My mother left me her double delight in 93- and i thought it was the most garish (tacky) rose ever, till I smelled it and was hooked. I fell in love with the way it gets a suntan too. I then bought a dozen body bags (mr. Lincoln, don juan, josephs coat, Brandy, Whiskey Mac, blue girl, And Tropicana etc) - which i planted in my and my friends tiny garden spots. After i moved away, and the friends did too - most died or became fairly gorgeous Dr. Huey - except for double delight. It lived on basically wild (unwatered, un protected) for 10 years in zone 4. I still grow DD (probably always will) , and mr.lincoln and Don Juan etc--but now I prefer the English and older roses.
(So-Dr. Huey is my oldest surviving rose-LOL. The spring explosion of scarlet with a gold eye is beautiful- especially considering how it's such a survivor.)

I volunteered to work at Tiny Petals outside of San Diego when I first started my rose life. Since I was living in a condo, miniature roses were my best choice for growing in containers.

That first day, I came home with ten plants. There were two that stole my heart and are now growing in my mountain garden in northern California, 'Yantai' and 'Grace Sewars'. my first larger rose was Kim Rupert's 'Lynnie' ... another rose that made the move. In San Diego, I thought 'Lynnie' was the perfect rose because it was gorgeous in bloom with healthy foliage, but in the mild winter down there, when it dropped its foliage, it was like viewing a garden sculpture.

There were other favorites down in my Socal garden that I no longer grow, but I have planted a rose garden in glacier slurry where I was told nothing would grow and have over 100 roses proving them wrong.

I am just wondering when the rose lust will end because I am certainly running out of room and am tired of digging rose holes in rock.

Smiles,
Lyn

My first rose ever was a Nina Weilbull.
The poor thing was all shriveled and dying when I bought it, then I rescued it and it started growing, then it died completely with the same disease, every bare root rose sold in poundland are infected with. :\

My first rose is this unknown knockout I have growing in front of the house. I bought it on '09 and last year, I realized how much I love it! That was the beginning of my now obsession :-)

My first rose is this unknown knockout I have growing in front of the house. I bought it on '09 and last year, I realized how much I love it! That was the beginning of my now obsession :-)

My first rose was something my father bought me for mothers day the first year we lived in our house. I'll never forget it. It was a Charles de Gaulle hybrid tea rose. It was so fragrant even my neighbors cold smell it from over the fence. I absolutely Loved it!! Problem is we had a very harsh winter 2 years later with lots of ice and the poor thing didn't make it. I lost all but one of my roses that year. I didn't know to wrap my plants but you can bet I do now. A neighbor a few doors down used to own a nursery and taught me quite a bit.

Way back in 1975 I was fairly newly married and just bought a house in Hollywood, Fl. I saw some roses at a friends house and thought "I think I can do that". Heard about a rose nursery just 10 miles away and went to visit. They had a display garden and I was hooked before I even looked the at different varieties. I brought home 4 bush's. Big Ben, Christion Dior, Peace and a mauve one I can't remember the name of. They told me I had to add some top soil to amend the sugar sand soil at my home. Each rose got a big 40 pound bage of top soil mixed in good and were planted on the east facing front of the house. Using nothing but cow manure for fertilizer they grew like crazy and bloomed non stop. We sold the house and moved to central FL in 1980. Bought anothe Peace and Christian Dior along with a hand full of others. Fast forward to August 2008. RETIREMENT!!! We moved to the N. GA. mountains and started another rose garden. Peace still holds the middle of the HT bed. I don't think I'll ever be without it.

In the early 70's at my first house, which was deep in the woods, I planted my first rose --- Angel Face --- in the only spot in my back yard that received ample sunlight. I put it directly out from my kitchen window where I could see its blooms whenever I was at the sink. Sadly, as the woodlands encroached, my rose bit the dust.

