Heat Tolerant Roses ??? What's in Your Garden??

What's your water bill like, desert?

We (Bay area Delta region, Antioch, Ca) just had a very hot week. I have only 13 HTs, but Brandy (also my favorite) seemed to bask in our potent Ca.sunshine and heat. She is truly an amazing rose....

andrea

hoovb, It isn't the water bill that is a major problem here, the Power bill is the unavoidable beastly payment. Everything is air conditioned 24 hours a day as during the summer the temperatures never dip down to what is acceptable; indoors or outside.

We irrigate daily. Newer developments, anything from about 2004 or so onward has no lawn; by law, and that cuts down on a lot of watering. We use drip irrigation and it is much more efficient and reliable than other forms of watering.

This is where you should probably look. Judith Singer breeds roses to withstand the Arizona heat in Tuscon, Arizona. If ANYONE knows what stands up to that kind of heat and sun, Judith is the one! She's bred some beautiful, tough roses. Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Judith Singer's Hot-Roses

I'll defer to you on the heat, desertgarden, though It's hardly cold here, but I'd like to know what you annual precipitation is. We're luck if we get 10 inches here, the same as Tuscon, AZ. So far this year we have had between 3 and 4 inches (this includes our paltry snow and anything else the sky rains down). We irrigate constantly and the water bill is horrendous.
Best roses in the heat for me: Angel Face, Ascot, Evelyn, Julia Child, and maybe Sisters Fairy Tale.

Golden Celebration is not good in heat for me. It's looking like a Tantau rose called Augusta Luise is going to be great in the heat. Ascot is a Tantau rose, too, and Sisters is a Kordes. Diane

Nanadoll, Nevada... which includes the much cooler Northern sections like Reno averages 9.54" of rainfall annually, but Las Vegas averages about 4.49" and there is an area in the Northwest that averages about 2.91. It is dry here.... and the only city that is hotter is Phoenix, AZ. It is a challenging combination, not just for plants, but for many people too.

I grew a Golden Celebration that was far enough away from a palm tree, which roots don't spread, but under the canopy to a certain degree. It received filtered morning sun for about 5-6 hours and was beautiful. I think I created a little micro-climate for it.

Growing the roses under a shade cloth canopy would probably widen your choices and improve the flowers on the ones you have now.

Yes. Folks in Phoenix, Scottsdale, and L.V. do use shadecloth canopies, and that does seem to help.

Jeri

Well, I don't use a shade canopy anymore. Stupid monsoon winds blow them to smithereens after the sun and heat bake them to near melting point. I have some roses that will tolerate a great deal of heat, including Elizabeth Bowers, a Judy Singer hybrid. Iceberg is still my champion summer bloomer along with the floribunda, Light of Day. A few other hot weather modern rose recommendations are St. Patrick, Veterans Honor, Black Magic, Julia Child, Prospero, Tamora and Molineux. None of them are going to bloom exhibition quality blooms in July or August but there's a better than average chance they'll live with triple-digit temperatures for five months of the year for multiple years (providing they get water). I added Judy Singer's Purity this year and it seems to be handling the early heat pretty well but it's a white so it gets afternoon shade, unlike Elizabeth Bowers, a pink shrub. Phoenix is supposed to average 7inches rainfall per year but it's usually under 5inches anymore. Summer starts in May and runs through most of October with temperatures over 100F for at least 90-115 of those days and over 110F for about 30 days. The public gardens still look very good. One of my favorites at the Phoenix garden is Abbaye de Cluny, a hybrid tea that's more shrub and thicket than a single bloom per stem.

Rose gardens subject to heat will always do better with regular watering, whether by automatic irrigation (flood preferred) or a 4inch berm filled 2-3 per week depending on your soil type, size and type of bush and retention rate. Rose beds should be mulched with a forest byproduct and fertilizers and chemical sprays should be used with caution or completely eliminated during the hottest part of the summer. Temps over 80F or 90F can fry your chemically enhanced bushes. Some rosarians spray Wilt-Pruf but personally, I've allowed the rose divas to die a natural death and encourage roses that can tolerate continued high temperatures, alkaline soil and water, dry winds and extremely low humidity.

I think the hotspot of the US is either Yuma, AZ or Needles,CA but it could be my backyard.

I have a large Abbaye de Cluny and its blooms just fry in the heat--one of the worst, so I'd love to know the secret of Phoenix rose garden's AC.
I admire your persistence, moroseaz, in the face of such incredible heat. I could not do it. Diane

I had issues with Abbaye de Cluny here in Las Vegas as well. The color could not hold up to the sunlight so it rarely looked Apricot; it appeared a soft yellow/beige. The color did not go with the color scheme in that garden so I found a new home for it. I have grown Just Joey and Brandy; both hold up pretty well, and the Just Joey that I had received some afternoon heat. Abbaye de Cluny is beautiful. Maybe it is being grown in a little micro-climate area that receives morning sun???

Nope, the Abbaye de Cluny in the public garden is grown in full day sun on the west side of the garden. It is overgrown and does receive flood irrigation. We treat it as the shrub it appears to be, not a hybrid tea. The blooms are less important in our heat than the overall health of the bush. ALL roses crisp in triple-digit heat, if they bother to bloom at all. If you're looking for picture-perfect blooms in our type of heat during the summer months, best look elsewhere. Heat reduces bloom cycle, petal count and scent so a bud-showing-color today could be full-blown by tomorrow. If you build a very sturdy shade structure over some heat-tolerant roses, they'll come close to looking like real roses throughout most of summer. If you lower your expections and increase your water, the roses will spend their energy on surviving instead of stressing about blooming.

