Lois de Vries' Garden Views

This year I received three field-trial roses: The previously-described Pink Home Run™, Dick Clark, and Candy Oh ™ . I'm guessing at the Weeks floribunda Dick Clark, since it arrived with only its trial number. The description of its cherry picotee blushing to burgundy didn't hold for my individual plant. It did start out as creamy white. It did form the cherry picotee, but as it opened out, became full-flushed with the cherry color. I'll reserve judgment for now, since it's only produced two flowers so far, with one new bud forming. It's been busy growing a full, bushy plant. Either way, it will blend well with the other nearby roses. Candy Oh ™ Vivid Red is a trial landscape rose, which arrived in-bud and has been blooming continuously every since – even though I still have it in a pot -- so it is a good choice for containers, as well. A polyantha hybrid, it is billed as needing no winter protection, disease-resistant, low maintenance, and hardy to -30ºF ...

My field trial roses include Weeks' original Home Run™ and this year, Pink Home Run™, both bred from the KnockOut™ strain. Dan raves about the original's dark red color, which seemed to me a little off. Just goes to show you that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. I quickly discovered, however, that it's unaffected by dogs, handymen, clay soil, drought, and disease (it doesn’t seem to get any). You just have to keep the Japanese Beetles picked off.   I'm crazy about the pink version, which I received this spring, so it's still a smallish plant. All of them are the offspring of a single mutated branch on a Red KnockOut™, which sported pink blossoms. It fills the hole created when we lost the Rainbow KnockOut™ to snow and ice. My three favorite roses for fragrance are the grandiflora Melody Parfumée™ (Jackson & Perkins) Oklahoma™ (Weeks), a hybrid tea, and Moondance™ (Jackson & Perkins), a floribunda. Melody is a purply lavender ...

One of the first trial roses I was ever offered was the Red Double Knockout landscape rose and later, Pink Double Knockout. These are reliable, disease-free plants that rebloom again and again throughout the growing season, starting in early June. In 2009, I cut the last blossoms at the end of the third week in October (Zone 5B). The plants can look a little ratty between bloom events if you don't deadhead them, but they are self-cleaning, so it doesn't affect their ability to flower again. The only thing missing from the Knockouts is fragrance. If you sniff really hard, you can detect a very faint scent that seems to grow stronger once the blossoms are brought indoors, but they will not make your rose garden smell like roses.   Joseph's Coat is a lovely multicolor climber (also available as a standard bush rose) that is a handsome combination of light and dark pink blush with a yellow throat. I've seen, elsewhere, Joseph's Coat pictured as an orange rose...

Another rose with odd-but-endearing coloration is Cinqo de Mayo, a 2009 AARS winner. It's a Floribunda with a lovely bloom, but you need to be careful what you put it near to avoid color clashes. I happened to have an empty spot next to my Sambucus Black Lace, whose dark leaves provide a perfect foil for it. Pink Promise is another 2009 AARS winner. A Hybrid Tea Rose, its pale fragrant pink flowers sit atop long stems with dark green leaves (which makes it harder to photograph properly). A percentage of each sale goes to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. It's flowers start opening about three to four weeks later than many of my other roses (Double Knockout, Mardis Gras, Bantry Bay, Home Run, Oklahoma, and my unlabeled creamy white rose), so it's a great filler until the next wave of bloom takes place. Among the climbers, Coral Dawn is just finishing up and buds are starting to show on Joseph's Coat. I'd have to say that these are all easy care ...

Whether it was all of the rain last year, or the combination of hot days and rain this year, the roses in my garden are doing really, really well. I'm blessed to receive trial roses from growers and, while you never know what you're going to get, some of them are a very pleasant surprise. One of these is Mardi Gras, a 2008 AARS Winner. I am not fond of orange-colored anything and was somewhat distressed when I first saw the color of this rose in the section I have set aside for the red roses and their kin. I got over it in a day or two when I saw what these roses become – huge, fragrant, masses of blush-edged, yellow-throated, creamy blooms 4.5 – 5 inches across. (Yes, those pictures are the same plant). In the realm of climbing roses, here is Bantry Bay, purchased as an own-root plant. Own-root roses are always a little slower-starting, but here it is in its second year. All around a pretty good show and a lovely, light fragrance. Over the winter, heavy snow a...

Did you make some New Year’s gardening resolutions in January, or fantasize about a series of projects to complete before summer’s end? I did (see http://loisdevries.blogspot.com/2008/01/gardening-resolutions-for-new-year.html). Well, it’s mid-July and we’re halfway through the gardening season. Time to check our progress against our plans. With one caveat. In the garden, it seems our imagination is always larger, or more abundant, than our capacity, whether of time, money, or ability. The Golden Dragon Clivia sits on a shaded porch for the summer, per advice from experienced Clivia growers on the garden writers listserv. Once the air conditioner comes out of the window, it will go back to its in-house space. So far, so good. It’s still alive. Climbing roses for the arbor. I got only one that was on my list, Bantry Bay. This was tiny compared to the others I finally purchased, but it is on its own root (not grafted) and I have great hopes for it. I’m disappointed to say I got...

When I was a kid Grandpa still tended Grandma’s rose garden behind the apartment house where we lived. My dim recollection is that they must have all been some kind of tea roses, because they smelled great. No longer able to do it herself, she would lean out the window and bark her orders. This was a typical city yard, about the size of a postage stamp, with a central walkway and flower beds on either side. Grandma’s side had the roses; our side had what I then considered the ugly plants: Hydrangea, Lily-of-the-Valley, and my arch-enemy, Rose of Sharon. Today my own garden has all of these very same plants. I guess they are classics for a reason. In the past, I have struggled and struggled to grow roses, all to no avail. But within the last few years, I was fortunate to discover shrub roses, which seem to need no assistance from me. One of my favorites, and most prolific, is a pinky coral that had no tag when I got it. The two brands that have done best in our garden are Kno...