Here it is, 2013 --- ten years in a new house that gets more than enough sunlight for roses, and we have eight of them. But just this past May some urges began and I started thinking---- I want another Angel Face again! Not easy to find now, but I will.

Molie

my first rose i got around 9 years ago. a older lady gave it to me. but 6 years ago we had to move. so i planted it here. that winter kill it. so i thought for 6 years. it had nothing above the ground for 6 years, but the stump. this spring it came back from that stump. it bloomed today. and the old lady that gave it to me past away just a few days ago. her name was betty murphy. here is the rose earlier today.

I always loved roses but had always been told growing them was for experts. When I moved into a flat with a large, sunny balcony in 2001, I took my courage in both hands and bought one of the Love Potion roses promoted in our local KMart. I did everything wrong and the poor plant languished till I eventually gave it away to an expert.

After that, on rash impulses, I bought and gave away more roses till a friend posted me a cutting of her favourite rose. It rooted and survived - even thrived. I now have ten rose bushes, all doing well in my new house.

My three Dollar Store specials my husband got me back in March. I have no idea what their names are; they are hot pink, red, and light pink LOL. That started the bug and when that bug bit....OMG.

I now have 28 roses, all got this year. I'm probably going to cry tears in the oncoming months as I learn my lesson on sparsing things out.... At least the house we bought will have a huge yard. That is a plus!! I also inherited about 4 more when my MIL passed last year, but they will have to be transplanted in the fall when we get settled.

Now that I've found that I not only LOVE to garden, I'm getting kinda decent with it. I have a ways to go to be good and call myself an amateur, but hey, things are growing and not dying and I think that's a good step in the right direction considering my idea of growing stuff was put it in dirt and stick it in the sun.... My luck? Hurricane season stared Sat. There is already one likely to form in the Gulf and while I would gladly welcome the rain.... I don't think my roses or veggies want that much. :( We here in my neck of Florida are sorely due for one heck of a doozy storm. It's been almost a decade since a direct hit and not a graze!

Oh, definitely not complaining either. But see, now I'm a first time homeowner AND stared a garden, so I feel mother nature is just dying to take a shot. Maybe I'm just being paranoid hehe.

My favorite rose so far is Passion. I bought it at WM and couldn't believe I found it there. Pretty much all of them have no blooms at the moment, but most have buds. :) I'm hoping at some point before November they'll bless me with a beautiful garden.

Our start in roses is back in the 70's as newlyweds when we bought a few bushes and big pots for them since we were renting. The only one I remember is Oregold. I'd get it again if I ever saw it. When we bought our home, it came with a large rose garden which we've tended ever since. No more roses in pots.

The roses we had back when i was teenager were planted by the previous owners of the house we moved in to in 1999. I helped my mother take care of them but i wasnt too crazy about it. One was a Josephs Coat and the other was a prolific blooming yellow (i wish i could find suh a rose again). I believe it could have been a climbing roses it bounced backed to over 6ft every time it was pruned. The unscented flowers were yellow that faded to white in the sun.

however I would consider my first rose to be one I wanted. Back around 2001 we went to the swap meet and I spotted the most beautiful rose I had ever seen until then. I begged my mom and was so ecstatic that day. It had no labels but I believe it could have either been Moonstone or Princess de Monaco. We moved out several years later and much to my dismay it was immediately removed by the new home owners.

Musaboru, most people don't know what they have when they pull it out. When we moved into our house over 20 years ago the neighbors told us that a long time ago a women owned our house who used to be a florist. Her daughter lives a few doors down from us and she owned a nursery. I waited till our first spring in our home and till everything bloomed or grew a decent size before pulling anything out or moving it. The only thing we got rid of was the bamboo. Although it still pops up into our yard because the source of that bamboo is our neighbor and she doesn't take care of her yard at all.

My mother loves cut yellow roses and the first rose I remember growing was a yellow hybrid tea I got her as a Mother's Day present when I was 8 or 9 years old. It died in it's first season and she has never grown another rose and believes them to be impossible, though she is wonderful with other plants.

