Use of the pompom roses (old fashioned miniature roses)

Chapter 4 (extract 1) of "Roses for English Gardens" by Jekyll and Mawley (1902), in which Miss Jekyll outlines the way in which dwarf or miniature roses may be used with effect in the garden.

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Illustration: Mignonette as a half standard

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CHAPTER IV

POMPON ROSES

Some mention was made in the chapter on New Garden Roses of the confusion arising from the use of the name polyantha for the free rambling kinds, and also for some of the dwarfest growing Roses that we have. The word "dwarf" in Rose language has already been rather erroneously assigned to Roses of bush form to distinguish them from standards, whether the Rose in question will grow twenty feet or only two, so that the name Dwarf Roses would be confusing. Sometimes they are called Miniature Roses, but Pompon is the better name. It is a French word denoting any kind of upholstered ornament of a roundish, tufted form. The name has been excellently applied to the small bloomed Chrysanthemums, whose flowers are about an inch across, and that look like close tufts of petals. Just what Pompon Chrysanthemums are to the other kinds, so are the Pompon Roses to their larger fellows. The most important of them are the small kinds of partly polyantha or multiflora extraction, with the close, bushy, low-growing habit and clustered flowers. They are charming plants for any small spaces.

They are commonly used as edgings to beds of larger Roses, but it is doubtful whether they are not best by themselves in small beds; never in large beds, for here the sense of proportion is at once offended. But in a Rose garden, for instance, whose main form would be a long parallelogram, a scheme of some little beds at the ends for the Pompons might be designed with excellent effect, the next group of beds being of kinds of moderate growth, and so on to the larger Roses of the midmost section. Or, in the Rose garden scheme, there may occur some very narrow beds or borders intended to show only as a wide line or single ribbon in the design. Here is the place for the Pompons, and many a little nook in the free garden, and above all in the rock-garden, where they are admirable.

The little Roses de Meaux, Spong, and Moss de Meaux will serve the same use, also the small China Cramoisi Superieur, and the tiny representatives of the same family known as lawrenceana.

There is also the very charming little Fairy Rose, rarely seen and of doubtful origin, but perhaps the loveliest little Rose, both for its tender colour and for its supreme daintiness, that could well be imagined.

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Link: Read more about pompom roses.