The roses that most gardeners grow are cultivars—copies of domestic plants produced by commercial growers—or hybrids—the genetic offspring of parent plants with distinctive characteristics—that are treasured for their special blooms, fragrance, or for such qualities as disease resistance or tolerance to heat, humidity, and cold. Collectively, these are called “varieties,” and more than 1,000 are known to exist.

Besides species, or wild roses, the major classes of garden roses are:

• Climber__ long-caned cultivars suitable for training onto vertical supports.
• Floribunda_ cross of hybrid tea and polyantha roses with clustered blooms.
• Grandiflora—large-statured cross between hybrid tea and floribunda roses.
• Hybrid tea—cross between tea and hybrid perpetual roses.
• Miniature—genetic dwarf hybrids of roses of other classifications.
• Mini-flora—intermediate in size and foliage between miniatures and floribundas.
• Old garden—antique classics and favorites that predate 1867 and include Bourbon, China, hybrid perpetual, noisette, Portland, and tearoses, plus Rosa alba, R. x damscena, R. x centifolia, and R. gallica, among others.
• Polyantha—diminutive hybrid of China tea, noisette, and R. multiflora.

• Shrub—a general classification for unique roses that defy classification into the other categories.

Roses are available that offer many different growth habits in addition to their flower color, bloom size, and fragrance. The most commonly available forms are spreading ground covers, low and spreading mounding bushes, shrubs, upright shrubs, climbers, and standard—often called tree—roses, plus miniature shrubs and trees. Gardeners and rosarians alike usually choose roses based on the effect that is desired and their intended use in the home landscape.

When planning your rose garden, choose first those rose varieties that fit your specific goals, space, and climate. If your goal is a spectacular, season-long show of blooms, pick a floribunda that will produce flushes from spring until autumn. For cutting stems, choose hybrid teas that produce showy, individual flowers. For fragrance, choose cultivars recognized for distinctive scents. If you’re seeking a practical rose to anchor a slope and grow without care, choose an easy-to-grow ground cover rose. To flood an arbor with color, choose repeat-blooming climbers. There are roses for every situation.

Next, consider the plant’s stature and your site’s space. The most popular roses—hybrid teas—offer vase-shaped, upright shrub, or tree forms, typically 3-5 feet (90-150 cm) tall and wide. Floribundas are similar in size to the hybrid teas. Grandifloras are somewhat larger and tend to be upright plants—they’ll reach 7 feet (2 m) tall, remaining the same width as a hybrid tea. For containers edgings, and foreground plantings, pick miniatures or polyanthasboth have compact, shrub, and tree forms. Climbers and ramblers are the ticket to fill large areas, or climb structures or pillars— some grow canes 20 feet (6 m) or more long.

Finally, remember your climate, especially if it is excessively cold, or hot and humid. Pick varieties adapted to your region. When variety selection is done, fitting your roses into your landscape style is the next item on the agenda.

Vibrant boxes, alive with colour, will transform a simple windowsill into an eye-catching display of flowers and foliage — from inside and out.

Troughs laden with flowers offer a bright and cheerful welcome

Too pretty to hide, this picket- fence window box has country cottage charm. Creamy white Asarina procumbens trail through the slats in contrast with the dark red Lobelia ‘Fan Scharlach’ and chocolate cosmos.

A regiment of primulas lined up along a sill will brighten many a dull winter’s day and makes a pretty alternative to a traditional trough.

Plain colour schemes often work best in a confined space like a window box. Here, white begonias and geraniums, with a touch of lilac lobelia, make an elegant summer display.

Strong plants are needed to withstand autumn weather. Here dwarf conifers draw the eye to the glossy pink berries of Pernettya mucronata while glowing purple erica makes a miniature hedge.

A format stone trough with its winter display of clipped box can be livened up instantly in spring by tucking a few bright polyanthus in at the front.

A sizzling mass of bright fuchsias, geraniums, mimulus and nasturtiums screens this window from passers-by as effectively as a net curtain would.