My grandmother, like many in her generation, grew hybrid teas and I remember the heady scent of her bouquets on the kitchen table during weekend breakfasts. She died last spring and I've been meaning to move her hts (though I've never even thought about growing one myself as I prefer Austins and OGRs) to my own property and see how they do.

I have been having babies and growing vegetables for most of my adult years but this spring roses suddenly seemed important. I bought two 'Peggy Martin' roses from ARE and recently planted a 'Golden Celebration' as well. These three are the first roses that are really mine though we inherited some lovely ramblers when we bought our house six years ago.

Climbing Don Juan. 1993. I was pregnant with my first of three sons. My mother bought one too.

I like so many others of you came from gardening "roots" - where grandma grew peaches and grandpa complained about the geraniums. Both sides were heavy gardeners with fruit, vegetables, roses, and ornamentals. Mom had some red roses on a fence intertwined with honeysuckle. Ahh, the first honeysuckle smell in the spring is like heaven.

As an adult, at my first house where Don Juan was planted I ended up having many roses. When we moved, I tried to move them with me, all but Don Juan as he was just too big. Queen Elizabeth was the only one to make it. We had bought an old farmhouse with a house and garden that both needed to be restored. We are now eight years into it and my rose collection grows yearly - through successes and failures and whoops I really shouldn't have planted that there's (like the Cherokee rose with the fishhook thorns by the back door ;)

Yesterday, my love took me to chamblee's in Tyler to buy 17 roses for 17 years this June 11th. We ended up with 26. Oh how my garden grows...and the stories it tells, on what truly an amazing life I am having.

Have a wonderfully blessed day y'all!
Miz

I grew up in Michigan and both of my parents gardened, so I took it for granted that if you had a backyard you grew vegetables (my father) and if you had front yard plantings you planted petunias (my mother) and made your daughter deadhead the sticky smelly things (me). When I got married here in Nebraska, we were renting and I put in some annuals and veggies again but it wasn't really my yard yet.

We bought our first house in 1997 and I went to a local garden store for advice on drought resistant plants for the dry plains states. The advice was to put two shrub roses - Champlain and Hansa - one on each side of the front door, along with other perennials. I remember thinking "roses are shrubs?" and marveling that these could be as low care as other plants. My mother had grown some body bag HTs at times when I was young but they died so quickly none of us got attached to them.

So I consider Champlain my "gateway rose". Hansa was a blackspotting mess for me, blooming once in the spring and a scrawny two cane wonder the rest of the year, but Champlain uncomplainingly put out these bright red blooms all year and sailed through some tough winters.

Consequently, when we bought our present house in 2005 with a blank slate of a garden, except for established trees and some peonies and raspberries, I resolved to make gardens all around the house. I of course put in Champlain and some other perennials, but I looked at the sunny backyard thinking "this needs some height". I put in a purple smokebush and black lace sambuca before it hit me - roses are tall! I put in a collections order at David Austin and haunted the local hardware store that had the best garden plants including $8 roses, learned how to treasure helpmefind.com, and I've been hooked ever since.

Fun stories everyone - glad to see this one resurface!
Cynthia

For sure, Cynthia, there are great stories here ---- not only about people's first roses but even more about how we all became gardeners. That's what I liked most about this thread --- the stories, they're like a diary. So many posters mentioned first apartments and first homes, life partners, children, parents and grandparents--- how these people influenced us in our likes and our choices or were the reasons for what we created in our yards or on our decks.

25 years ago, my husband at the time and I bought our first little house and planted 3 rose bushes and 2 climbers in a bed in the back. If I ever knew their names, I don't remember now. I loved caring for those roses until one day I came home from work to find my husband had planted creeping juniper, which I'm highly allergic to, all around them. He said he did it to keep me away from them...that I was spending too much time on them. Two kids later, we moved to a larger house, and my husband banned any roses being planted there. After ten years of marriage, I figured out that I preferred to have roses rather than him. Now 15 years later, I have 80 roses and a husband who supports my love of them.

