The Rose Bible

Just what I wanted to get my rose garden started. Great pictures, interesting and informative.

I love this book! It is well written and informative. Plus, I enjoy Rayford Clayton Reddell's frank and sometimes-humorous remarks. I am in charge of overseeing the survival of old roses growing in my city's 17-acre pioneer cemetery, and I have found "The Rose Bible" to be a cornucopia of helpful information regarding the maintenance, pruning and propagation of the living antiques I oversee. Plus, the book provides a fascinating history of old roses. Yes, I am actually READING this book, not just skimming through it!

I am an avid gardner and appreciate a book that tantalizes me with new ideas for my garden. Although I already have some 18 roses in my garden, this book has inspired me to create even more space for more roses, and collect some amazing bourbons and antiques that are out there. I originally purchased this book to research new climbers, and found that and more! The photos are captivating, and the author provides a great history on the various species. In addition, I feel like the author does an outstanding job of explaining the positives and negatives of roses he highlights. I have reread the chapter on "Fifty Immortal Roses" numerous times, and can't seem to put this book down. I can't wait to start digging in the dirt. Very inspirational!

"The Rose Bible" is the best and most helpful book on roses I've ever browsed or read. The pictures are magnificient, the language is informative, honest, and humorous, and the history of roses is explained very well. There is a slight bias towards cutting as opposed to garden roses in the top fifty list, but the contents and organization are nearly flawless. No potpourri tips here! If you want to know where roses came from, what is available now (with strong and weak points for each), how to buy, feed, prune, protect roses, and if you don't mind drooling over hundreds of rose pictures in the most undignified fashion, this is the book you want.

This was my first rose related book and it was absolutely magnificent. An all-over great experience. To me it seems mostly useful only if you are in the Pacific Northwestern area or a place where the climate is similar to Reddell's (N. California). If you're looking for a book that covers that area, you can't get any better than this. The book was fat with knowledge and had tons of gorgeous pictures which are always a plus. He catalogues his favorite 50 roses with a page each to their honor. Most priceless was his refreshing honesty with his opinions of roses. He wasn't afraid to show favorites or non-favorites and came right out and said what his experiences were with actually growing in this climate. I absolutely recommend this book to any new beginner in the Pacific Northwest, it covers all the bases.