I just stumbled on this link to an old article from my Denver days...

brought back a lot of good memories from that very intense era in my life!

http://www.westword.com/1999-05-13/news/dig-this/

'Teasing Georgia' grown as a climber on the Fortuniana root stock in south Tampa

Lust List

 E. Veyrat Hermanos

Louis XIV


I lost my beloved 'E. Veyrat Hermanos' and 'Louis XIV' years ago to the drought, but will check and see if Roses Unlimited still sells both and try them again but THIS time in buried Water Wise Container Gardens made from 7 gallon swimming pool chlorine buckets.

I began growing Old Roses on their own roots and all-organically in 1989 in my Denver gardens and those of my landscapes clients in Denver and Tampa, usually with stellar results vs. those I'd see elsewhere that were budded and routinely sprayed. I used my gardening columns in The Rocky Mountain News, The St. Petersburg Times and in several magazines to promote this "green" approach to rose growing since most folks think of roses as being fussy and NEEDING pesticides. But 'Probiotic Rose Growing' relies instead on introducing a mix of beneficial microbes and fungi to create a stable, complex ecology that crowds out pathogenic ones. And it is MUCH less expensive and hassle. Tampa is in year eight of water crisis, and I've seen my beloved home state dry up since the late 60s. As a water conservationist and urban farmer growing much of my own food, with watering allowed just once weekly, I now grow nearly all my roses in buried home made Water Wise Container Gardens. This allows me the joy of growing roses while GREATLY reducing my use of precious water. John Starnes

I am slowly rebuilding my roses collection decimated by eight years of drought..

so today I bought an 'Abraham Darby' on the Fortuniana rootstock. Next week I order a fair number of own root roses from Chamblees and Antique Rose Emporium, all to be grown in buried 5 gallon Water Wise Container Gardens. If I had to pick just six favorite roses, 'Abraham Darby' would be one of them.

"Barfield White Climber"

This Mystery Rose has stumped me for years now....potent anise/fennel scent in buds teased open, ultra-vigorous and remontant in Tampa despite years of drought. 99.9% prickle free. I'm back to once again considering this rose as a possible ID.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=43728&tab=1

I'd love to see and smell this rose in real life

I'm guessing that the pale petal backsides trace back to Rosa foetida.

http://www.bakker-irl.com/product/large-flowered-rose-osiria-/

My Hybrids For Sale!

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/03/08/Homes/Retailers_to_sell_ros.shtml

A FUNGUS AMONG US Ever notice how most everything offers mixed blessings? All during the long winter and spring dry season, we pine and whine for the return of the summer monsoons. But soon it seems that in the steamy heat various fungal diseases coat our roses and veggies and lawns like agricultural acne. Rarely dangerous, these various fungi can weaken and disfigure both our landscapes and our egos. So what’s a soul to do? Some folks prefer the sometimes immediate results of using broad spectrum chemical fungicides like Daconil or Benomyl or Funginex, whose price tags stun even true believers. But since they can also wipe out the beneficial fungi that help control disease and nematodes, plus nourish plant roots while enriching the soil by decaying organic matter, they can be like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly on a piece of fine china. Such sprays simplify the ecology of a garden, but in nature it is the complex ecologies that are healthy and stable. But those of us who garden organically to protect the health of our families and the environment can mimic nature’s billion year old wisdom and fight fungal diseases by adding teams of beneficial fungi and bacteria to crowd out the harmful ones. This “biological crowding” has kept my gardens and my clients’ gardens virtually disease free the last 20 years. And as you’d expect from a tightwad like me, the technique costs little and takes little effort. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water and let it age 2-3 days in the sun to drive out the chlorine. Then add two cups each of: Calf Manna (25 & 50 lb. bags in feed stores) any dry compost starter fresh home made compost Ringer Lawn Restore sugar or molasses add a packet of baker’s yeast, stir and let this “Bio Tea” steep for 2 days. Stir again, then use a watering can to splash it on the leaves of your roses and other plants to innoculate their surfaces with billions of good critters. Strain it through panty hose into your pump garden sprayer (make sure it has NEVER held herbicides) to spray it onto your lawn and shrubs to coat them too with these natural allies who will control disease FOR you as you tend to life’s affairs. Just think of this as your landscape’s equivalent of when you eat yogurt after taking antibiotics to repopulate your digestive tract to prevent the yeast infections so common after a tetracycline regimen. As with most natural gardening and good health approaches, this “Bio Tea” is not a fast acting “silver bullet”, but a gentle, steady means of achieving a stable and sustainable balance. Want an infomercial-style “cure”? Blast the garden with fungicides. Want fungus diseases reduced from scary plagues to minor cosmetic issues? Try a batch of “Bio Tea” and use the money saved for a nice meal out SOURCES: Ringer Lawn Restore www.victorpest.com 1-800-800-1819