Good move, Pat. May you continue to grow beautiful roses and have a happy marriage. Diane

The first rose I ever planted was a mail order sub-zero rose named Victory, it was pale yellow and not pretty at all. I wasn't discouraged though, decided I was probably in the wrong climate for sub-zero roses. I discovered Jackson & Perkins and was hooked. I remember some of my first roses were Love, Peace, Pristine and others, I loved them all, but I know the one that really got me hooked was Proud Land. Maybe it was beginners luck, but the blooms on that bush were absolutely beautiful, they looked like red velvet and had dark edges. That was the early 80's. Thinking back I don't know how my roses did as well as they did in those days, I knew absolutely nothing about what roses needed, I just knew I loved them and still do, more than ever!

When I was around 9 or 10 years old, I got my first rose, Blue Girl. It came from some mail order company. My mom got it for me. I was attracted by the idea of a "blue rose." At the time I lived in Ohio and I remember we had so many Japanese beetles.

I had a "blue" rose at our old house. It didn't make it more than a year because we took down the garage it was next to, and it got squashed by accident.

Now here, I bought Queen O The Lakes and a pink knockout last summer (our first summer here). I also got an unknown freebie. Something dug up the knockout last winter so I replaced it with Peace since I wasn't impressed with the knockout anyway. This spring we planted some rugosa species, and there was an existing old rose that I think is Ispahan Damask. I also got a Blaze this spring. Now I want one of Queen O The Lakes brethern, probably Victory. I have a cottage style garden, so the roses are mixed with other plants. I can't go rose crazy, but I want at least a few more!

Hmm, my first rose ever was this Nina Weilbull.(January, this year, I was 17 at the time)
It was dry, badly treated and shriveled up from Poundland. LOL
I took care of it till I could see some GROWTH! :D
Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of black leg within all roses from poundland.
All the roses I bought from the store died of the same disease. :P (They were the Nina, Kronenbourg, Virgo and Joro roses)
From this, I have learned a lesson, roses never come cheap.lol
However, I did not give up. ;)
I still grow minis and I have just ordered a Gaujard rose and am expecting it this Wednesday! Yay me! :D

This post was edited by NOACCEPTANCE772 on Sun, Jun 16, 13 at 21:12

When my Grandma passed in 1983, I moved her two standards, October and Sterling Silver, to the house we had just closed on that same day. I can no longer find the October Rose she had; but, at each new abode, I always plant a Sterling Silver in her memory, even though she is a fair maiden to sustain. And, at this first California home, I planted my first rose garden. Five bushes in a straight line (I don't do straight lines any longer). They were Mr Lincoln, Gold Medal, Peace (of course - these were from HD after all), Queen Elizabeth, and my favorite due to her exquisite scent, Sweet Surrender, with Mr Lincoln a close second. Three homes and thirty years later, I was very excited when I found my SS at Otto and Sons two years ago. There is just something very special and unforgettable about your first rose.

The first rose that we planted was a cutting from a "June rose" hedge at my parent's house in the Catskills in NYS, now long gone. The hedge was there when they bought the house so no one knew what the roses were. The bushes were way too big to even consider moving one, which is why we took cuttings.

We took quite a few cuttings from different plants in the hedge as I recall - at least ten of them - but since we didn't know anything about roses or anything else at the time only one survived. It eventually settled into a spot at the corner of our house in NJ and it is there still, now in the back of what became our antique rose bed.

Oh, yes, the rose turned out to be "Alba Semi-plena", but we had no idea of that until much later on. Not at all rare, of course, but still a good rose and with a nice family history behind it for us.

The first rose I can remember from my childhood was a profuse pink climber with small flowers. We had a Summer home in Carmel, and it climbed up the house and peeked in the second story windows. My Mother called it "Baby Rose", and I am pretty sure it must have been Cecile Brunner.