A sitting snugly on a sill or fixed to the wall beneatha window, offers the chance to change your outlook with every season and to enhance the facade of your home.

The most attractive window boxes are often those in which the colours are vibrant and the vigour of the plants creates a swirling mass that obscures the box and almost envelops the window it is dressing. But if you are attaching a box below a window that opens outwards, be careful to site it low enough, so that you can still open the window when the plants mature.

Window boxes are long, thin, usually not very deep, and hold a relatively small amount of soil, so they need slow-release fertilizer granules, as well as water- retaining gel or granules incorporated into the mix.

Make sure that a window box sited on the front of the house is securely fixed with brackets or iron restraints.

This will keep it safe from theft and will prevent endangering the people walking beneath it.

If you live above other people, or if your window box overhangs a pavement, it may be a good idea to equip the box with a drip tray: it will be no fun for neighbours to be caught under a shower each time you water the flowers.

Try to fix your window box into position before you plant it up — it may be impossibly heavy to move later. If the box is for a ground-floor window it will be easy to work on it from the outside. But if you live higher up, you may need to throw the windows wide open and work from inside.

CONCENTRATED STYLE

Even in the confined space of a window box it is possible to create a variety of styles. A limited palette of one colour plus foliage plants — for example, a rich red geranium with ivy — would provide a vibrant, yet formal style and will have most impact when viewed from a distance. Pastel petunias, with lobelia in complementary colours, and trails of fuchsia, suggest a more relaxed, country style.

Silver and grey is a deservedly popular colour combination for foliage in window boxes. Add a white or cream variegated ivy or white-flowered lobelia to add highlights to a cool contemporary display.

For a south-facing window use ivy, box or busy lizzies, which all thrive in shade, as well as ferns, and cyclamen. In full sun try the floriferous diascias in a range of pastel colours.

Seed pans, wicker baskets and basins make ideal homes for small plants. Choose these containers for succulents and seaside plants, which won’t mind if the shallow soil dries out from time to time on hot sunny days.

A stone Venus gazes across a sea of low pots filled with a selection of rockery plants and small succulents.

A terracotta box (1) houses a clump of late-flowering Angélique’ tulips, while a basket (2) of low-growing sedums and pinks makes a pretty outdoor table decoration. Bonsai trees (3) need very little soil for their roots and grow best in shallow pots.

Bowls and low troughs show off the smaller treasures of the garden, such as small succulents, mat-forming plants and low-growing bulbs, to their best advantage. A group of shallow pots of just one type of plant, such as houseleeks (sempervivums), set out on a patio becomes a textured ornament.

Stone troughs are rectangular and about 15- 20cm (6-8in) deep. They are expensive (and not easy to find), but old Victorian sinks are a popular alternative — and come complete with plughole drainage. Most plugholes, however, are so large that water and soil will drain rapidly away so it is best to cover them with broken crocks or a piece of fine wire mesh.

Ceramic sinks can be used as they are or coated with a cement mix to produce a more traditional weathered look. If weight is an issue, it is easy to coat a light plastic or polystyrene base with the cement mix or make a mock stone trough.

Troughs should be raised off the ground on bricks to improve drainage and to keep the bottom free of slugs and other pests.

Small plants, such as pinks — Dianthus alpinus, D. deltoides and D. neglectus — grow well in shallow containers. Thrifts are also good choices, and form softly textured foliage mounds with flower stems rising up out of the clump.

Mat-forming plants such as houseleeks, saxifrages and creeping thymes with their subtle range of foliage

Colours are well suited to shallow containers, where they spread in mounds and rosettes, as well as in ground-covering mats.

Seed pans, popular wide, shallow terracotta pots, which can be round or square, provide a shapely setting for spring bulbs. Because they are small and easy to carry, they can be brought into position near the house just as the flower buds start to open.

Low-growing bulbs such as Iris reticulate, closely planted and in a single colour, look like jewels set in these shallow bowls. Tulips growing out of a sea of blue forget-me- nots will also provide good spring colour, as will collections of dwarf, multi- flowered and species tulips.

