start of Tombstone's now famous tree.

So that couples planning to wed may marry under the luck bringing branches of the White Lady Banksia, special arrangements have been made with the county clerk in Bisbee since the county seat was transferred from Tombstoneso that marriage licenses may be issued in Tombstone, later recorded in the Bisbee court house. Particularly during the spring of the year, usually starting around Easter Sunday, the tree draws the lads and lassies who plan entering the holy state of matrimony.

Besides bride and groom, the rosebush also attracts tourists. On Easter Sunday in 1936, when the bush blossomed out in all the glory of 200,000 blossoms-creamish pink-more than 800 people from 36 states and seven foreign countries visited the patio. The tree was not in bloom Easter morning of 1937 but drew close to 200 persons anyway.