Years later I wanted to plant a Cl Cecile Brunner on our house. I ordered plants (twice), but after years realized I had been sent the bush non-climbing form twice from two different nurseries. So, irate, I marched down to one of our local nurseries, found a Cl Cecile Brunner which was in a pot but already 9 feet high, and bought it. It is still growing on our house - see pic.

jackie

My first Rose moment was in Bakersfield california. We had just purchased a BEAUTIFUL turn of the century craftsman home that still had some of the original stained glass. We fell in love with that house and bought it. it was our first house and we didn't research the neighborhood. found out it was a gang/drug area. we put a wrought iron fence around our entire property and lined the interior with roses, all the way around our property. also planted roses around every window, and around the porch. I knew NOTHING about growing roses.
I amended the clay, followed the directions on the body bags (purchased them all at home depot) and crossed my fingers. After their first bloom i became a fanatic and read everything i could on roses. When we sold our house three years later, those roses were one of the selling features! I had multiples of mr. lincoln, peace, perfume delight, just joey, joseph coat, ice berg, olympiad, lowel thomas, double delight, and some handel climbers.

Andy in the back seat of his ford....oh ...no wait.
Teasing Georgia . Blossoms looked like yellow chiffon.

I wanted a flower to plant near my patio. I picked up Oklahoma at Wallmart and planted it, then it bloomed and the scent was fantastic. I got interested in rose bushes, brought a few more home, did some research. I soon found Oklahoma is not hardy in my zone 4, I managed to get it through the winter with protection, it died back nearly to the crown but is doing well this year. It didnâÂÂt bloom yet but lots of buds. None of my rose bushes have bloomed yet, we can get frost here at the beginning of june. I will try my best to keep Oklahoma because it is my first, I would like to take cuttings from it in case it doesnâÂÂt survive next winter, then maybe I could keep an offspring of my first rose. Perhaps I could put one in a pot to be better able to protect it in winter.

This year, my second year, I have 44 roses. I live in New Brunswick, Canada on the shore of the Atlantic, with our high humidity and plenty of rain I suspect I will be fighting blackspots. I will try my best to stay organic, right now using hydrogen peroxide.

I find this website very useful, and would like to thank all of you.

Arnold

My grandmother had roses (back in the 1960's), and 1 was a deep garnet red with not too many petals. Loved the color, loved the scent, NO idea what it was named. Another was 'the baby rose'. Tall enough to be over my head; very thin and twiggy stems (don't remember EVER seeing what I know now to be a cane) and small pale pink blooms with a million petals that shed all over the walkway - also no known name. Somewhere along the line in my mid-20's, I discovered the Heritage Rose Society, and rose rustling, and I joined up and got their news letter for a few years, while growing nothing but houseplants...

The first rose I knew the name of and loved, was a Sterling Silver I walked by on the way to work. Second one was my MIL's Mr. Lincoln. Thought that rose was glorious, out in the yard and inside on the kitchen table - that was in the very early 80's.

My first experiment in purchasing roses was (2003 or so) 4 body bags from the local CVS - I got a Sterling Silver, a Double Delight, a pink something, and a deep red something. I planted them outside the goat pen fence where the goats could nibble when the plants grew big enough to go through the wire fencing. The roses were very happy there, and thickest on the side where the goats ate them! Then my father died in June 2004, and my daughter ran away the day before, so I took a day off work and indulged in some retail therapy - I bought a barrel, a pretty metal trellis, and a Cl Cecille Brunner - both as memorial to my father, and as the closest I could get to my grandmother's 'baby rose'. Barrel still holds flowers, the metal trellis got lost in a move, and Cecille Brunner is starting to cover half of the front of the house! My next rose was Oklahoma, because I went to my nice but scruffy local nursery for a Mr. Lincoln, and he didn't have one, but he did have Oklahoma, which has just sent up a new basal cane with a ton of buds at the top.

