La Roseraie de Berty

Old and botanic roses thrive in this lush organic rose garden in Ardeche.

06/12/2002
La Roseraie de Berty
Nestled in the hills at the end of a long stretch of dirt road, near the village of Largientière in south-central Ardèche, is the garden I've most wanted to visit for over a year. The Roseraie de Berty is a garden of over 500 ancient and species roses, as well as one of the most sought-after mail-order nurseries in France. And it is even more extraordinary in that the entire garden is cared for with organic methods. In the world of roses, successfully abstaining from the use especially of chemical fungicides is no mean feat, as you surely know if you've grown roses. And what gardener hasn't?

But a year ago, in late May and early June, when the flowering of roses is at its peak, I was keeping my nose closely glued to my computer screen, busily making my very tight deadline to finish my book Growing Roses Organically (just out from Rodale Press and available at http://www.rodale.com). As badly as I wanted to incorporate the invaluable observations I knew I could make at the Roseraie de Berty into my book, the schedule I had with Rodale firmly ruled it out.

But better late then never. The second best thing is that I can celebrate the publication of my book by sharing my day at the Roseraie de Berty with you here on this page. Since the biggest single factor in experiencing success in organic rose growing is the selection of disease-resistant varieties, I was eager to observe this enormous collection for the vigor of individual varieties against banes like blackspot.

In this respect, the Roseraie de Berty provided an embarrassment of riches. It was much more difficult to find a rose growing weakly or showing more-than-tolerable blackspot than to find plants bursting with blossoms and thickly cloaked with healthy foliage. Even somewhat blackspot-prone Bourbons, such as 'Mme Isaac Pereire,' (above), were looking lusty in this garden.

When I asked Eléonore Cruse (in the main photo at top), as the creator of this organic rose paradise what she did to achieve such spectacular success, she replied modestly, "Rien...bon, je les bine un peu, mais avec tout ça je nùai pas le temps de faire grande chose." To translate, she said she does pretty much not much of anything, except hoe and weed them a bit. No time to do much more. Of course, 30 years ago, she started off on this sublime piece of river valley as a goat farmer, enriching the soil over a period of years with the aid of the animals' manure, and also by the use of cover crops.

Of course, she and I are in accord that the single most important thing to do is to choose good varieties--especially "old" roses like the damask 'Ville de Bruxelles' (right). Since old roses were introduced long before gardeners embarked on modern chemical warfare, they are the best bets for the organic gardener, or any gardener who doesn't enjoy lugging sprayers full of toxic chemicals around every two weeks.

A visit to the Roseraie de Berty is a priceless opportunity to see varieties rarely grown nowadays, and which obviously deserve to be brought into wider commerce, now that we are all more concerned with the environment and have less time for fussy plants. The delightful polyantha 'Petite Françoise' (left) was one example. Most of know and appreciate the polyantha 'The Fairy' and wish there were more of its ilk with which to grace our gardens.

The Roseraie de Berty is famous for its rambling roses, and visitors come from afar to see the pairing of 'Veilchenblau' and 'Albertine' (right). In spite of modern rose catalogs' boasts to have finally bred a blue rose (why do we always want flowers in unnatural colors?), 'Veilchenblau' remains the closest to this color, with its semidouble, truly purple blossoms that fade to lavender as they age. Paired and tangled with great loops of delicious peach-pink 'Albertine,' it makes a sight to take your breath way.

Perhaps it was because I was visiting on the second weekend in June--when the ramblers, which begin blooming later than other types--were just starting to peak, that I came away impressed with the untapped potential of this class of roses. After all, who among us does not dream of a house or arbor smothered in "climbing" roses? Chances are, the farther north you live, the more vivid are such dreams, and the more difficult to realize in reality.

Yet you can live this sweet-smelling dream by planting carefully chosen ramblers, especially those with Rosa multiflora in their lineage, such as the dazzling 'Ghislaine de Felighonde' above. Rose wichuriana hybrids are almost as tough (that's where the famous climber 'New Dawn' comes from). Ramblers are more vigorous than climbers, and require much less pruning care. And many of them are hardier than the widely sold climbers.

While the Roseraie de Berty doesn't have a large collection of rugosa roses, it does have large numbers of species roses and their direct crosses. One of the most striking of these was a direct cross of two American wildlings: Rosa virginiana and Rosa carolina, called 'Marie Graebneriae'. Granted, with a clumsy name like that, this rose isn't likely to turn up in Jackson and Perkins' next catalog. But what a spectacular plant--compact and thickly cloaked with glossy, spotless foliage, and spangled all over with starry, bright pink single flowers. (See above.) Eléonore confirmed my guess that it was a fantastic sight in autumn, covered with bright red hips and ornamented with flaming red-orange foliage. Any rose nursery owners reading this? Won't you grow this fabulous rose so Americans can buy it??

Of course, roses isn't the only thing growing in the Roseraie de Berty. Plenty of perennials are around to complement them, including nepetas, many thymes, lilies, lysimachias, and as a groundcover under a majority of the roses, fraises des bois, the extremely fragrant (and flavorful) wild strawberry of Europe. In fact, these little treasures grew so lushly and were in such heavy fruit that in many spots in the garden, the air was laden with a luscious strawberry perfume that mingled with the fragrance of roses.

For the rose afficianado, one of the small but important delights of the Roseraie de Berty are the beautiful and infomative home-made ceramic tags (photo at right) that clearly label each variety, together with its class, breeder, and year of introduction. If you've had your share of groping around botanic gardens trying to find out just what plant you're looking at, you won't encounter that problem here.

The Roseraie de Berty is open from the 20th of May to the 20th of June, every day except Sunday, from 10 a.m. to noon and again from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free. The address is Roseraie de Berty, 07110 Largentière, France. Telephone 011 33 4 75 88 30 56 for recorded information (in French only). http://www.roseraie-de-berty.fr.st. The Roseraie is open by appointment only at other times of the year.
Share

Products of Interest:
Effortless push weeder
'Rosier' weeding hook
'Lorraine' ergonomic bypass pruners
Provenandccedil;al garden fork

View gardens in different regions: