21,400 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

Forbidden more roses? Yikes. Perhaps there is an empty lot in your neighborhood in need of beautification? Friends who need a rose or ten?
There is a sign sometimes seen in fabric stores:
My husband threatened to leave me if I bought more fabric. I will miss him.

Years ago..right around the time my gardening love hit hubby and I had a mow and blow guy. We had planted a baby peach tree in front. We were loving that tree..and babying it so it would put out lots of yummy peaches. Well it had a low branch..a fruit bearing brach and he cut it off. When we saw that I felt the blood drain from my face. When he came the next time we confronted him. He explained that branch was in the way and he could not get the mower under it. We fired him. The end..lol. PS that tree put out lots and lots of peaches. My ex..Dennis died last fall. I still can taste those peaches.

I went back and bought 'Redcap' today, which, if it is correctly labelled, is the Herbert Swim floribunda from 1954. It has darkened canes, BUT at least one sprout and a couple of other swellings at the bud union, so I am guardedly optimistic I can make it grow. It is soaking now.
Some Aldis have no more body bagged roses; the first one I went to had none. The 'Redcap' came from Rome, next town down the road.I passed on a couple of Brownell roses because I have read that the sub-zeroes are likely to be virused.

I can remember when Blaze was what everyone wanted, and it was all over the place. That and Iceberg. I saw them so much that I got tired of them. Well, things do change. Last year I planted Iceberg, and would love to have Blaze. A cemetery in my area used to have one, but I think it died in the drought 2 years ago. I need to go check it, though.

These are both very new roses and there may not be many people growing them yet so information about them is probably limited to what the growers, in this case Weeks for Oh My and Star for Thrive, have provided for them. The only way to know for sure is to grow them yourself and see how they do in your garden.


yay!!! how beautiful! My just Joey has ginormous blooms as well easily 5-6 inches in diameter. Must be all the rabbit manure I use. very pretty! thanks for posting the picture!!!
As for the color, mine ranges from apricot, to copper, to coral, depending on the temperature. It receives full sun.


My stars, what are you feeding those monsters and where do you live?? My guess is somewhere much warmer than me, since there's no way my double knockouts would ever approach that kind of height. Whatever you're doing, keep it up, as these look like very healthy happy roses, and you'll likely have a tremendous spring flush.
I agree with everyone else that you should sit back, enjoy a delightful spring flush (with an optional adult beverage of your choice), then when the show dies down trim them down to a more manageable size. Conventional wisdom says to not cut off more than 1/3 of the plant at any one pruning, so if you want them to be more like 3-4 feet you might do that in two stages and let them rest and recover in between. Of course, most of us ignore conventional wisdom when we feel like it, and most knockouts can be pruned with a chainsaw as needed without complaining at all. If you feed them some alfalfa hay during their rest period, they might bush out even wider, but I hesitate to suggest that since they already look like the Monster that Ate Cleveland. To keep them a relatively manageable size each spring, do as Michael says and cut out a few of the oldest canes (thickest and brownest) at the base.
Keep up the good work!
Cynthia


It has been a decade since I've seen that effect in our yard--from exposed bud unions due to bad planting advice on plant labels! Hasn't happened since I started burying the bud unions. One might deduce some sort of graft failure. We only saw that effect we we had two dozen roses--we have now had 200 for years...

I had this happen with one of my roses this year. I had planted two Climbing Pinata side by side. Both seemed to take off as well as body bags could over their first year.
The grafts on both were buried. It is grafted on Dr. Huey.
Last fall, the Manic Mower pushed his god awful Rolling leaf blower into one, breaking it's small canes off, basically to the ground.
This year, that plant did begin to send up a new shoot from the graft at the same time as the other Pinata, so I was glad that it seemed to have survived both the winter and the accident. After a couple weeks, it just simply died away.
I have dug around the graft a bit and do see that the cane it was attached to is still green at the bottom, ground level and lower. Everything else is brown, but could just be the graft bark I am seeing. I am sure I was not seeing a rootstock sucker, as I did inspect it and saw it was originating from the graft/green cane, not below.
I also thought that root growth would see it through, as in never had too much top growth last year, but did show promise. I was thrilled that it sprouted this season, then bummed to see it disappear.
Is it dead? Who knows. Green tells me no, but there is so little of it that it could just well be a goner.
I have been debating on digging it out and putting it in a pot to see if it can be saved, but perhaps leaving it there to see if it decides to do something later is the better option.
The one next to it did shoot up what seem to be two new basals, which are growing well.
My Memorial Day struggled for two years and died back to the bottom mid season each year except for one or two tiny canes. The graft was also buried. This I am sure was lack of sun. I was sure she was a goner but this year she shot new growth. Not tall , but growth. I dug her up to discover NO roots aside from what looked to be exactly what she started with when I got her as a grafted bare root. I put her in a pot and then in the ground in a better spot. Though small, only about 8 inches from the ground, her new growth is still healthy, leafy and green. She has not done much, but has not died. :) I have hope she is growing roots again and has just enough top growth to keep her going. As noted on another thread, I think I'll remove her buds this year in the hopes she can recover. That will be hard, the flowers she gave, though few, were beautiful.
Cynthia, I took a look at Fantastique on HMF⦠I'd be bummed to have lost her, too.

