21,401 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Oh, look -- I've received MANY roses that were not what I ordered.
The worst offender in our experience was the original Heirloom Roses Co. (St. Paul, OR). I'd say 90% of the roses we ordered from them either were mis-labelled, OR they didn't have what we ordered, so sent us what they had.
I've come to believe that the hallmark of a good nursery is NOT whether they sometimes make a mistake, but rather -- how they deal with the error, and make it right.
Jeri

I agree, Jeri. Some of the complaints about Rogue Valley Roses were about how the mistakes were handled. But in my case, they were more than fair. Hopefully that practice will continue. I wanted to show my gratitude for their generosity by sharing my experience here.
This picture is of my Climbing Yellow Sweetheart rose (no thorns!) from Rogue Valley Roses



Grand Amore is a bright red color and has good form. It does get quite tall. Mine sometimes gets 12-15 ft tall. It might as well be a climber. It does want to grow straight up. It is quite sturdy as far as surviving around here. Flower size is usually smaller than some of the others, but it varies with temperature. It will get larger in cool weather, but it is rarely as big as a Veteran's Honor. I think it is a good variety, but watch out for the plant size.

The blooms are smaller than some of the other red HT varieties, but the trade off is on vigour, bloom profusion, repeat and disease resistance. GA does all of those things exceptionally well, whereas few of the other reds do.


Thanks Seil and alameda.
Seil, that's the only place I saw it also. And alameda, I wanted this rose to replace Young Lycidas, a VERY fragrant rose that I planted in a very large pot on my deck. But he seems to want to be too big for a pot.
Thanks again,
andreark

I am 2 hours from Tyler. Lots of pretty trees, decent soil but I amend with horse compost. This time of year, I live with a water hose in my hand. Roses are OK.....not too many blooms other than my potted ones that are in early morning sun. As long as you keep them mulched and watered, it wont be long until fall then the show starts all over again.
Judith

Sara Ann, I hope you join the Tulsa Rose Society if you do not already belong. Feel free to email me, and I can give you specifics about joining. I would love to meet you.
Exhibitors plan their exhibits. They often have roses that they groom specifically for show. When they plan for an exhibit, they may prune off much of a rose, so that the rose can put all its energy on a few, then on one bloom. The "art of exhibiting" is its own special talent or art. It is very interesting, and fun to be involved in for someone like me who mainly watches in amazement.
I have many photos in HMF, and so do many who post here. I just catch a pretty photo by chance.
I used to spray, and could grow most roses. Now I do not spray, and mainly grow certain categories that do not require spray. I will never grow so many roses that others grow, but those who exhibit may not enjoy the type of garden that I love.
I live in a suburb on the east side of Tulsa - almost in the city. They main thing I need to do to be successful is to keep a hose inside in the winter, and hook it up on pretty winter days to water. Last year was the first true drought that I can remember since the early 1980's. I was too busy to ever even purchase a new hose and hook it up. I left all my hoses unattached, but on the ground. I did not water.
There are very successful rose growers who belong to the Tulsa Rose Society. They can answer so many questions about rose growing. The meetings are on a Sunday at about 1:00 or 2:00 at Woodward Park. My email is attached on this forum, I think. Feel free to contact me.
Sammy


Also, you can go to this site:
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/plants.php
and see what the roses of the names you thought you were buying are SUPPOSED to look like.
Jeri

Strike it Rich is a big, tall, vigorous grower here. Mine is around 4 years old. It produces lots of new canes each year. Most of those start out strong now, but it will still have a couple of canes in the spring that are too weak to hold up all its blooms after a strong storm without staking. Those do improve through the growing season, though. As yours matures, I believe it will be a strong, upright blooming machine. Here is mine from last fall towering over other roses nearby:



Wow, Pat, Just gorgeous. Gives me something to look forward to. Today I noticed a few blackspot-looking leaves on the lower part of the plant. My research indicated that this rose is supposed to be highly resistant to that. What should I do to help my SIR?

Had to shovel prune one this week.. Will it affect all the other roses on my gardens?? I have 40 some David Austins.. The rose I shovel pruned looked exactly like this.
Worried also about the eden rose that has all the clusters have 7 leaves...no 3 or 5 and no blooms

welltraveled--just for you, I went out a few minutes ago and checked my Eden. Most of the leaves come in 7 leaf leaflets. I saw none with just 3 leaves. There was an occasional one with only 5 or 6 leaves per leaflet, but overwhelmingly, the leaflets consisted of 7 leaves.
I don't remember why that issue is so important to you, but I remember you posting about it before.
I do remember posting earlier that Eden is not a good bloomer for everybody. I don't remember how old your Eden is, but you may have to wait 3-5 years for it to do much--that is true for a number of climbers. Of course, none of this has anything to do with RRD. Sorry to hear, however, that you lost another rose to RRD. Many of us have had to go through that loss. It's hard to take.
As I said above, the mite that carries the infection gets blown, willy-nilly, around by the wind. It may blow the mite to the other side of your yard or several blocks away. However, there is no reason to panic that nearby roses somehow caught the infection just because they are nearby. Chances are, they did not--unless there is an infected rose somewhere in the neighborhood and the wind keeps blowing the mite carriers into your yard.
Hope that answers some of your concerns.
Kate