After that, I went on a March visit to Roses of Yesterday and Today, which I had known about for 10-15 years and never lived very far from, and bought 5 roses which are slowly coming along, some better than others. If Cornelia doesn't pick up her skirts and GROW in a year or so, she's getting put out by the curb for passers by....

I have never been a person who wants a single focus garden with just roses. I prefer a garden medley, with the roses living in reasonable harmony with everything else - tall bearded iris (lots), pelargoniums and geraniums (a few), dianthus (lots), California poppies (few but spreading!) bachelor buttons (lots and spreading) and whatever else takes my fancy on any given day. I'm happy that way!

Melinda

My grandmother had roses (back in the 1960's), and 1 was a deep garnet red with not too many petals. Loved the color, loved the scent, NO idea what it was named. Another was 'the baby rose'. Tall enough to be over my head; very thin and twiggy stems (don't remember EVER seeing what I know now to be a cane) and small pale pink blooms with a million petals that shed all over the walkway - also no known name. Somewhere along the line in my mid-20's, I discovered the Heritage Rose Society, and rose rustling, and I joined up and got their news letter for a few years, while growing nothing but houseplants...

The first rose I knew the name of and loved, was a Sterling Silver I walked by on the way to work. Second one was my MIL's Mr. Lincoln. Thought that rose was glorious, out in the yard and inside on the kitchen table - that was in the very early 80's.

My first experiment in purchasing roses was (2003 or so) 4 body bags from the local CVS - I got a Sterling Silver, a Double Delight, a pink something, and a deep red something. I planted them outside the goat pen fence where the goats could nibble when the plants grew big enough to go through the wire fencing. The roses were very happy there, and thickest on the side where the goats ate them! Then my father died in June 2004, and my daughter ran away the day before, so I took a day off work and indulged in some retail therapy - I bought a barrel, a pretty metal trellis, and a Cl Cecille Brunner - both as memorial to my father, and as the closest I could get to my grandmother's 'baby rose'. Barrel still holds flowers, the metal trellis got lost in a move, and Cecille Brunner is starting to cover half of the front of the house! My next rose was Oklahoma, because I went to my nice but scruffy local nursery for a Mr. Lincoln, and he didn't have one, but he did have Oklahoma, which has just sent up a new basal cane with a ton of buds at the top.

After that, I went on a March visit to Roses of Yesterday and Today, which I had known about for 10-15 years and never lived very far from, and bought 5 roses which are slowly coming along, some better than others. If Cornelia doesn't pick up her skirts and GROW in a year or so, she's getting put out by the curb for passers by....

I have never been a person who wants a single focus garden with just roses. I prefer a garden medley, with the roses living in reasonable harmony with everything else - tall bearded iris (lots), pelargoniums and geraniums (a few), dianthus (lots), California poppies (few but spreading!) bachelor buttons (lots and spreading) and whatever else takes my fancy on any given day. I'm happy that way!

Melinda

my first rose was and is still a favorite. a cecile brunner grown over the front gate's arbor intertwined with perennial morning glory. what can i say? i was a first time homeowner and first time arbor builder. ubiquitous and pedestrian? perhaps, but the thrifty and fierce little rose will always have a place in my garden. now i grow it with Perle D"or and evergreen clematis over a pergola...gorgeous.

Hello,friends, When i think about create a garden than i not think that which rose i grow. but after some time i decide red rose and yellow rose. After i successes in my first garden than i create one more garden and this garden have all types of flowers. I am making my new web site about flowers please check it for more details about flowers garden www.indianflowers.tk

This post was edited by david111david on Sun, Jun 30, 13 at 2:57

I wish I knew! When I bought my first (and only) house in 1984, I inherited 9 roses in various parts of the yard. Some of them had been started from cuttings the previous owner had taken at his church. The only rose he knew the name of was Double Delight. I suspect one of the others is Queen Elizabeth and one might be Peace, but the other 6 I've never identified. The DD is gone as is a pink that was never very good, QE is on her last legs along with a hot pink one at the back of the property. However, I still have two yellow roses that never give up, the Peace is always scrawny but is hanging in there, and there are an unidentified red and a red/orange blend still going strong.

