It's National Garden Month!



The thumbnail photo is April in Paris.

You people are so funny. You clamor for an April thread and give me thumbs for creating the thread, but you keep posting in the March thread.

So, I'll start the ball rolling. Some of you may know that I've hated Hortico with a white-hot rage for years. I heard some good comments about the nursery recently, however, and decided to place a small order. The order grew, of course, and now I'm getting nine roses from Hortico in a couple of weeks.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to buy grafted Austins for only $18.99. Palatine doesn't carry Austins anymore, and Pickering is gone, so Hortico is the only place I can buy Austins grafted onto multiflora and save the price and hassle of gopher-proof cages. I'm getting Crocus Rose, Darcey Bussell, The Dark Lady, Wife of Bath, and Wise Portia. The only one I already have is The Dark Lady and it's a weak little own-root rose from Chamblee's that has never done much.

I'm also getting Las Vegas and Milestone to replace the own-root ones I have now; I'm getting Jessika, which I already have, but it's so pretty that I want another one for a different part of the garden; and I'm getting King's Macc because I somehow missed buying it at any time in all these years.

I have a long list of substitutes ready in case they're out of some of these.

Oh I sure do hope they've improved, Hortico always carried such a big variety, and I didn't realize they use multiflora rootstocks. I was lamenting no longer having a source for Austin roses on multiflora rootstock.

Neal, you mentioned that you were thinking about Winchester Cathedral and I would suggest you think also about Claire Austin as an alternative. I have both, and both are lovely, but Claire Austin is much more vigorous and probably more disease resistant. In all honesty, I haven't had any health problems with either, but the David Austin England website describes Winchester Cathedral as having 'average' disease resistance, but Claire Austin as being 'very' resistant.
Winchester C is a shorter plant, about 3.5 ft, Claire Austin can even be used as a climber (up to 12 ft) but of course can be pruned to whatever height you like.
Just a thought...

It's strange, to me, how own root roses struggle in one climate and thrive in another. Of course, that's roses. They always do their own thing. I've come to believe that when we plant a rose, it seems to always be more of an experiment to find out how it is going to do in "this" garden.

I don't like to crowd my roses because I have such a hot and arid summer climate, spider mites are a real problem and can become evident within a day and kill a rose by totally defoliating it within a few days. Yes, they have been at work long before I can see their work, but if the roses were crowded, it's even harder to catch and harder to remedy. No, I don't spray miticides. It's too easy to fix just by washing down the plants with just water. Why spend the money ?

This year, I bought four budded roses to replace four own root roses that I thought just were never really going to take off in this climate. The 40 inches of rain we got this winter season was more than enough to turn ther performance around and they are all performing so well, I am reluctant to shovel prune them.

These own root roses were planted the season before the beginning of the drought began. They never had a chance to experience "normal" conditions.

I think I can find spots for three of the four new budded roses without crowding. That fourth rose ... I just don't know where to site it.

Decisions !

Mika, I had read that somewhere about Winchester Cathedral and I saw a mention somewhere that it may eventually be phased out of production. I've also read a lot of positive reviews of gardeners growing WC which was a little puzzling.

Lyn, have you noticed that David Austin recommends planting roses 18" apart? I was surprised at that. He also recommends planting 3 of a variety to achieve the look of a large shrub, but I always figured that's just an attempt to sell more roses. I try to avoid having roses too close together, but do crowd companion plants around them. I prefer companion plants that either deter pests or aren't bothered by them, but as long as they don't draw anything that likes roses I'll use them nearby.

Neal, when I first started buying DA roses I followed the recommendation to buy them in threes and plant them 18" apart (they do recommend planting different varieties further apart). It does make for a lovely big display very quickly, BUT I discovered later that planting a single plant can give wonderful results - I have planted a single Lady of Shalott in France, which after three years looks amazing, and very nearly as big as the group of three Lady of Shalott that I have in England. Since then I've been planting in singles (and saving quite a bit of money in the process!)
The exception is my Harlow Carr hedge, which of course needed lots of roses planted close together (3 rows of them, 18" apart).

So my sense now is that your instinct isn't far off right!

Yes, we need to start posting in the April thread...it always takes me a week or two to realize we're in a new month !

Now I'm even more confused than ever about this whole "root stock" discussion and don't have clue one which one any of mine are growing on.
Every rose I have, (with the exception of the 3 I just got from Regan's), were purchased locally and I "think" all came from Weeks. The better nurseries here seem to carry more Weeks roses than anything else. I suppose I could round up all those colored tags that came with each one to see what root stock they're grafted to...IF it's even on there.
I have ONE rose from J and P (Cl. Dream Weaver) that is doing superbly and always has.
I have ONE "own root" rose (Wild Blue Yonder) and it's doing great.

I completely agree with Lyn's statement about how any rose we plant, REGARDLESS of it's root stock, does indeed become an experiment of how it will do in "this' garden. My garden is a virtual "laboratory" of a never ending "rose experiment" lol.
My rose collection is small compared to many of yours...I only have about 55...and given those 55, there were probably 55 or more that preceded them which failed miserably. Finally, I came to the realization that given my climate and location I can only successfully grow a limited number of roses and have learned to accept that. It only took 24 years, but I'm there now.

For years I bought in to the "roses are too fussy and tempermental" mindset...but then managed to grow a few and it became a sickness after that !