'Teasing Georgia'

One of just three roses I grow here on the Fortuniana root stock, this gem is expressing gratitude for a rare feeding and two deep waterings with a new flush of blooms. It is yet another lovely creation by David Austin.

New blooms

I NEVER thought I'd see and smell 'Hansa' in Tampa, but I have for two weeks now due to one thriving in a 7 gallon Water Wise Container Garden. Now to decide where to bury it. When I think how much this lovely Rugosa loved my Denver yard, to see it happy here amazes and delights me.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.1875

Bush got into the White House, twice, via tampered-with elections. He tried to block a 9-11 Commission until survivors of those who died pressed legal action...the commission then blocked all inquiry into Saudi involvement and ignored completely the free fall collapse of Building 7 into its own footprint. Bush, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and more lied us into attacking and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in order to control their resources under the guise of "protecting America" and "bringing democracy" to those nations. They turned huge budget surpluses into record-breaking deficits. To date they've been exempt from prosecution for violating the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN charter to which the U.S. is a founding signator, not to mention simple human decency. They enjoy book deals, lush taxpayer-funded retirement and health care plans, and huge annual lifetime pensions.

But if I grow a cannabis plant in my garden, I risk time in prison.

Occupy your life.

An article from my St. Pete Times column back when I summered in Denver

LUSCIOUS BUT EASY ROSES FOR FLORIDA GARDENS

   Even though as I write this in my summer home in Denver,  with my gardens blanketed by snow from a 3 day  April blizzard (!), I am a native Floridian and organic landscaper from Tampa who has been servicing his Tampa  Bay clients 2-4 times  a year these last 16

years.  So while my Denver landscape has 130 “own root” rose cultivars ( all but 8 of which need a colder climate than Tampa’s) I have planted in Tampa  Bay area gardens hundreds of “own root” subtropical roses that require little maintenance beyond 3-4 feedings per year, deep weekly waterings, and an occasional lye soap spray (“Octagon”  bar soap like Grandma used on shirt collars, or  if she caught you cussing) for aphids, winter mildew or black spot in summer. And 140 of them will soon grace my new yard in south Tampa.  These roses belong to 3 classes of Old Roses called Chinas, Teas and  Noisettes, and are sometimes seen in Old Hyde Park or Seminole Heights or similar older neighborhoods in central Florida¼.Malcolm  Manners has a spectacular collection of them ( grown mostly budded onto Fortuniana root stock and sprayed routinely) at Florida Southern College. A century ago these subtropical roses thrived all over Florida and up into the Deep South; it is my hope that they, and new hybrids of them, will  once again fill our landscapes with their voluptuous forms, unique fragrances and  admirable toughness.

   The Teas and Chinas were the critical ancestors of most of our modern roses, bringing their precious gift of repeat blooming to Europe  from mild regions of southern China,   beginning in the mid 1700’s through the early 1800’s. They thus also brought with them a tenderness to cold temperatures. The Noisettes were born in South Carolina around 1807, the result of a chance mating between the fall-flowering and spicily scented species Rosa moschata, and the first China rose to arrive here, ‘Old Blush’ (1752). Noisettes soon merged with the Bourbons, Teas and Hybrid Perpetuals to create the Hybrid Tea class, and lent their heady scents, climbing habit and fall blooming urges to the genetic mongrel that is the Modern Rose.

