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Drift Roses

John near Toledo
10 years ago

I would like to know if anyone has grown Drift Roses.
I am looking at buying some roses and would like them to bloom all Summer long.

I thought about Knock Out Roses and a lady told me about the Drift Rose.
Has anyone grow Osso Roses?

These roses would go on the South-side of my house. My house is Brown.
Would you put any other flowers with them? If so what kind? I would like to have color 3 seasons out of the year. It is a area 26' long X 5' wide.

I like the Icy Drift Rose, and the Apricot Drift Rose.

Comments (25)

  • pat_bamaz7
    10 years ago

    I have Apricot Drifts and Coral Drifts and am very happy with them as landscape roses in mixed borders. They bloom pretty much continuously for me spring through fall. They stay shortâ¦top out at about 2 ft tall by 2 to 3 ft wide. Deadheading the spent blooms will make them look better, but itâÂÂs not necessary and pruning isnâÂÂt needed. I also have a couple of OSO Easy Paprika bushes. They will get bigger than the driftsâ¦I keep them pruned to about 3 ft by 3 ft, but they would probably be at least 4 ft tall in my climate if left unpruned. They bloom continuously, as well, but spent blooms will set hips if not deadheaded. They bloom so much that keeping up with deadheading is a chore. They will continue to bloom if not deadheaded, and the hips are attractive, but allowing all of those hips to form will cut down on bloom quantity. IâÂÂm not sure if this is a quality of all the OSO roses or just Paprika. I'll let someone else make suggestions for companion plants...since my zone is so different from yours, what works well here, might not for you.

    Here are a couple of pictures of Apricot Drift, which is my favorite of my landscape roses.

    {{gwi:243233}}

    {{gwi:243234}}

    I canâÂÂt find an actual picture of OSO Easy Paprika, but it is the bush with orange blooms in the background behind the pink rose below (it would have a lot more blooms if I was better about deadheading it):

    {{gwi:243235}}

  • nanadollZ7 SWIdaho
    10 years ago

    Your Apricot Drift roses are much lovelier than I thought landscape roses could be, Pat. Love them. Diane

  • andreark
    9 years ago

    Ditto what Diane said. They are gorgeous.

    andreark

  • NewGirlinNorCal
    9 years ago

    I also have an Apricot Drift- it's my underplanting on my Day Breaker rose because, in my yard at least, the blooms are the same color mix on both.

    I too am happy with my drift. It really is more blackspot resistant than all of my other roses combined. Which is really helpful with it so low to the ground. The only drawbacks I've had are that a) with the thorns it's tough to weed under it and b) the individual flowers don't last very long. Which, compared with the pretty much non-stop blooming during the season, the pretty colors, and the useful size, are not reasons not to put one in. Just good reasons to have long gloves for weeding.

  • Campanula UK Z8
    9 years ago

    ah Yes...these are appearing in the UK...but are being advertised as 'ideal for hanging baskets'

    Surely not! Sounds like torture. I had a nightmare summer of 17 hanging baskets once (many years ago - I still shudder at the memory of stress) but now have....none.
    I certainly wouldn't inflict this punishment on any rose, even a grocery-store mini.

  • John near Toledo
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Does anyone have the Ice Drift Rose?
    I also like the Sweet Drift Rose. Between these three rose Apricot, Sweet and Ice Drift Roses I don't know which one I like the best.

  • lsst
    9 years ago

    Ice Drift is much more of a ground cover than a shrub. It is much shorter and more sprawling than the other Drift roses. I would not buy it again.
    I have Ice, Apricot and Coral. Apricot is my favorite.

  • NewGirlinNorCal
    9 years ago

    Campanula- I'm not sure any roses are ideal for hanging baskets! In the case of Drifts they would be a nightmare to water because, not to harp on it, they are very thorny.

    I've seen somewhere that some company put a Drift as a standard and that actually didn't seem too bad.

  • jacqueline9CA
    9 years ago

    I have a Peach Drift rose as a standard - 36 inches high, so not too tall. I love it. It is just coming into its first bloom now, and it blooms until Nov. here practically without stopping. Stays healthy, and I have never sprayed it.

    Jackie

  • floridarosez9 Morgan
    9 years ago

    Actually, I have two of them in hanging baskets. I have a wand so they are not hard to water, but I have to feed them lightly twice a week to keep them in bloom. They're beautiful when in bloom. I have two in pedestal urns, and they attract a lot of attention from visitors. The two in urns are always in bloom, but the baskets seem to bloom in flushes with a break between each flush. I'm surprised at how much I like these.

  • Adrift-in-beauty
    9 years ago

    the apricots are like something out of a fairy tale I love them ... I had a popcorn and it died in less then two weeks ugh I have never killed a rose .. I was so mad I won't buy them again

  • boncrow66
    9 years ago

    They are beautiful. Does anyone have pictures of different colors?