When the spring bulbs have finished flowering, plant delicate pink or white Cyclamen coum for autumn and winter pleasure.

Flowers offer the container gardener not only colour but also texture and shape. When planning a display, you need to look at the size of the plants, the outline of their flowers and whether the foliage is glossy or muted. Striking a balance between colour, texture and shape can create a beautiful tapestry effect.

You could plant a container to resemble a luxurious bouquet, for instance, using spear-shaped lupins, bell-like campanulas or petunias, daisy-shaped gazanias and the pompoms of alliums or scabious, all in different colours. Or plant an arrangement such as the pots of cool-coloured lime lovers, where the colours harmonise but the contrast of different shapes reverberates with excitement.

Colour and Season

The effect of light at different times of the year can also influence the look of an arrangement. In spring the soft cool quality of the light suits bright colours — yellow daffodils and red tulips look bright and fresh early in spring whereas they might look harsh in summer. The pinks, lilacs and mauves so popular in summer containers seem to cool the atmosphere on a hot, a sunny day. And in the autumn months, glowing reds and bronzes are particularly effective.

One of the joys of container gardening is that colour schemes can be changed from one season to another or even during the same season. A bare brick wall seen from indoors during winter could be made attractive with variegated climbing ivies. In summer these could form the background for flowering climbers, such as roses or clematis, morning glory or sweet peas.

Sometimes a shrub creates year-round colour opportunities for a container garden. Skimmia japonica and Viburnum davidii both have neat shapes and evergreen interest, but also produce flowers in spring and autumn fruits. A pot of creamy daffodils, narcissi or hyacinths would emphasise either plant’s tiny spring flowers. In autumn the red berries of the skimmia could be highlighted with miniature red cyclamen, and the blue viburnum fruits set off with metallic blue pansies or violas.

Lavender is another good choice for year-round interest. It can be teamed with different plants as the seasons change and as the lavender itself shifts from stark silvery foliage to a mass of rich purple blooms.

Colours, shapes and textures combine in glorious container displays to lift the spirit, whatever the season.

You can experiment with other species, but you must remember that the final bonsai needs to be a credible natural image, not an odd species of tree with big leaves and sparse branching that has been grown in a pot.

The surface rootage on a bonsai is a difficult feature to create, so when you are looking at stock trees it is best to scrape around the base of the tree with your fingers or a stick to see if there is an attractive trunk flare that leads into well-formed surface roots. Be careful not to scar or damage any roots that you uncover. Moving up from the base, you should look for a pleasing trunk line with branches, twigs or buds in good positions that can be developed into branches on the bonsai. You should also have some idea of where the apex is going to be and whether there are suitable options for a live or dead apex, depending on the overall look of the tree. A final bonus would be old, flaky bark on the trunk that completes the illusion of an ancient tree.

Nursery owners can spot bonsai growers from a long way off because their behaviour is totally different to that of ‘normal’ customers. When looking for a tree for your garden you will generally look for one that is nice and straight with a well- developed trunk and as tall as possible, so that it will fill the space in the garden as soon as possible. Bonsai growers, on the other hand, spend most of their nursery visit on their hands and knees, rooting around the bases of the trees to try to find an attractive, stubby trunk, with a well-formed root base that can be used as a good start for a bonsai. It is also a good idea to try to find the nursery’s ‘junk’ pile of plants that are damaged in some way and so cannot be sold to the normal customer. You can often negotiate a good price for these trees as well.

Chisels

A set of sharp hand chisels and gouges are good for small tasks such as stripping the bark and wood of a small juniper. Chisels are, incidentally, also useful for experimenting with grafting.

Electric drill

An electric drill can have a variety of attachments added, the most useful of which is a small wire brush that is used to smooth off and add a fine-grain texture to both old and fresh deadwood. Some people use a variety of grinding stones on drills to try to carve trees, but this is never a very successful method because the relatively slow speeds that these machines work at result in the wood being rubbed off rather than being cut away.