I'm with Jeri.
Your plant on the right is Blushing Knock Out. I would wait until after it blooms, then clip off the old blooms and shape the plant how you like. Take out any canes that are dead. Blushing Knock Out can pretty much be trimmed with hedge clippers, you don't need to do any special angle cuts (I don't even do that any more on my hybrid teas) or opening up.
We won't be able to tell what the other one is until it blooms. I would also wait until after that one blooms to do any pruning.

I think your roses look fantastic. That's some of the healthiest foliage I've seen on Garden Web in a long time. You should know that Knock-out roses grow quite large in mild climates. You can prune them annually in spring (with a late summer haircut) to try to keep them in bounds or move them to a location where they can grow 6x6 (I'd move them in Nov or March). Nice roses.

I've seen centipedes in moist soil and under mulch around my roses and really don't think they hurt the roses in any significant way. I happen to dislike them a lot and will step on any that I see but as far as I know the roses don't seem to mind them.

Centipedes are mostly predators and plants are not an important part of their diet according to people who've dissected a bunch of them. My understanding is that they will only eat decayed plant material if they are starving. They freak me out when they run across my bed. One of our little lizards spotted one of those really fast zillion legs ones last week and flew by me. He sat on his rock and ate it. Then he did a couple of pushups and his belly turned blue. He was really proud of himself. Hope you have some lizards. Mary


Seil, I tried and tried to ID a couple that I got last year and gave up. They look like miniature DA's, very nice quartered blooms.
QS, I totally understand the blueberries indoors now. I have a fig tree and plum that I'll never ever get any fruit off. At least the birds, squirrels, etc. don't bother my citrus. That's one reason I won't ever grow blueberries.
But don't count on any roses doing well indoors. Get them outside if you can. It's okay to bring them indoors to enjoy for a few days while they're in bloom, but it's rare to get one to survive at all indoors.

"If I can get them dug without killing them" - just TRY and kill Dr. Huey! Can't be done - in my garden my DH has dug up and thrown away numerous small plants of it, and they come back relentlessly - I don't think you will have any problem spreading it around, if that is what you want to do -
Jackie

Dr. Huey is blooming all over my neighborhood right now. I'll bet the owners are amazed that their roses changed colors one year, from white, pink, or whatever, to that purple/red. At least they bloom for several weeks here.
I notice it's available from Vintage, and my only question is "why???"




Well actually I found that the nursery outside of New Orleans called Banting's carries about a dozen or more different varieties of Austins, plus many other kinds, including the Peggy Martin rose and several old garden roses. Banting's has been a "destination" garden center in New Orleans area (probably has the best variety of any center in the area). Even though it is quite a distance from where I live, I try to make it out there at least once a year.
I picked up a Charlotte and an Abraham Darby. I was kind of disappointed to see that almost all of the roses in the nursery, except the Knockouts and some of the carpet types, were all covered in blackspot! The Charlotte is the only one I bought that were not spotted. Even all the old garden roses were spotted. Is this normal in a garden center setting? A function of the overhead watering necessary at a huge nursery like this and being stuck in small pots? Even though Abe was spotted, I wanted one of these badly so got the healthiest one I could find. I have already sprayed it with a fungicide to hopefully get rid of the blackspot.
According to webpage of the New Orleans Old Garden Rose Society, 2013 Calendar
June 4 Meeting
Speaker: Gregory Constant from the Baton Rouge Rose Society will present NEW 'OLD' ROSES: David Austin Roses.
Surely people will mention where to buy them and talk about BS if thatâÂÂs a problem for them. If you need info, Margaret, who is president, has contact info on the webpage. I heard Peggy say recently that sheâÂÂs had computer problems so calling Margaret might be best. Or see webpage for info on attending a single meeting. Best wishes, River
Here is a link that might be useful: New Orleans Old Garden Rose Society