When I first moved in, I was so afraid of killing them all that I did a lot of research to learn to grow them properly. Over the years I've added more and more roses - I think I'm up near 50 now - and to my mind, the best thing I've learned is that they are champion survivors. Whether I care for them religiously or neglect them seriously, they just keep going, still blooming beautifully! I do try not to neglect them, but I have also begun to ease off and let them do their own thing. They seem happiest that way!

This rose bush was once in our yard but I transplanted it to my moms house about 10 years ago...
This was our first rose bush. I have no idea what it was called?

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Jim1961 I absolutely love this rose bush I think it's called " oso happy candy" rose I was trying to find it's name for a while, well done caring for that one!

Funny how threads resurrect periodically! My first rose was a nameless red ht that smelled nice from the garden/tools/odds and ends store down the road. It cose all of £1.50 - I was 9 or so, and just vaguely interested in gardening, and it was an impulse purchase that survived despite my going back out of the phase less than 6 months later. Over the years, I'd occasionally look at it when I was back at my parent's house and marvel at it carrying on despite zero care, and being swamped by brambles.

Twenty five years on it was still surviving when I circled back round to gardening. I ended up digging it out and potting it when I decided that bed needed to be blue, and then I donated it to a neighbor who likes hts, and had had his garden decimated by a falling ash. He faithfully updates me on it whenever I see him - it doesn't bloom much more for him than it did for me but it does have more beautiful blooms under his prune-feed-spray regimen, and it does just keep trucking on even though it's pretty old for a grafted ht.
As for me, I now have getting on for 100 roses, a mix of old and modern, leaning more old and old-style. Running out of space now, will probably top out at somewhere around 120. This will be my firsy year with some established roses and I'm looking forward to it a lot.

Royalty

My first roses were carpet roses then I bought some fairy roses but had no idea what there were. I still have two of my fairy roses around my big rock. Then I bought a grafted Buff Beauty rose and I was really hooked on roses after that. I loved that rose but it sadly ended up with RRD.

My first rose was the hybrid tea diamond jubilee grown from a cutting I took from the school I was working at. Just a month later, the school burnt down to the ground with no casualties and I have this beautiful thing left to remind me of good memories overthere...the cutting was a fat 30 cm long stem and grew very fast and bloomed a year later...

Flashback to when I was a small child, around 6 or so. I would visit my great-aunt and there was a huge yellow rose in her front yard. I loved it. She would cut it back to the ground each year and it would get huge each summer. Flashforward to mid-70's: I saw some body bags at KMart in a sidewalk sale for 50 cents each. Figured for 50 cents what do I have to lose. bought three: SnowFire which lived about 20 years, Mr Lincoln who survived a few more years after that. Last to expire, my then favorite Tropicana, loved it so much that it was the only rose that I had more than one of...odd that I don't have one in my garden now when I loved it so much. As for the huge yellow rose, I went back to look at it when I was "grown" and my great-aunt had passed away, thought I might be able to get some cuttings. The house and everything had been bull-dozed and been replaced by a new development.

bhantooa_narisha the rose bush in question was already here and well established when I moved into our house in 1995... So its older than 1995 for sure...

bhantooa_narisha WROTE:

Jim1961 I absolutely love this rose bush I think it's called " oso happy candy" rose I was trying to find it's name for a while, well done caring for that one!

