Many of the old books you can find online and judge for yourself if it is worth it to buy a hardcopy of them. For example, Gore's book. Many old books that are currently available are not real reprints but prints of scanned (digitised) library samples. All of these one can find online.

Gore's book

I can help with Buist's Rose Manual, if you don't mind reading the free e-book:

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Rose_Manual.html?id=nh1LAAAAIAAJ

If you want to download the pdf, or read a plain text version, click on the roundish icon thingy (sorry about all the technical jargon!) on the top right side of the page.

I don't know off-hand if any of the others are freebies, but you may only be looking for bound books? If not, I can check for the others.

I don't know where you look for used books, but I like the ABE site: http://www.abebooks.com

Good luck,

Virginia

Thanks! I am aware that they are available online, or at least some of them. I am a hardback, bound in cloth kind of book collector. I regard reading online as something one does when traveling, or if Real books are unobtainable. My question is whether or not these books are still worth collecting by an old rose lover, or if they are only worthwhile as a curiosity.

I buy a lot of used books. I use a number of sources -- ABE books (now owned by Amazon), Amazon, Biblio.com, and local used book stores.

Ann, I am glad you mentioned that book, since I've only recently heard of the Lindsays, and their contributions to the world of gardening. It's not likely that I'll ever actually travel to the U.K., the Riviera or Persia (Iran), but I can go via books. I'll see if I can get an ILL from my library.

Thanks,

Virginia

I hope you are successful in finding the books you will enjoy. The only rose book I have now is Botanicas Pocket Roses, which I leaf through all the time.

I just moved and accidently left two boxes of rose books behind. I am trying to figure out a way to get them back without it costing me the price of the books again!

A few years ago I heard that my ancient ancestors were from Persia. I would love to read that book by Alice Fullerton.

Valerie

Drennan's book is one of my favorites, and I cherish it. Sometimes, I still keep it by my bed.

Valerie -- I have "To Persia For Flowers," and I would not part with it.

I recommend the early American and British Rose Annuals.

In fact, Ann -- It was my reading on Miss Norah -- leading from "To Persia For Flowers" that led me to the realization that while Graham Stuart Thomas may be admirable in many ways, I don't like him one little bit.

Wait, who is Miss Norah? I'm getting lost.

Miss Norah was Norah Lindsay who was very famous in her own day as a garden designer. I enjoyed the book Norah Lindsay-Garden Designer by Allyson Hayward

Norah Lindsay-Garden Designer

for the story as well as the people. I think in reading it I could see where her daughter became the person who would go off to Persia and do things most Ladies of the time couldn't and wouldn't.

This may lead you to the revised version of Hidcote

Hidcote: the Making of a Garden

By Ethne Clarke. She was in the middle of her revision when (as Jeri and I were so interested in Nancy) I talked to her.

Do go to the link I've given and read the whole of the first review on Amazon. There's a gem there.

I have a couple other of Ethne Clarke's books, her rose garden book and her English cottage garden book. Wait, it seems I have four, since I also have her kitchen garden book and her herb garden book. It seems that she and I share similar tastes in gardens. I really ought to catalog my books some day. Then I would have just known. I am after all a librarian.

One day I must visit Hidcote. I have seen several English gardens, but there are so many more to see. I dearly wish that we in American had a stronger tradition in that area. We do have a few great gardens, and very fine ones at that. I have visited Longwood, Dumbarton Oaks, Chanticleer, Hershey, Filoli, Calloway, and every botanical garden that comes my way, even the excellent one in Omaha, Nebraska. Yes, really; Omaha. I was surprised and humbled. But compared to the English, Irish, and Scottish we do not have very many.

I had the same reaction to Celia Thaxton's "An Island Garden" and actually sold the book, though in retrospect I wonder if I had given it a fair chance. I am anxious to read "To Persia For Flowers."

Mine was an ebook so I just deleted it.

One member of out book club had a beautiful illustrated edition that I greatly admired. If I had that one I might have kept it on the shelf simply as an ornament, but certainly not to be read.

Let me know what you think of To Persia with Flowers. I have ordered a couple of the books listed above so think I'll wait a while before I get more.

