November 24, 2002
2002 Rose Report Card (Part 1)
When I moved into my new house in the spring of 2000, I found over 40 roses in the front yard. Knowing nothing about roses, I just watched and watered them for about a year. They were almost all hybrid teas, though a few were floribundas. Most were tiny, ancient, sick, rarely (if ever) bloomed, or were planted in inappropriate spots. The majority of these old roses have now been removed.
A year ago I bought a dozen bare root roses to improve these gardens. In this series I'm going to review how these new roses performed. Though it is now late in the season (end of Nov) for most of them, a few are still blooming. I've included a few photos as examples. All are from my garden.
Glamis Castle (Wayside Gardens). 3' tall David Austin English Rose with 3" white flowers. I planted this in a 3 cu. ft. half barrel and planted in a windy SE corner of my property. It has done extremely well, and has put out flush after flush of lovely white fully double "old" style blooms. Despite being wind-blown it is holding up well with just a few thin supports. The flowers are very sweet smelling. Canes unbelievably thorny.
Royal Bonica (Wayside Gardens). These are 3' tall shrub roses that I bought to grow up and over a 2' tall brick wall. My plan was to buy 4, space them every 2.5' or so, and have them create a mass of pink. Their flowers are 2' double pink fellows that are not very fragrant. Throws out floribunda-like sprays of blooms. I'm somewhat satisfied with these, although I'm hoping for more and broader growth in years two and three.
Two interesting side-notes to these plants -- I bought four of these, and two died fairly quickly. I complained, and received two more. Of these, one didn't make it past spring. Somewhat disappointing, though WSG came through on their guarantees. The other oddity is that, though these are all supposedly the same variety, their flowers vary quite a bit -- from deep pink and fully double to light pink and sem-double, to white with pink edges and semi-double. Is this typicaly variation in one variety?
Tamora (Wayside Gardens). Another David Austin English Rose, this one about 2' tall, with 3" apricot flowers. I planted this in a 3 cu. ft. half barrel (like Glamis Castle), and it also has done extremely well, throwing out flush after flush of lovely blooms all season long, in a compact but well shaped bush. The blooms tend to open as a medium apricot, then fade to a pale yellow. The flowers are very sweet smelling. I am very happy with this rose -- the blooms are wonderful. I especially adore the almost open buds, which look like silk with a red edging.
PS. I've used Growing Good Roses by Rayford Reddell as my guide for planting, maintaining, etc. I just followed his cookbook-like instructions and my roses seemed to do very well.
Posted by rich at November 24, 2002 10:01 AM