RoseBlush1 said:

You may simply love a rose and want to have it in your garden, but it never thrives. It's just the wrong rose for your garden.

I do let myself keep a couple of roses that need extra TLC, but no more than that. There are so many roses that I can grow without a lot of hard work, that it doesn't make sense to me to be a garden slave to those that need all that extra labor to thrive. I don't mind doing extra work the first year I plant a rose to give it a good start, but more than that just takes the fun out of growing roses ...

As for giving a rose time to get established ... yes, I think that's important. However, it also gives the gardener, ME, time to get to know what the rose wants and needs to be a happy rose in my garden ...

I'm glad you said that because you want to give your roses the attention and care that they need to really bloom and thrive year after year. But it makes no sense to waste time on a flower that just doesn't work out. I have a Gold Medal Rose that did okay in the container, but hasn't done nearly as well in the ground.

I find it odd because I planted it with just as much care and attention as it's neighboring roses, New Zealand and Pope John Paul. It's been roughly 18 months without a single bud, although it has healthy green leaves. I don't want to give up on it, but goodness gracious, ya gotta show me something, little rose!

BlueGirl ...

In your area, eighteen months is a long time.

There are a couple of things you can check out to see why a rose isn't performing after that length of time.

One of the easiest is to look around and see if there might be a big tree or a large shrub nearby stealing water from your rose.

I had planted Velvet Fragrance in front of a spieria and while the spirea grew well, VF just sat there. When I finally dug up VF, I found that it had sent roots out everywhere seeking water. The spiera was stealing all of the water in that bed. It's roots were over and around all of the VF roots ! Oops ! That was poor siting on my part. I under estimated the vigor of the spieria.

Another thing is to check your drainage. I know. The rose is planted ... Try watering it a LOT more daily and see if you see a change in performance. The rose may be draining too fast to take up the moisture it needs.

Yes, it is a young rose, but when roses are young, they don't handle any kind of stress as well as an established rose. So, look for anything that might be causing stress to the plant.

I know the drought impacted my garden and that, too, may be part of the problem. You will know better than anyone else, because you are there and can do on-site problem solving.

Suzanne, you're right- I meant Teasing Georgia is buff rather than yellow, not Mary Rose. I went back and edited that post to make sense.

to the roses Forum, BlueGirl!


Today is World Redhead Day:

Some time back I mentioned finding a multiflora seedling in the garden I was considering using as a rootstock. I never got around to doing anything with it and it bloomed, to my surprise dark red! Its Dr. Huey, which at first had me trying to figure out what rose had failed there. Then I remembered that's where my grafted Eden had been languishing before I moved it to its current home about 3 or 4 years ago. I suppose a piece of root was left behind, but I was surprised to see this plant show up so long after the fact.

For World Redhead Day, is there a rose named after Lucille Ball?

Speaking of rootstock in the garden...

Memorial Day succumbed to late spring frost long ago. In its place every year is a six foot tall Dr Huey. My fantasy is that one day I will graft onto it some very impressive rose that is in every way superior to Dr Huey. For all its faults as a producer of unphotogenic flowers, the cultivar does produce a good deal of color in the garden. When one is more that about 20 ft away, that richness of color counts for more than one or two gimungous to-die-for gorgeous HT blossoms.

As I write this I am thinking perhaps Chevy Chase would be a good choice. Or Clair Matin, if I could keep it alive long enough to get good material to graft. Or maybe something in white. Going for a 'giant pile of color' effect here. I might erect a rather tall pillar here to train it on. Suggestions?

Rose Lucille Ball
Rose (Rosa 'Lucille Ball')

Surprised there are no photos.

Steve812 said:Speaking of rootstock in the garden...

Memorial Day succumbed to late spring frost long ago. In its place every year is a six foot tall Dr Huey. My fantasy is that one day I will graft onto it some very impressive rose that is in every way superior to Dr Huey. For all its faults as a producer of unphotogenic flowers, the cultivar does produce a good deal of color in the garden. When one is more that about 20 ft away, that richness of color counts for more than one or two gimungous to-die-for gorgeous HT blossoms.

As I write this I am thinking perhaps Chevy Chase would be a good choice. Or Clair Matin, if I could keep it alive long enough to get good material to graft. Or maybe something in white. Going for a 'giant pile of color' effect here. I might erect a rather tall pillar here to train it on. Suggestions?