Funny about your reaction to An Island Garden! I liked it fine - especially entranced with her description of keeping the tea roses alive every winter and rowing them back to the island, and growing seeds in eggshells. And how she arranged the flowers on her mantel. I like Childe Hassam's paintings, and cherish "An Island Garden Revisited." I like Drennan, especially because of her chapter about roses for cemetery gardens. And Shepherd's book is very good, I think, as is Bunyan's. Don't know Gore or Buist.

Anita, to each her own. Where I found it sappy and irritating where you found it inspiring and gallant. I suspect you saw what I missed.

Very likely I'll add Brennan, Shepherd, and Bunyan at some point. They may not always be available, and no doubt that is when I will decide I want them.

I recently added Roses of the World in Color to my rose book collection. It seemed to be on everyone's list of must-haves. I was not so impressed. It is very heavy on midcentury HTs, roses that have less appeal for me. Mine is the 1946 edition. Possibly I would have valued an earlier edition more.

Hey Rosefolly - we of the humble state of Nebraska appreciate the shout-out to the botanical gardens in Omaha (Lauritzen Gardens, I presume). Glad you enjoyed it but you sounded surprised that we can grow nice gardens here in the Plains (smile). It is definitely a tough climate for gardening, but you know that if the plants survive our winters as well as summers they're a good bet for a tricky situation. Those gardens are a nice testament to what can happen with donors who set up an enduring fund to support the gardens after they themselves are gone.

As for books, I don't have much to offer as I haven't read any of the ones you mention. I have a book by Vita Sackville-West that I keep meaning to get around to that includes roses among other plants she grew in Sissinghurst. Beyond that, there's a more contemporary book called something like "Gallant Gents and Painted Ladies" (I must have the title wrong as I can't find that one exactly) that takes 100 roses and talks about the historical figures referenced in the names of those roses with nice period-looking illustrations of the roses themselves.

Cynthia

I was glad to hear nice things about Drennan's book, and since it's available as a free e-book I've downloaded it to read.

Not too long ago, I ordered a used copy of Leonie Bell's 'The Fragrant Year'. Ironically, it must have been the mustiest, moldiest smelling book I've ever encountered (and my past life was spent in libraries and bookstores, so that's saying something). I couldn't spend much time reading it before my throat started to constrict, and my eyes were watering... I love real books myself, but at least e-books don't smell bad...

Virginia

I may be biased since I live close to where Shepherd lived, but it was one of my favorites.

I devoured rose books for many years, went to different libraries to find as many as I could and bought quite a few of them. At this point I don't seem to have much interest in rose books since there's so much information on-line. Tastes change.....

"I also do not have Dean Hole's A Book About Roses, and I feel that I ought to, but honestly, I read a few pages and it is full of that overly sentimental Victorian language that makes me feel distinctly ill. Celia Thaxton's An Island Garden is a lot like that. A garden book club I belong to read it not long ago and I simply could not manage to swallow it."

This made me spit out my tea :p

I have the Dean Hole book and I intend to keep it in case I want to look something up in it, but I do not intend to ever read it cover-to-cover. I have a good library of old rose books but have only read a few of them. Quite frankly, I believe that our modern books on old roses have better information for gardeners. Historians are a different story, of course. DNA studies have changed our thoughts about rose ancestry, and guess what, we no longer use DDT or arsenic in our gardens.

As for the Celia Thaxton book, while I do know people who simply loved it, I felt the same way you did. I am capable of intense nostalgia and romanticism, but I found reading the book to be a lot like eating gummy bears - revolting.

Now I am a little sorry that I got rid of Celia Thaxton. I like Graham Stuart Thomas though and Helen Van Pelt Wilson and Leonie Bell's The Fragrant Year. I was for many years an armchair gardener and I am very grateful to the books that sparked my interest. Thanks for reviving this interesting thread.

From 1860 the book Ladies Southern Florist is one I discovered after this thread. I had bought myself a copy and that Christmas I was gifted two additional copies from friends who knew of my love for roses. (I have dutifully regifted them)

The book is a preproduction and from its time, when books were typeset manually and word counts mattered.

Just as we wonder how gardeners survived the cold and dry conditions and the hot and dry conditions, LSF is a look at southern, hot and humid. It's more than roses. But most of our gardens are more than roses. The almost too reasonable prices of this as used books may suggest its not worth much. It is worth so much more at these bargain used book prices. A hidden jewel out in plain sight.

I would put both Leonie Bell and Helen Van Pelt Wilson very high on my personal list of authors whose books are still extremely valuable and even inspiring to modern gardeners.