That looks like bacoppa, water hyssop, growing beneath the rose as a ground cover. If that's what it is and it looks that good, I would suspect lack of water isn't the issue. I can't see from the image well enough to determine if there are spider mites or not. What have you sprayed on the plants? If the tropicals are also reacting this way, I suspect it might be fertilizer (salt) or some spray which has been applied to them all, perhaps Miracle Gro fertilizer sprayed on the foliage? If you were in zones 9 and higher, I would chalk it up to severe sun/UV, which we are definitely suffering from this year, much more severely than in any previous year in my experience. You may well be experiencing intense heat and greater UV/sun than is traditionally normal for where you are, but for the plants up in the air to be so severely affected while the bacoppa on the ground to still look that good, I would think it's more an issue of something sprayed on the larger plants. What sounds plausible to you? Kim

Susan, my roses in the most direct sun are also doing that as well, although not that bad. We just finished 4 weeks of 35C+ (95F) weather, hottest steak was over 40C for 5 days (46.8C hottest day) after which those kinds of leaves where showing up. I attributed it to the weather but am very curious to hear what others think.
Interesting that michaelg brings up cercospora. Thinking back everything in this particular location had cercospora issues last year. Thanks michaelg I think it is time to replace the mulch and a little soil.
SCG


Newroses -- I remembered reading one of your postings where you said that PP was not introduced in Europe. Do you have any insight as to why?
Jim - thanks again. I did some readings on Rose Midge while commuting today on my phone. Yes, it looks I have RM galore in my garden. For whatever reason, Rose Midge was never on my radar. Oh, well....

To this in 2014...
Maybe something to try once in a while?? I'm too inexperienced to understand what the effects of frequent applications of 1 tablespoon of vinegar per gallon of water might have. It's, as Nik said in the thread linked above, a short-term solution. Maybe others can offer some sound advice on this method. It worked wonders for me and I feel fairly comfortable watering once or twice this way before the most important bloom in Spring. Maybe it will help deepen your reds.


Vinegar is 5% Acetic Acid. Applied properly in appropriate concentrations it can temporarily acidify the soil/water, releasing more nitrogen, iron and other nutrients which may be locked up in insoluble compounds due to alkalinity. Aluminum sulfate and nitrogen can both accomplish similar effects. All of them, if used improperly, can severely burn and out right kill the plant so use with caution. Kim



I should add that my claims about space requirements would assume no winter damage.
Cool, Mordenman - your percentage of cane survival represents the range of hardiness of these climbers well enough to account for the variable climates where it grows, and I think it'll be helpful to newbies and others who are considering this rose. For me, if I can get at least that 40-60% of cane survival over the winter, the rose will both reliably bloom and expand nicely over a support in the summer. When I've had to prune even monster hardy climbers like Mme. Alfred Carriere or Madame Isaac Periere to the ground like last winter, I've gotten the growth back to normal levels by now but no blooms.
Thanks for the complement on the photo! I like having a mix of climbers on any given fence spot when possible, because of the variable extent to which any given climber is going to have substantial surviving cane enough to bloom, or decide to sulk for a summer. One way or another, I want SOMETHING to bloom each year.
One other comment to add to Michael's timely note about space requirements and climate is that climbers tend to need less "floor space" but more "elbow room" than other kinds of roses. In other words, to respond to Heather's questions about fitting them both in a given space, it depends on how much room they have to spread out on a fence. In the top photo, I have probably 10 or more climbers stretched out along 12' or so of the fence that you can see, so the bases of the climbers are pretty close to each other (some are on the other side of the fence, as the neighbors let me play on their side too). That only works because the branches of all the climbers can stretch horizontally along a large area of tall fence and overlap each other freely. You want climbers to grow horizontally as much as possible so that the blooming laterals can sprout up from the canes.
If you had a 6' section of fence, you could probably put climbers at both ends of the fence and stretch them toward each other and start zigzagging the canes up as they grow. If you only had 3' of fence horizontally, even if you had plenty of ground room to work with, that would likely only support one climber at best, and it would have to have very flexible canes to wind back and forth along most of that fence to get a full bloom. In that kind of space, Laguna would work better.
Hopefully that helps as you plan your climbers! As you can tell, I'm always in favor of cramming in more roses and other plants as much as possible, so take my advice with that caution in mind (smile).
Cynthia