   Central Florida’s acidic, nutrient-poor, nematode-laden sandy soils, and mild winters offering very little dormancy, can make growing grafted modern roses a challenge for the busy family person and home owner, though exhibitors may enjoy meeting that task head on with special pruning and spraying regimens. But for very “spread thin” folks who’d still

love to have  the beauty of  organically grown, pesticide free roses in their yards and for occasional bouquets for the table,  the old-fashioned Teas, Chinas and Noisettes, being subtropical in heritage, can thrive in the heat and humidity with little fuss. Just buy them as “own root” plants, choose a full sun location,  incorporate 5 cups of dolomite, 2 cups of Ironite and half a bag of cheap clay cat litter plus  2 gallons of compost into their deep planting holes, and keep them thickly  mulched with coastal hay, wood chips from a tree trimming service, or alfalfa hay. A spring, summer and fall feeding of a nitrogen-rich organic fertilizer like fish emulsion or fish meal (which also supply sea minerals), or fresh horse poop spread out in a thin 1 inch layer around each rose, or a generous sprinkling of cottonseed meal, can reward you with lush growth bearing  beautiful blooms throughout the year. For the spring feeding I also like 1-2 cups  each of Epsom salts,  kelp meal  and Ironite to supply extra vital minerals for each rose bush. (ask feed stores supplied by  Manna Pro to bring in 50 lb.  bags  of kelp meal for about $40 !!)  A good  DEEP  weekly watering  is ample  IF  the mulch is kept thick¼a monthly sprinkling of that cheap clay cat litter over the garden will, in time, slowly “clayify” that sandy soil and make it  much more water retentive. Remember, these are SUBTROPICAL roses, so disease issues are minimal, vs. the fungal nightmare of grafted Hybrid Teas in our hot humid summers.

   Now the fun part¼choosing which ones to grow! Teas lent their classic form to the modern Hybrid Tea, along with the tendency of long stems to bear singular blooms. My favorites for central Florida gardens include  the dusky pink ‘Mrs. B. R. Cant’ (1901), the shell pink ‘Duchesse de Brabant’ (1857),  the pastel yellow ‘Perle des Jardins’ (1874),  the rich apricot ‘Mlle. Franziska Kruger’ (1880), the  soft yellow ‘Etoile de Lyon’ (1881), the brick-and-salmon ‘Monsieur Tillier’ (1891) and ‘Mme. Berkeley’ (1899), which offers a charming blend of  rich yellow, apricot and warm pink.

   Chinas are exceptionally resistant to harmful nematodes in our sandy soil, quite tolerant of drought once established, and tease a hungry nose with rich fruity perfumes  wafting from a steady stream of blooms throughout the year. I like  the snow white‘Ducher’ (1869),  the rich pink ‘Old Blush’ (1752),  the yellow-then-pink-then red ‘Mutabilis’ (ancient China), the cherry red ‘Louis Philippe’ (1834) and the infamous  indestructible Mystery Rose of old central Florida neighborhoods, the “Pink Cracker Rose” often seen thriving with no care, frequently as a climber if not pruned.

   Not only do many of the Noisettes make fine climbers and offer heady scents, a few bear blooms toned in  the rich apricot and buff tones rarely seen in healthy roses. My favorites are the  light pink, spicily scented  ‘Blush Noisette’ (1817), the bronzy yellow ‘Reve d’Or’ (1869), the VERY vigorous tangerine-apricot ‘Crepuscule’ (1904) and the very first Noisette,  ‘Champney’s Pink Cluster’ (1811),   which wafts a potent cinammon-clove perfume and can get huge, easily 10’ X  10’ !.

   So if you want to beautify your yard with roses but are swamped with job, kids, and housework, try some of these reliable old beauties which can do double duty as exhibited blooms in local rose shows, if you wish. A very  trustworthy mail order source of them that provides large 2 gallon own root plants expertly shipped is  “The Antique Rose Emporium” in Texas at  1-800-441-0002¼their $5 reference guide is educational in tone and beautifully illustrated with accurate color photographs. Picture your dinner table graced with a fragrant bouquet , or harvesting the  pesticide-free petals for teas and potpourris. Imagine growing a low hassle rose that is REALLY fragrant like a rose SHOULD be but rarely is at the florist. You don’t have a “brown thumb” when it comes to roses, you just haven’t been buying roses suited for our hot muggy climate. But own root Teas, Chinas and Noisettes have “Florida” written all over them! 

Roses!