Routers

These are quite commonly used to carve trees. They can be quite effective but they do have the disadvantage that the machine is usually quite bulky and heavy to hold in your hands and is therefore difficult and tiring to use. Routers work at a reasonably high speed, but chatter can still occur when carving certain kinds of wood. Chatter is dangerous for both the tree and the tool operator, and occurs when the cutter catches on the wood, jerking the machine and user in an uncontrolled way. If you are not careful you can damage the tree significantly and hurt yourself in the process.

Electric carving tools

Then there are the specialist woodcarving tools such as the Dremel tool. These are mostly small machines that are suited for finely detailed work on smaller trees. They operate at high speeds and there is a wide range of different cutting and grinding bits available. A bigger machine is the die grinder. This is a long, tapered machine that is designed to be held in the hands. It also operates at very high speeds (30 000 revolutions per minute, or 500 per second!) so the wood is cut away neatly. It is the most costly machine for deadwood carving, but it is the best for working on large trees and stumps. One problem with working on deadwood is that the bits often get clogged with wood fibres and stop cutting properly. When this happens, take a soft metal brush and rub the bit to remove the collected residue.

Angle grinder

The most rapid removal of wood can be achieved with the dangerous combination of an angle grinder with a woodcutting disc attached, which resembles a circular chainsaw blade. This is a very dangerous tool and should be used with great care, but it is the most efficient tool for removing large amounts of wood from a tree when you want to create significant deadwood features or a major taper in a large tree.

The container of a bonsai has been likened to the frame of a picture; it is the finishing touch that makes a good tree an exceptional bonsai. It is more than this, however, as it is also the home of the tree and so needs to provide an environment for the roots that will ensure healthy, vigorous growth to maintain the health of the top parts of the tree.

Until about twenty years ago the bonsai-pot market was dominated by the Eastern potteries, with Japan and China producing the bulk of the containers. Since then, Korea has started to produce a lot of export pots while kilns in other parts of the world also started experimenting with the manufacture of bonsai pots. At the moment there are artists, particularly in Europe and the United States, who are producing pots that rival the quality seen in the Oriental containers. There is an unprecedented availability of bonsai containers. Pots in a wide range of prices and qualities are being imported from the East, while there are local potteries producing good-quality, reasonably priced containers that are very suitable for developing a bonsai collection in. With the increasing interest in bonsai, this availability is set to continue improving.

A Korean producer has made very successful containers out of a mix of 85% mica, 10% polyethylene (plastic) and 5% graphite. These mica pots are very tough, come in large sizes and work very well as training pots for big trees. They are very light, which makes moving large trees around very much easier as well. By smoothing the walls of the pot carefully with fine sandpaper or water-paper you can create an attractive finish on the pot. This may be enhanced by oiling the surface lightly with baby oil or any other light mineral oil. Once they have been refined in this way the pots are visually indistinguishable from brown ceramic containers and can be used very successfully in exhibitions.

It is worth waiting and saving up to get the best possible pot for a special tree. Every time you look at your creation you will be filled with a strong sense of satisfaction and joy. Remember that the only pots you are likely to regret are the ones that you liked but did not buy! A quality pot is difficult to describe, but there are standard considerations for any bonsai pot:

• It must have large drainage holes in the bottom;
• It should have feet at the bottom so that the base of the pot is lifted off the surface of the table to ensure that the pot drains properly;
• It should not be warped so that the feet lift off the ground, making the pot wobble;
• It should be strong and rigid so that the roots do not move as you move the pot;
• If you live in a cold climate it must be frost-resistant;
• It should be attractively finished with a good colour that is not garish or artificial-looking;
• Ideally it should be unglazed on the inside, as this allows the roots to adhere to the inside of the pot, stabilising the tree.