When DA roses hit this area in the late '80's they DID advise planting them in 3's and very close together. I'm glad Neal and Mika remember that...for a long time I thought I'd imagined it.
Back then, you couldn't get them growing in containers here, they were only bare root. Now you can.
They were all the rage here at the beginning...until people (myself included) started realizing that many of them didn't like the heat and humidity here as well as the maladies that resulted. The hype about them back then was that they'd thrive anywhere, and unfortunately that proved to be a fallacy.
I was skeptical about them at the beginning and thought to myself, "How can roses bred in England, where they don't have the intense heat and humidity of coastal So. Calif. summers possibly grow here ?" but I tried them anyway ! I could almost smell them frying like bacon in the heat of summer and they LOOKED like fried bacon, too. lol
However, the selection back then wasn't as vast as it is now, either, but they have managed to develop cultivars that tolerate a wider range of climates and conditions.

Mike, the advice to plant in 3's is still the advice given by DA in England. As to hotter climates, I don't know Long Beach, but here in France (Menton, which has an amazing microclimate) we're zone 10a and by the coast. I can't speak for all DA roses, of course, but so far those I've brought over from England - Lady of Shalott, Claire Austin, Crown Princess Margareta, Munstead Wood, LD Braithwaite, Lady Salisbury and a climber I bought from DA which is not, I think, an English rose proper - called High Flier, are all doing amazing well and flowering pretty much non-stop provided I give them enough water and a regular supply of rose food (our soil is really sandy). I've tried to choose the strongest growing, but it's only my personal experience, of course. My plan is next to bring over 'Fighting Temeraire', an unusual DA that I absolutely love and grows really strongly in Oxfordshire...

But perhaps it's not as humid here? Don't know.

I always buy container grown roses if I can, the bare root roses always seem to take longer to get going. And the roses I get are always grafted.

I'm posting a picture of a lavender rose that I took in the rain today doing this from my phone will comment when I get to my desk


I was taking pics today in a light mist didn't take this one since I knew I would have to dig the tag out of the soil to give you a name. Went back out a few minutes ago and took the pic, dug around in the soil and couldn't find the tag. (that light mist had turned to a drizzle btw) So don't know the name. But you know what I did find in the soil? A whole egg.

The banana peel is gone, the egg was still whole. I knew I had planted this after @Zuzu advise on planting. Okay Zuzu, did we decide what I did with the tag?

Gorgeous colour!

I looked at your posting history and saw that you planted three mauve roses in February, which seems like the right time if the egg is still whole. They were Angel Face, Nicole Carole Miller, and Ebb Tide. This looks like Angel Face to me. Nicole Carole Miller's a little lighter and Ebb Tide is darker.

The first bloom on a rose can be misleading, however, so it could be any of those three. I remember when I bought Rainbow Sorbet because I was delighted with all of the colors it had in a single bloom.

Rose (Rosa 'Rainbow Sorbet')

The first bloom on my rose was solid white and I was certain that the rose had been mislabeled, but all of the subsequent blooms were unmistakably Rainbow Sorbet.

Couple more to share today, done walking in the rain.
Mr Lincoln after a hard pruning. I gave him a cheap pitchfork to lean on. When I pruned him I did the 1/3 thing, but all the canes then looked like those down near the bottom left. He's come back like a champ.


I don't have the name on this one. One of my first rose bushes, a floribunda? The other two deep pink ones died 3 years ago, but this one is going strong. Maybe because it is growing beside a tilted open topped rain barrel. Gets all the water it needs. Plus I drain my laundry water out in this bed by Mr Lincoln. No bleach ever, just oxyclean

Thank you Zuzu. It's probably Angel Face. Tomorrow it is not supposed to rain and the youngun' is coming over to help pull weeds and do more garden clean up. It will give me the time to doing more looking and maybe I can get my rose list organized. I can always do my taxes on Monday.

This is a climber rose that I planted to cover up and protect the septic pipe coming out from underneath my house. I build a berm over the thing, put in the climber and now you can't even see the pipe. if I go out on my deck at night though I could get in a fight with the climbers. They ne ed to be pruned a bit too.

gemini_sage said:Lyn, have you noticed that David Austin recommends planting roses 18" apart? I was surprised at that. He also recommends planting 3 of a variety to achieve the look of a large shrub, but I always figured that's just an attempt to sell more roses. I try to avoid having roses too close together, but do crowd companion plants around them. I prefer companion plants that either deter pests or aren't bothered by them, but as long as they don't draw anything that likes roses I'll use them nearby.

Neal ...

Austin made that recommendation in is book about English roses. He was writing about his early introductions. It made sense because his primary breeding goals were for bloom form and fragrance and he was not breeding for a healthy plant or a robust plant. Some of his early roses in his English climate looked kind of spindly in the more northern English climate, so planting three together made them look more garden worthy. In our American climate, especially in southern California where we had a longer growing season and longer daylight hours to give the roses more resources for plant growth following that advice would have been a disaster. As it was, the Austin roses were often way too large for many gardens.

I doubt if he would have ever given that advice had he had the Texas operation at the time ...

I often wonder how many really good roses were culled because they did not meet the breeder's breeding goals at the time and how many lousy roses were kept because they did meet those goals. That's my trivial mind at work ... Of course, the goals change, too.

I can't plant companion plants around my roses because I need excellent air circulation to deter the spider mites. Besides, I am a total klutz and I step on them ...

Mike, if your roses are from Weeks, your roses were probably budded in the rose fields in Wasco on Dr. Huey. That was the preferred root stock used in the US since the 1930s. Weeks did experiment with some own root plants while Tom Carruth was head of the hybridizing program and the roses were tested in the fields to determine if the would do well as own root plants before they were ever released to commerce.

Lyn: You're no doubt correct about the Weeks roses being on Dr. Huey.

Zuzu: I'm so glad you mentioned that bit about the "first roses" on new plants not looking like those on an established one.
Very good point !

April 2016 and spring has definitely arrived in Sunny Valley (Sonnental - Switzerland)



The roses still have a way to go but after pruning two weeks ago they are all starting to leaf out!

B E A U T I F U L !!!!!