How wonderful to wake up to a new bloom on "York Street Yellow" from Denver and  to see and SMELL a new flush on 'Baronne Prevost', the very first OGR I bought for my yard in Denver in 1989, and my neighbor there says it is still thriving. Nice bud on 'Oklahoma' should open tomorrow. Still no buds on "Fairmount Red" from Denver.

Entry for 'Ruby Voodoo' at HelpMeFind

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.37590.1&tab=1

WOO HOO!!!

http://www.denverpost.com/grow/ci_20276695/new-plants-gardeners-full-love 

http://www.ftcollinswholesalenursery.com/content/plant-select%E2%84%A2-2012-ruby-voodoo-rose

http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=4321594 

An Article From My Rocky Mountain News Column back in 2004

            EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSES 

   No other flower so moves the human soul as does the rose....our eyes and nose are drawn irresistibly into that sensuous swirl of silky petals, our hands cupping each spectacular bloom as it holds our hearts. So why not invite the majesty of easy-to-grow roses into our lives and landscapes?

   “But roses are hard and I’m too busy_” you may protest. So I asked five of the world’s greatest rosarians here and abroad to share with us their advice and wisdom about the ease of growing the Queen of Flowers, even in our harsh climates and way-busy lives.

   Rose lovers around the world rejoice at the lovely creations bred by David Austin, Sr. in England, beautiful roses like ‘Abraham Darby’ and ‘Graham Thomas’ and ‘Tamora’ and ‘Evelyn’ and ‘Fisherman’s Friend’  and more. The soulfulness of his hybrids is echoed in his answer when I asked him what he would say to Colorado rose lovers.....

   “Roses are probably unique in the plant world in having the greatest variety of quite different fragrances. There are 5 basic types – Old Rose, Tea, Myrrh, Fruity and Musk with a whole array of others that don’t come neatly under these headings like orris, heliotrope, nasturtium, green (cucumber like), and various flower blossoms. Others are a wonderful mixture of two or more different fragrances, the dominating fragrance changing quite radically with time, season, weather and stage of flower. So any roses that you plant in your garden should be fragrant. There is no excuse – many varieties have it all...beauty, health and fragrance.”

   And with long-lived “own root” roses now so widely available (as short-lived roses grafted onto the ‘Dr. Huey’ rootstock plunge in popularity), we can easily heed this brilliant rosarian’s advice. “But roses are so demanding and so fussy” you may be thinking. Author and lecturer William Grant, who dazzled the world with his stunning rose encyclopedia ‘Botanica’s Roses’ , and dazzled me with his 1 ½ acre, all-organic rose garden north of San Francisco a few years back, reveals that quite the opposite is true....

   “Roses are just about the toughest plants alive. They can survive insults, lack of water, no fertilizer and still produce blooms. But if you treat them as royalty, they will repay a thousand times more”.

  That means simply to plant “own root” roses in a big, 20_ wide and deep hole half filled with compost, about 4 inches deeper than they grew in their pot to protect them from the extremes of climate, keep them deeply mulched with 4-6 inches of chipped tree trimmings or autumn leaves or alfalfa hay, feed them in April and July in cold climates, and February, July and September in very mild climates, with a good organic soil food like “menhaden fish meal” from a feed store or ‘Mill’s Magic Rose Mix’ or ‘Mile High Rose Feed’ (in Colorado only),  water deeply weekly (at most) through the growing season (monthly in winter in harshly cold yet snowless regions), and take plenty of bouquets. Cut them back by one third  after the first flush finishes to keep the giant once-bloomers contained, and to encourage the repeat bloomers to do it all over again. Growing perennials and annuals in amongst them invites beneficial critters to dwell in your rose garden to control insect and fungal pests for you vs. the hassle and environmental damage of spraying weekly a sterile garden of only roses standing like lonely soldiers under the assault.

   Award-winning hybridizer Tom Carruth at Weeks Roses, whose lovely creations like ‘Barbra Streisand’, ‘Fourth of July’, ‘Scentimental’ and more bless many hundreds of thousands of gardens around the world, asked me simply to relate that he is testing all his hybrids now both as grafted and “own root” plants to address the needs of folks in both mild and cold climates, and that Weeks Roses now offers a great many “own root” roses: just look at the tag for the prominent words “own root”. In 1998 he dazzled me with his own vast rose garden in Hollywood, boasting both grafted and own root roses and lush perennials, all never sprayed in his VERY busy schedule as a world traveling lecturer and rose judge.