Aside from these characteristics, a high- quality pot has the intangible combination of refinement and roughness; it ‘looks and feels right’. The design of the pot may be rough and earthy, but details in aspects such as the finish of the rim and refinement of the feet show that it was made with special care. Age and exposure to the environment enhance the quality of such a pot, giving it a mature, weathered look; worthy of an ancient tree. There are not many of these pots, but if you are fortunate enough to be travelling overseas, keep your eyes open for nurseries and have a look at their stock of pots.

A bonsai pot should never overpower the tree that is planted in it. When you view the bonsai, your first reaction should not be, ‘Wow, what an amazing pot!’ It should rather be, ‘Ooh, what a stunning bonsai! And it’s in a lovely container, too.’ To ensure that you get the second reaction you should match the tree carefully with its pot. This is a difficult process to explain, and we usually have to make some compromises with the selection that is available at the time. Some artists build up a ’store’ of pots, buying unusual ones whenever they become available. This provides them with a wide selection to choose from whenever they have a tree that needs potting up. Pot selection is a subjective process, which relies largely on the taste and preferences on the artist. If given the same tree, ten different people would probably choose ten different pots and all of the choices would work for the tree.

This ’self-thinning’ is in response to the imbalance that was created. As a bonsai grower you want to have some control over which sections of the tree are lost, otherwise you may have important branches dying while the adjustment is occurring. By pruning the canopy at the same time as the roots you are making the choices for the tree about how it should look after the rebalancing process, thus improving your chances of keeping important branches. The same process occurs if you cut a lot of branches off the tree while leaving a big root system. The leaves will not be able to supply enough food to the roots while the roots absorb much more water than is needed by the canopy of the tree. The tree will respond to this imbalance by allowing certain sections of its root system to die until the balance has been restored. Cutting the roots and leaving a big canopy is the more dangerous of the two imbalances we have discussed here.

We are, of course, talking about an average case; you occasionally come across exceptional examples. When working on large deciduous trees or evergreens such as wild olive (Olea europaea ssp. africana) or the wild figs (Ficus spp.) you sometimes have to cut the tree right back to a bare stump in preparation for growing a whole new set of branches. In this case you do not leave a stump of a root base. Instead you should leave a reasonable root ball and this will continue absorbing water and help the tree to push out new buds over the whole trunk that has been left.

Some trees are tolerant of very severe pruning of the roots, wild figs (Ficus spp.) and wild olive (Olea europaea ssp. africana) fit this description well, while others are more sensitive to root pruning, for example cedars (Cedrus spp.) and pines (Pinus spp.) to some extent. This is another case where personal experience is best for your particular area — experiment for yourself on smaller trees or consult other enthusiasts to find out what their experiences have been. To get an indication of the toughness of the tree you can see how easily it grows from cuttings and how well it buds back when pruned.

The idea of having to maintain the balance between the foliage and roots explains why you should always leave a reasonable root ball when repotting established bonsai; it is so that the foliage can be well supported while the roots are regrowing.

Old trees have interesting trunk lines. As a tree grows, events in its life will cause dieback at its growing tip, forcing it to change its growth angle. If this happens a few times the trunk ends up being more or less twisted. One exception to this would be a tree that has grown in a field for its whole life, unaffected by the rigours of wind, hail and disease. Even in this case an old tree would have an elegant trunk line that is strongly vertical, with a beautiful, even taper.

Old trees have branches that sweep downwards. A sapling is concerned with getting to the light by growing as fast as possible. To achieve this, its branches grow upwards towards the sky. As the tree grows the lower branches will be shaded by branches from higher up in the tree. These branches will either die, leaving a mature tree with a clear trunk and branches towards its top, or the lower branches are forced to grow longer and longer to keep their growing tips in the light. In time they will start to sag under their own weight and thus take on a downward angle. In areas that experience snow this effect is enhanced, because the trees grow in a shape that will shed snow before it gets so heavy that the branches break. There’s no snow in the tropics, so tropical trees don’t grow in this ‘pine-tree‘ shape. They tend to be more rounded so as to capture as much light as possible. This having been said, large tropical trees also have thick primary branches that are at the very least horizontal and usually angled slightly downwards.

