18 Dec 2008
Garden Tips from the Dos Valles Garden Club
All About Roses – The Basics – Which Rose is Right for You?
We live in the best area in the United States for growing roses! A lot of roses were sold at our recent plant sale, so I thought that for the next few weeks we should talk about them from the basics of the best varietal choices for our climate to how to care for them.
First, in order to choose your roses, you need to know about the various types:
Hybrid Tea and Grandiflora:
Perhaps the most popular modern rose is the hybrid tea, easily recognized by the large blooms containing 30 to 50 petals.
The grandiflora displays not only the characteristics of a hybrid tea but also the ability to bear clusters of blooms and grow to a great height of 6 to 8 feet or more.
Floribunda and Polyantha:
Second only to hybrid tea and grandiflora in popularity, the floribunda is characterized by its ability to bear flowers in large clusters with more than one bloom in flower at any one time. This class is unrivaled for providing massive, colorful, long-lasting garden displays. The distinct advantage of the floribunda is its ability to bloom continually whereas the hybrid tea exhibits a bloom cycle every 6 to 7 weeks. Floribundas as a class are hardier, easier to care for and more reliable in wet weather than their hybrid tea counterparts.
Polyanthas are generally smaller but sturdy plants with large clusters of small 1-inch diameter blooms often using for massing, edging and hedges.
Miniature and Mini-Flora:
These classes have increased in popularity due to their novelty and versatility. They can be used for edging beds, growing in containers and rockeries.... The height of the average plant is about 15 to 30 inches, and flower form and foliage are indeed miniature versions of both hybrid teas and floribundas.
Mini-Flora roses are a new classification adopted by the American Rose Society in 1999 to recognize another step in the evolution of the rose, i.e. intermediate in bloom size and foliage falling between miniatures and floribundas.
Shrub :
Shrub roses are a diverse group of plants that don't neatly fit into any of the other rose categories. Shrubs, especially modern ones, are very popular because of their long season of bloom, pest and disease resistance and versatility in the landscape. There are 5 popular subdivisions within the class: hybrid kordesii, hybrid moyesii, hybrid musk, hybrid rugosa and shrub. They can grow from 5 to 15 feet or more in every direction given the correct climate and growing conditions. Noted for their hardiness, they are usually vigorous and produce large quantities of clusters of flowers. The unique group of roses hybridized by David Austin (often called English Roses) belong to this class. They resemble old garden roses in shape and form but are recurrent bloomers and often have fragrance.
Large Flowered Climber:
These varieties are dominated by their growth habit, long arching canes with the ability to climb (if properly trained and tied) up fences, over walls, through trellises, arbors and pergolas. These varieties offer a wide range of flower forms, shapes and colors.
Now that you know the types of roses, here are some great choices that do well in Valley Center’s microclimates:
Hybrid Tea/Grandiflora
Andrea Stelzer - Brigadoon - Canary Diamond - Cherry Parfait (Grandiflora) - Crimson Bouquet - Crystalline - Fame - Gemini - Gold Medal - Honey Dijon - Honor - Hot Princess - Kardinal - Lynn Anderson - Marilyn Monroe - Nancy Reagan - Red Intuition - St. Patrick - Secret - Stainless Steel - Veterans Honor
Floribunda/Polyantha
Blueberry Hill - Fabulous! - First Kiss - French Lace - Grand Prize - Greetings (Grows as a climber) - Honey Bouquet - Honey Perfume - Hot Cocoa - Iceberg - Intrigue - Julia Child - Kanegem - Lavaglut - Our Lady of Guadalupe - Playgirl - Regensberg - Sexy Rexy - Sheila's Perfume - Showbiz - Simplicity - Sunsprite - Trumpeter
Miniature/Mini-Flora
Bees Knees - Behold - Best Friends - Butter Cream (Mini Flora) - Camden (Mini Flora) -
Chatooga - Cheer up - Cupcake - Dancing Flame - Dr. John Dickman - Dreamer - Erin Alonso - Fresh Pink (Grows as a climber) - Herbie - Hot Tamale - Irresistible - Jean Kenneally - Kings Mountain - Loving Touch - Miss Flippins - Pacific Serenade - Rainbow's End - Ruby Baby - Ruby Ruby - Sassy Cindy - This is the Day - Ultimate Pleasure
Climbers
Altissimo - Fourth of July
Shrubs
Distant Drums - Dortmund (Hybrid Kordesii) (Grows as a climber) - Linda Campbell (Hybrid Rugosa) - Prospero - Sally Holmes (Grows as a climber)
Now that you can choose your new roses, next week we’ll talk about how to plant and care for them. With minimal upkeep, you can have spectacular garden.
Mariellen Kast
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