so we put up the corner sections of a split rail fence. partly because the neighbors keep parking on the grass. and i was all for it because it meant new flower beds. so now im trying to pick the perfect rose to grow up against a split rail. my first thought was the fairy.. but id like something a bit more dramatic bloom wise. then i was mulling over long caned bourbons but i already have mme ernest calvet and mme isaac p . then i thought carefree beauty because i saw a pic of it on a split rail.. any other suggestions.

does any one know if lady of the mist has flexible canes that would drape over the fence. i am already getting that one and dont know where to put it.

Lady of the Mist does have flexible canes, but it's a very slow grower in my experience.

How dramatic do you want the bloom to be? The best draper in my garden is Super Dorothy, but it has small blooms in big clusters. It's like Dorothy Perkins, but it reblooms and doesn't get powdery mildew.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...

Another good draper, with more dramatic blooms, is Gebrueder Grimm. HMF says it grows to only 32", but that's such a lie.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...

i like the idea of super Dorothy! i forgot about her. that would be an excellent choice.

WOW! That Super Dorothy is AMAZING! Too bad I don't have any place (right now ) for something like that!

dana so glad you started this I have the same prob and have been thinking and looking for 3 years I about wet my chair when I looked at Super Dorothy wow ZuZu how fast dose that one grow or any one else know then my next question is where can I get it
Gloria

Could you mix Super Dorothy with, say, a honeysuckle? I have a 3' stump I'm going to be covering with chicken wire & I was planning on putting clematis on two sides and honeysuckle on the other two sides (think of two arches crossing over each other). Do you think that would work?

i think rouge valley is the only place

I bought mine from Pickering. It grew very, very quickly. I don't know that I'd trust Rogue Valley. I've received too many mislabeled roses from them. Besides, it would take a couple of years longer than the Pickering rose to grow big.

oh i didnt think of them. i just looked on hmf and rvr was the only place i recognized besides heirloom .

If this link works, it should take you to Super Dorothy on the Pickering site. Notice please that it's only $13 for a plant that will grow to 12 feet in its first year. No way would Rogue provide you with anything like that.

http://www.pickeringnurseries....

Just as I suspected, that link only takes you to the home page. Click on shop for roses and then type Super Dorothy into the search box.

The thing I really love about the Canadian nurseries is their low shipping cost. Pickering will send you 9 roses all the way from Ontario for $20. If I order 9 roses from Roses Unlimited, I have to pay $72 for shipping and another $5 for handling.

Well, I don't know whether I talked any of you into buying from Pickering, but I just ordered nine more roses from them myself. God knows where they'll go...

I had to replace Livin' Easy, which was killed by gophers last year, so while I was at it, I also ordered Emanuel, Fairest Cape, Fragrant Dream, Bonita Renaissance, Celine Delbard, Susan Daniel, Linnaeus Cottage, and Rokoko.

The price for all nine will be $110, plus a measly $20 for shipping.

i will i just have to wait until pay day. i have my heart set on super dorothy.. i remember seeing it on dg.. plus ill probably add a few more.

Hey, Zuzu - can you do me a favor if you could? Could you send me a pic of what a Pickering rose looks like? They look (hopefully) better than bodybags? Only if you have a pic of one.. I need to replace quite a few roses in the front ( ) and want to do this right.

Well, great minds think alike! I got Super Dorothy last fall for draping over a fence. Got mine from Vintage (also got White Dorothy Perkins in the same order). It over wintered beautifully in the ground, outside, in the wicked winter we had. Can hardly wait to see some blooms!

Toni, I don't have any photos of the Pickering roses on arrival, but one big difference is that Pickering doesn't prune the roots for shipping. The roses are shipped in a long box, similar to a florist's box for long-stemmed roses.

The roots look quite different from Dr. Huey roots -- longer and skinnier because Pickering grafts roses onto Multiflora. It might work better in your garden than other rootstock because all of the Canadian nurseries use it, and these roses will have been growing outside in Ontario for a couple of years before you get them. Maybe not the same climate as Colorado, but certainly closer to it than the usual rose growing fields in California or Texas. Cottage_Rose swears by Pickering, and she practically lives in permafrost.

In my garden, Multiflora has the added advantage of not appealing to gophers. I've never lost a Pickering rose to a gopher unless it was own-root. To my horror, Pickering did send me a few own-root roses one year long ago and the gophers got all of them.

Because of Pickering's low prices and shipping rates, I'd strongly advise you to start replacing your winter-killed lovelies with some of their roses.

Are they as huge as the pic I saw of Palatines? I'm just sooo tired of getting roses that don't make it.. the 5 from Heirloom, the 3 from Melva, and 1 of the two from EuroDesert didn't make the winter. Heirlooms were pathetic little twigs, though.

No, they're usually smaller than the Palatine roses. That's why we all went so nuts for Palatine. We were used to getting nice big roses from Pickering and Hortico, but then Palatine blew those out of the water. They cost more, though, and they're probably finished taking orders for this spring, whereas Pickering will take orders until the end of this month.

Own-root bands can't compare in any way to the grafted bare-root roses from Canada. I have ideal soil and weather, and I have a fairly high mortality rate on those bands. Roses from Palatine and Pickering will get big the first year -- no sleep, creep, leap years for them. Hortico's roses used to be great too, but that whole nursery seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket.

I just ordered a 'Super Dorothy' a few days ago from Heirloom Roses. I sure hope it will grow fast like yours zuzu. They are so pretty!

http://www.heirloomroses.com/c...