Oh, in that case it does survive here too. The summer blooms were faded, the plant was healthy; it just wasn't the shade I was going for during the summer. I believe that is why I have a preference for deeper colors as when they produce blooms during the summer, it actually has a color beyond some really, really washed out version of what it should be.

I saw some of the Judith Singer roses online and boy did I see some beauties! I hope that there will be more of these heat tolerant roses available. I would be happy if I could purchase just a couple of the varieties I saw.

There are so many growers that address the cold related issues of growing roses, it is nice to see more available for those of us; and there are so many across America, in California, the Southwest, the South, who deal with summers that are scorchers. That is why I started this thread.

This post was edited by desertgarden561 on Wed, Jun 19, 13 at 9:14

I don't expect any blooms at all from the roses in my Phoenix metro garden in our horrible summers. I do use some shade structures (mostly beach umbrellas) for some of my younger roses. I have used shade cloth in the past but found it hard to put up a structure that doesn't fall over. Mostly my lack of skill in these things.

I do have an amazing clematis that is blooming now. None of my roses are in bloom, or if they try, the blooms dries up right away.

I just have to be satisfied to remember how beautiful they were in March.

Attached is a picture of my beloved Buff Beauty this past March or so. Although I don't think hybrid musks like my climate, this rose gets better and better every year.

Very pretty. I have contemplated getting a Buff Beauty for years and feared that the hybrid musks would not fair well here during the summer. I believe that I am going to cave in and try a Sally Holmes this winter. I have been so eager to try her too for years, and believe I have the perfect large space for her, that offers a good dose of morning sun, but protection from the afternoon searing heat. Anyone have luck with Sally Holmes?

I don't think it matters how much rain you get in your climate if you don't get any rain during the growing season. We get anywhere from 25 to 50 inches of rain during the winter months and early spring. There is no rain during the summer months and additional irrigation is required to keep the plants alive.

I live in the mountains of northern California and we get temps in the high 90s and low 100s for months at time, but because I live at a higher elevation, it does cool off at night so my plants have a chance to rehydrate.

I have found that the roses with thicker petal substance and dense foliage can stand up to the heat best in my garden. I often read the patents on HMF because that is where I can find the information about petal substance.

I have no shade in my garden, so I can't protect the blooms from the high temps. I do grow a few roses with thinner petal substance simply because they are so beautiful in the spring and fall. I ignore their crispy blooms during the summer months.

Smiles,
Lyn

Sally Holmes receives a lot of compliments in this area from exhibitors. I, too, have read that hybrid musks don't like our climate but I haven't passed that information on to Ballerina or Iceberg, which is said to have hybrid musk in its' heritage. Iceberg is akin to Knockout around Phoenix; it's in front of most public buildings and stays in bloom throughout most of the year. I have three of them; one burgundy, one climber and one on Fortuniana rootstock. We just planted a bed of both Burgundy and Iceberg at the Phoenix public garden as a statement piece since they'll require little maintenance from our volunteers.

It isn't that Iceberg and Sally Holmes "have hybrid musk" in their ancestry. Hybrid Musks are literally hybrid multifloras. The original, reported cross was multiflora X Reve d'Or which led to Aglaia. Aglaia is a multiflora hybrid. Reve d'Or is a seedling of Mme. Schultz, which is suspected to be a noisette or tea noisette. We know definitely Aglaia has a bunch of multiflora in it. The "musk" element is suspected and entered the theory before the multiflora did. Even if the "hybrid musk" resulted from Trier, it is Aglaia based as Trier came from Aglaia. Ballerina is pretty much straight forward multiflora.

Sally Holmes was bred from Ivory Fashion (floribunda) X Ballerina. Sally is not far removed from multiflora and has no real "musk" in her at all. Iceberg was Robin Hood X HT (Virgo). Robin Hood is nearly straight multiflora. So, we call them "musks" but most of them have no "musk" at all, while all have at least a fair dose of multiflora. Kim

Secret (pic) so far has been amazing as well as Livin' Easy and my mini Chasin Rainbows. Of course, here in NW Fl, we have a humid heat that's not the same as out west. That being said, temps have been in the upper 80s with a heat index of 100 and above. All my roses have handled it surprisingly well! Even on the days it got up into the 90's. .

The humidity takes my breath away in the summer when transitioning from A/C to outside, but so far black spot has been manageable. I spray every week or two though.

Kim, thanks for the clarification on musk and multiflora. We're also told that multiflora doesn't do well in our climate and having ordered some multiflora rooted roses several years ago, I can attest that every one of them has since died. The Ballerina was inherited about 15 years ago and is own-root. Had to have a cage built for it to keep it from overtaking the rest of that bed and keep it up off the ground. I don't prune it much 'til the new spring growth comes out and then only take out the dead stuff that I can reach. The nuisance rose in my garden is Belle Amore. It was grown from a cutting and is well over 6ft tall and grows wherever it doggone well pleases. Could be in the neighbors yard by now, too.

I planted Ebb Tide the night before the most hideously hot day of the summer. It survived 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees F). It's now the only rose blooming in my garden in the middle of winter.