  • pat_bamaz7
    9 years ago

    I neglected to mention in my earlier post that I donâÂÂt spray my Drift or OSO roses and none have ever shown any sign of blackspot in my garden where even Knockouts will blackspot to some degree. Both my Coral Drifts sometimes have a bit of powdery mildew in the springâ¦which is highly uncommon for roses here. I have never seen any mildew on either of my Apricot drifts, though.

  • pat_bamaz7
    9 years ago

    boncrow66,
    Here's a not-so-great picture of Coral Drift...sorry for the poor quality, but I can't seem to find another amongst my pictures. I believe Sweet Drift is the only other of drift roses that has the button-eye bloom form like Apricot Drift.

    {{gwi:243236}}

  • NewGirlinNorCal
    9 years ago

    I love that it never occured to me that there might be a safe way to water roses in a hanging basket. :)

    Floridarose- do you move them around by season?

    Jackie- I always worry that standards would get too dry here in 9b, do you find that's a problem?

  • jacqueline9CA
    9 years ago

    Here is a picture of my Peach Drift standard.

    NewGirl - I'm not sure I understand your question about standards getting "too dry". Of course my entire garden is irrigated, including this bed. In normal years (which we haven't had for 2 years), we have at least a 6 month dry period each year with no rain whatsoever. This rose does as well as all of my roses with irrigation.

    Jackie

  • mishon
    9 years ago

    I planted 4 Peach Drift roses in an L shaped raised bed in 2010, and they have done fantastic! I live in central Texas, and due to the drought, have not been able to water the roses very much, in fact, last season they were only watered three times. The first year they were planted I watered well, but once they established themselves, they were good to go. This year I have yet to water them. I did not prune this year at all, and I dont spray for disease or insects. They bloom throughout the season even in the hot scorching summer. I would definately recommend them. This picture was taken this week, you can see they spread out well without getting too tall.

  • floridarosez9 Morgan
    9 years ago

    Newgirl, sometimes I move the baskets around but not the urns. They're too large. However, none of them get late afternoon sun here. The sun is blocked by the house after 3 p.m. I have the red in the urns, and they have been eye popping for months now.

  • emrogers
    9 years ago

    I love my drift! I have a peach died that I have in a container a terra cotta planter as a matter of fact and it has been there for a whole year now. It's nice and bushy and fuss free. I have done nothing to it besides give it blood meal and Epsom salts. It's blooming now and I plan to dead head the spent blooms since most say that it gives you more blooms. I will be buying more once on sale.

  • cathie3078
    9 years ago

    I am looking for suggestions for hardy Austins that would combine well with an established border of predominantly orange daylilies. I am planning a bed along a newly-installed white picket fence and want Austin roses to anchor it on the inside of the fence. The daylilies are on the outside near the road and are thriving, despite the abuse from winter road sanding and salting. In doing my research, I am finding my favorites to be some of the pinks, such as Alnwick and Queen of Sweden, that I don't think would work that well with the orange daylilies. What do you think? Would you limit the rose color choices to those that would combine well with the daylilies or just move the lilies? My nursery advisor says not to let the lilies dictate my choices but admits she's not a big fan of them. The area is about 40' long and receives full sun in coastal southern New England.
    Thanks.

  • msrose
    9 years ago

    I have Peach Drift and Sweet Drift. All I can say is these are some tough roses. The blooms don't look as pretty as the pictures in my hot Texas summers, but they grow in my raised beds where so many other plants have dwindled away. I just saw Red Drift and Pink Drift at the nursery and was coming to this forum to see if anyone grows them. I need something for my front yard that is lower growing than Peach and Sweet and Red looks like it might be a smaller plant. Pink has such cute flowers.

    Peach Drift
    {{gwi:243238}}

    Sweet Drift
    {{gwi:243239}}

  • Karen F
    5 years ago

    I love my drift roses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These awesome little resistant devils are a force to be reckoned with. Are way ahead of my knockouts. The flowers on them last year were Incredible. Especially my coral drift whom I called the Monster as it was blooming its head off. I have the popcorn, the peach and the coral drift. Hey I haven't got a red one yet :) Here is one of the coral drift and last year was its 2nd year of being planted.

  • Karen F
    5 years ago

    I live in Ontario, Canada outside of Toronto and covered them up with burlap and every so often it would blow off one side so ended up going out there and covering it back up again. Boy weather has been something else here, wind, hail, ice pellets, snow, freezing rain, thunder and lightning But these little roses didn't seem to know or care how bad the weather got for when I took the burlap off just this week I was greeted with all kinds of new leaves on all 3 of them. To say I was amazed beyond belief was an understatement and this coral one is in its 3rd year!!! The other two their 2nd year. Love the flowers on these so beautiful. Popcorn ones are really cool in how they go from yellow to white. This is the Peach drift rose I bought last year. It survived the winter. YAY!

  • Karen F
    5 years ago

    And this is the popcorn one . When it is yellow and before it goes to white. Looks like a miniature Sunny.