Steve ... you may laugh at this, but when I visited Ralph Moore's nursery, he had several cuttings from seedlings that he was bringing forward budded to a Dr. Huey climber growing in the nursery. He didn't want to wait to grow out some more root stock ... What a sight ! One large climber, with all of these test roses budded to it with all different colors, different bloom shapes and more variables !

I am happy, of course, that the curculio weevils have virtually disappeared from my garden, but Veilchenblau is even happier. It has been years since I saw so many perfect blooms on this rose, and so many perfect buds that haven't opened yet. This rose and Soleil d'Or had been the weevils' favorites.

It's one of the more impressive photos I've seen of Veilchenblau. Usually one sees photos of foliage with the flowers carefully hidden beneath. This great cascade of color is one of the reasons I persist with roses despite the rather frequent disappointments.

Have you already told us how you got rid of the plum curculios? Lyn mentioned that she will sometimes destroy a whole first-flush of blooms to do this.

My favorite rose is finally blooming.
Double Delight how I love you


And of course its next door neighbor Darlows Enigma

RoseBlush1 said:

.. when I visited Ralph Moore's nursery, he had several cuttings from seedlings that he was bringing forward budded to a Dr. Huey climber growing in the nursery. He didn't want to wait to grow out some more root stock ... What a sight ! One large climber, with all of these test roses budded to it with all different colors, different bloom shapes and more variables !

When I was young, my mother complained that there were no flowers in the yard. So my father somehow procured one white hybrid tea rose plant to which he grafted a yellow HT rose and a red HT rose (I think). I think maybe it bloomed three of four times producing a total of maybe six or ten flowers. This was the sum total of the decorative plants grown by my parents during my tenure in their house. I still admire thrift and ingenuity. Sometimes the results, though, are ... less than elegant.

Steve812 said:Have you already told us how you got rid of the plum curculios? Lyn mentioned that she will sometimes destroy a whole first-flush of blooms to do this.

Steve, that was never a viable option for me. Some of my prettiest roses are once-bloomers, so eliminating the first (and only) flush would be ludicrous. Besides, I would have to hire a whole fleet of gardeners to disbud my roses. Just imagine the man-hours it would take to disbud that one Veilchenblau!

I'm really not sure why they're gone. I gardened for many years before they arrived here from somewhere else, and they may just have moved on to someplace else. They may also come back here from somewhere else.

Here's what I have been doing for the last few years: I have squashed every weevil I've seen and I've made sure that no damaged bud or bloom has hit the ground. I throw them into the garbage can (or one of the fish ponds). The weevils reproduce by laying eggs in the buds. When those buds fall, the eggs then grow into underground monsters, which emerge in spring to lay eggs in a new set of buds. Our years of drought never killed them, but maybe all of this year's post-drought rain drowned them.

Gourmet Popcorn


Abraham Darby


L.D. Braithwaite bathing in Prosperity


Caramella FT blooms the right color in year five

Zuzu, your Veilchenblau is grand beyond words!

Great show Steve! I love the way your roses casually intermingle and the look of the rocks near them. Caramella is highly variable, I love that quality!

The sudden disappearance of the weevils is interesting. I had the same thing happen a few years ago with Japanese beetles, the numbers diminished to almost nothing for a few years. In 2015 and 16 they were back. Last year I applied milky spore all around the lawn and gardens, hopefully I'll see a reduction again this year.

I doubt if I'll see an abatement of the curculios. Zuzu didn't dis-bud her whole garden because she grows a lot of once bloomers. I don't grow any once bloomers because of the curculios ...

Unfortunately, when they hit my garden, they don't just target a few roses, the dang bugs go after all of them. AND they arrive in hoards ...

I never had a clean first flush until I started dis-budding the whole garden and didn't allow the curculios to breed in my garden. Now, I get at least four weeks of bloom before they find the garden. Then I have to dis-bud for another four weeks until next year.

I was wrong about the heat frying the saw fly larvae. They just hide during the day ... I've got two roses almost completely defoliated and two more that are looking very bad. Every rose has varying degrees of damage.

It's going to be in the 80s for next week. That's the good news ...

LizDTM said:For World Redhead Day, is there a rose named after Lucille Ball?

Liz, there is a picture of Lucille Ball here: https://palatineroses.com/rose...



Zuzu, Colleen and Steve - great images! I really want Veilchenblau, but I don't have room for it!



Today is International Jazz Day

(aka POULnorm, Pulnor, Naheglut, Jazz)

Love That's Jazz. Very eye catching.

IrisLilli said:Zuzu, Colleen and Steve - great images! I really want Veilchenblau, but I don't have room for it!

Yeah, me too!