PROPAGATION. Cuttings of growing shoots, seeds, division.
SPECIAL USES. Baskets.
CHAPTER 7
MINIATURE ROSES, INDOORS AND OUT
Men, women, and children; gardeners, nongardeners, and the family cat—everyone is captivated by a four-inch rosebush with precise little leaves and thorns, studded with button-size buds and flowers, twinkling in its pot on the window sill. On her weekly visit the cleaning woman checks on its health and welfare. The baby-sitter has her boy friend come in to see it. The milkman wants to know where he can get one like it for his green-thumbed wife.
But if I had a dime for every eager buyer who has found these midgets disappointingly difficult to grow indoors, I could start building my dream greenhouse tomorrow. There are simply too many floriferous pictures with thimbles to show how cute the flowers are, and too few responsible growers who give specific cultural directions with every sale.
In the garden there’s no problem. These are by nature outdoor plants, mostly sturdier and more winter-hardy than the full-sized hybrid teas and floribundas. For some reason, they even seem to be less subject to the depredations of insects and disease. I can pick handfuls of Japanese beetles from the regulars in the rose garden, but few from the miniatures little more than a hundred feet away.
I’m not implying that miniature roses are impossible indoors. One of the most perfect blooming bushlets I’ve ever seen came to our flower show from a sparsely windowed, steam-heated Brooklyn apartment. I simply want to spread the gospel that, to avoid risking disappointment, everybody should know what kind of cultural conditions they need.
Potted miniature roses are positively precious in cool, sunny window gardens, with rows of matching pots on glass shelves up and down the window, or singles or small groups in mixed arrangements on the sill or in a window greenhouse. Although they are not the most adaptable subjects for growing under artificial light, I’ve known several people who have been successful, particularly when the plants were started under lights from seed.
In a harmonious decorative container, a flowering miniature rose makes a small plant-and-container decoration to inspire the prettiest compliments. With suitable environment a tiny bush can be used as a center of interest in an indoor model landscape. A small greenhouse should hardly be without one of these brightly blooming babies.