My first rose was Shailer's Provence although I didn't know it at the time. My daughter and I rescued her from the abandoned house next door after the elderly owner died and called it Sister Annie's rose after the lady who had loved it while she was alive. When I moved here twenty years ago part of Sister Annie's original rose came with me but by then I knew her correct name and she had lots of sisters and brothers who also trekked over the mountains to my new home - but she was my first and will always be very special as a result - actually I can't think of a better rose to lead a person into the passion for old roses - after all one of her names is "the pass along rose" and she is reputed to have been in Jefferson's garden.

First rose I ever bought was a own-root Precious Platinum... Labeled a Hybrid Tea Rose but grew more like a shrub rose with HT blooms... That rose bush always seemed like it had lots of blooms probably because the blooms lasted up to 14 days on the bush! That rose bush ruined me (lol) because when other rose blooms on other types of rose only last a short time it's a big let down...lol

Poor thing died to the ground each winter though but it would rebound quickly... But it started having severe BS problems after the 3rd year and since we have a no spray garden it had to go...

What a good question. I don't really remember mine. However, I remember when I was little, I used to admire my dad's cousin roses and wished we had them. We couldn't really afford those luxury plants with two parents working hard labour jobs so I just took the canes that was pruned and planted them in my garden hoping it would grow. Of course they never did but that desire stayed with me. The earliest I remember buying was an apricot rose. I am not sure but it looks like Apricot Nectar. I had such hope for this rose that I over fertilized it and added peat moss to it in the middle of the hot summer. The thing died immediately. It was many years later that I try to grow them again and I can happily say I've not looked back. One of the best advice one of our fellow posters had give us is : KISS, keep it simple sweetie. That is so true and the best advice I've heard for a long time. I try to keep it simple and not overcomplicate when growing roses.

This is such a great thread. I'm glad it was resurrected.

The first rose I ever got was an Oklahoma rose that I purchased at Home Depot for $15. My hubby and I had just gotten married and bought our first home (we moved in right after the honeymoon).

The previous owners of the house grew only palm trees and banana palms and a few philodendrons so the yard lacked color. We had a pool so we spent a lot of time in the back yard and it was too drab for my liking, so my mom came over one day to add a few impatiens to the dirt patch that surrounded our pool.

I was immediately hooked on gardening. Having always loved flowers I instantly started filling the garden with anything that bloomed. Especially hibiscus. I had about 10 hibiscus at the time. But I hated that I couldn't cut them and bring them inside to make arrangements.

One day while shopping for plants I came across a huge Oklahoma rose. It was almost 4 ft tall in its tiny pot and the scent was unbelievable. I knew nothing about roses but I just had to have it. I read they liked full sun so I put it in a very large pot next to my collection of hibiscus. When it had its first large flush I cut them and made an arrangement on the kitchen counter.

I would stop by the Home Depot almost every weekend to check out the roses and bring home the ones I really liked. I killed many of them but Oklahoma pressed on.

Eventually I had about 20 roses growing in pots in the back yard. Then I had those plus 15 more that I squeezed in the front porch. Then I cleared out the front side yard to make a small bed for a cutting garden. That eventually went to roses. Once I discovered how much better they do in the ground the bug really took hold. I then cleared the other side, which too went to roses. Then i leveled the back side yard and made a rose garden. I no longer have hibiscus (only a few) all potted plants are roses. I now grow over 60 roses. Everything is coming up roses.

My Oklahoma died recently after 5 years in its large pot. But I just got a new one (body bag from Aldi). It's my husband's favorite rose and after putting up with "hobby" (or what he calls my obsession) growing it for him is the least I can do.

SoFl, I just got Oklahoma as a small band this season. I'm glad to hear you say nice things about it. I'm hoping it will make it through my brutal summer.

I was 4 yrs old and my Nana had a dark red climber going up the porch of her bunglow. The roses were quite prolific and every day I would grab a handfull of petals and put them in her mail box. I would ring the door and when my sweet Nana came to see who was there I would tell her the postman had come and she had mail. Believe it or not everytime she would act surprized!!!

Later on I found out her favorite rose was "Sterling Silver"...mine too!