Old trees support canopies that are filled with fine branches. The mature appearance of a bonsai is greatly enhanced if the primary branches splitgracefully into secondary branchingwhich splits into tertiary and quaternary twigs, filling the canopy with detail and density. In an excellent bonsai it is not good enough just to havemasses of twigs. The twigs all need to be in the correct positions so that they are not shading their neighbours, thus causing them to die back. The refinement of the twigs is a time-consuming process that is discussed more fully in the section on refinement.

Old trees have beautiful bark. This is the most difficult character to emulate and frequently one must start with an old tree if one wants old bark. In some species, such as the false olive or witolienhout (Buddleja saligna) and the cork-barked Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia ‘Suberosa’), the bark is naturally rough and gives the tree a feeling of age. A method has been developed by Colin Lewis (5) that involves wrapping the trunk of the tree with loose sphagnum moss as this encourages the development and cracking of the bark.

Old trees often contain deadwood features. As we have said above, a tree has to tell a story and one of the most powerful, compact and efficient ways of doing this is to add deadwood features to it. These areas demonstrate more violent periods in the tree’s life, when branches and trunks have been pruned off by nature, through storms or attacks of disease. The tree then recovers from this assault, heals the wounds and moves forward with its life, still bearing the marks of the past on its deadwood features. Deborah Koreshoff likens these features to the bones and sinews of the tree that tell the story of its life, as is the case in human peasant farmers who have toiled in the fields for years. Some artists insist that all bonsai should contain some dead features while others abhor the idea of showing any injury of this nature.

Natural stone slabs are difficult to find, but it is worth looking around the bases of granite and basalt domes to see if you can find any large fragments that have split off as a result of the hot sun or passing veld fires. A problem with many of these slabs is that they are heavily weathered, making them quite fragile, and they have a tendency to break up when used for bonsai plantings. Slabs can be reinforced with steel rods or fibreglass shells. It has also become popular to construct artificial slabs out of cement that is then finished and carefully painted, resulting in a very realistic-looking stone that is much tougher, and usually much thinner and lighter, than its genuine counterpart.

Slate is a popular medium to use when creating forest and group plantings, as it is usually easier to find a large enough piece for the creation than it is to find a suitable shallow pot. Pieces of slate can be shaped using an angle grinder, hammer and chisel or tile cutter, but be careful not to break the sheet in half. When using an angle grinder, it is best to cut halfway through the slab from the back of the sheet, then press the slab against an edge which will break the sheet along this line (the view of the edge from the top of the sheet will be a little more uneven than you would have obtained had it been cut all the way through with the blade).

‘Muck‘

When creating a slate planting you should pile the soil up a bit to give enough volume for the roots of the trees. It is best to find some heavy clay soil and mix it with fresh cow manure — a half-and-half mix is good — and add enough water to make a loose paste. Allow it to ferment for a while (anything up to six months), making sure it stays wet. This gives a smooth, very workable putty-like ‘muck‘ that is used to build up a wall around the edge of the planting that will prevent the granular soil from being washed off the slate. ‘Instant muck‘ can be made by mixing well-rotted manure and clay together, but the consistency will not be as good as that made by the traditional method. The whole arrangement can then be covered with moss to disguise the wall. Muck is very useful for anchoring trees and rocks in all your stone arrangements, saikei and rooton-rock plantings.

Integrating slab and tree

Slate can pose aesthetic problems, as there is no real unity between the perfectly flat slab and the planting on top of it. You can integrate the two by placing small pieces of slate horizontally in the planting to give the effect of a stony outcrop that has a group of trees growing on it. It is best to angle the pieces of slate slightly inward so that water flows into the planting rather than the pieces acting like roof tiles and shedding water away from the trees. When adding any stones to an arrangement, remember that stones were part of the landscape long before the trees appeared, so they need to have a very stable and ‘planted’ look, with the trees scattered among the stones and not the other way round.