Gravette woman celebrates roses

GRAVETTE -- June is National Rose Month, but one Gravette woman celebrates roses all year long. Allyson Ransom, who lives on Dallas Street, S.E., with her son Max, has a beautiful yard and flower garden and roses are some of her favorites.

She's been growing roses for 35 years and has added new varieties through the years. She said, with the weather we've had this spring, this has been one of the best years for roses she's seen.

Ransom has several varieties of roses and has pretty much stopped adding hybrid teas and floribundas to concentrate on heirloom roses. Heirloom varieties take a lot of stress, she said. They are hardy and multi-seasonal, she pointed out. Even when they are not blooming, they have colorful leaves to enhance the garden in other seasons.

"Heirlooms can get diseases, too, but they pull out of it and chances of survival are much better than hybrid teas," she said. "Also they are very hardy if grown on their own root stock and not grafted like most roses you can buy around here."

Most roses originating over the last few decades have focused on flower form and color at the expense of fragrance. The new landscape roses feature disease resistance and increased flower numbers but lack fragrance. Growers who think a rose should smell like a rose must seek out the older, fragrant roses.

Because of breeding problems, many of the old timers, especially hybrid tea roses, don't root very well and, if they do root, they have a tendency to be weak. As a result, many highly desirable roses are no longer commercially produced or must be mail-ordered from specialty nurseries, often at a high cost.

Allyson has started many of her roses from cuttings, several found along the roadside, and ordered others from heirloom rose companies in Ontario, Canada, and Tyler, Texas. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll find a dear friend or relative is growing an old heirloom rose and is willing to share cuttings.

Two of Ransom's most striking varieties are growing up the arch over her front gate. Climbing up the left side is an old-fashioned rambler rose, May Queen, that grows up to 30 feet tall. On the right is an old Bourbon rose, Zephirine Drouhin. Other lovely roses include a rose from the 1700s, the butterfly rose, with blooms that resemble butterflies, and a rose that features a variety of colors because its single blooms darken as they age. Therese Bugner, an heirloom rugosa, forms a colorful 100-foot hedge.

Heirloom roses can take more shade and the roots of clematis vines need shade from other plants to thrive, so Allyson has planted clematis at the base of some of her roses to keep them in the shade. She has 15 varieties of clematis and, when the roses slow down in their blooming, the clematis take over and extend the beauty a bit longer.

Many people are not aware that President Ronald Reagan, in November of 1986, signed a proclamation stating that the rose is our national floral emblem. In it, he noted that our first president, George Washington, bred roses and a variety he named after his mother is still grown today. The White House has a beautiful rose garden and roses are grown in all 50 states.

You might celebrate this month by starting a rose garden or adding a variety you've never grown before. Teach your children and grandchildren to grow roses. You'll instill in them a love of roses and have help in the garden too. Host a garden party and invite all your friends who love roses. Visit a noted rose garden. At the very least, drink a cup of rose hip tea. However you choose to celebrate, rest assured Allyson Ransom will be honoring roses with you, just as she does every day.