   “But what about  hard winters killing roses soon after I plant them?” you challenge. Sure, those grafted roses ARE frail and little better than annuals, but “own root” roses persist for decades in old cemeteries, gardens, even alley ways, and thus can easily outlive US. Author Peter Beales, whose first book, ‘Classic Roses’, is what made me go over the “deep end” for roses back in 1989, reminds us of this:

  “Norfolk is one of the coldest counties in England, latitude 52 degrees and at approximately sea level. There are times in winter when the North East wind comes uninterrupted from Siberia, so we need to pay attention to hardiness. I become more and more impressed by the Canadian Explorer series; quite apart from their hardiness they are my type of rose. Nothing frilly or garish about them.”

   And thanks to Merle Moore, director of horticulture at the Denver Zoo, there are hundreds of no-spray, “own root” roses thriving all over the zoo grounds, including a full collection of these very Canadian Explorer roses_ Go there in June and swoon and be inspired by the awesome display. But don’t forget to look at the animals too.

   “But what about drought? We can’t water much_” you then grouse. Hey, my 200 roses in my northeast Denver yard, now a managed rental, were not watered ONCE in 2003, the 8 inches of mulch I applied the fall of 2002 trapping all snow melt and rain water in my rich soil fed only once a year. My water bills have always been low, even before the drought. But grow grafted roses in bare soil and you’ll have “water hogs” to be sure.

  

    “What about diseases and bugs?” Each spring, the sparrows and warblers come in and feast on the aphids on my new growth. A sharp stream of water from a garden hose will blast the rest off.  And you can feed your rose garden each spring with a light sprinkling of “Ringer Lawn Restore” (garden centers) and “Calf Manna” (from a feed store) to add a whole range of beneficial bacteria and fungi that out-compete the disease-causing ones. I have never sprayed in 15 years in my Denver rose garden, nor 4 years here in Tampa,  and none of my Colorado or Florida clients do either. Why? Healthy, well-fed, deeply mulched own root roses fight off bugs and infections just like we do when we eat and rest well. And those two biological soil foods are like when we eat yogurt to be sure the “good critters” are keeping our bodies balanced and free of candida overgrowth. Spraying with pesticides kills off these natural allies, and the sad spiral into frustration and failure begins.

   So this spring, as you seek out “own root” roses at nurseries and respected mail order sources, be inspired by the words of Brent C. Dickerson, whose eight books, including ‘The Old Rose Advisor’ , have infected countless souls with “rose fever” :

   “Old Roses challenge and sophisticate our tastes and our endeavors, not only in horticulture, but ultimately in all of life. ‘Challenge’ in that they accost us with an aesthetic so different, so independent from what normally surrounds us in our daily experience that, at first, we are taken aback; ‘sophisticate’, in that, our tastes being challenged and yet intrigued, we learn to appreciate a wider range of ideals, thereby gaining insight into the different times and cultures that produced these ideals; ‘in all of life’, in that, appreciating this diversity in roses, in horticulture, our ever-curious and clever minds begin to discern the wonders of diversity beyond horticulture and throughout our world. To become a lover of Old Roses and all the variations they encompass is finally to become a lover of the richness of Life itself”.

   Roses anyone?

SOURCES:

Harlequin Market, Boulder- 303-939-9403

Birdsall, Denver- 303-722-2535

Tagawa, Denver- 303-690-4722

MAIL ORDER:

High Country Roses, Utah- 1-800-552-2082

The Antique Rose Emporium, Texas- 1-800-441-0002

Chamblee’s Roses, Texas- 1-800-256-7673

Mill’s Magic Rose Mix 1-800-845-2325

  

Buds today....

on Old Roses that supposedly won't grow here in south Tampa on their own roots and all organically:

"Moroccan Rose" ( a gift from Mike Shoup to trial here)...now three years old, bloomed for the first time last year
'Baronne Prevost'

Abundant spring growth on:

"Fairmount Red"

'Louise Odier'

"Jo An's Pink Perpetual'

Buds AND blooms on:

'Francois Juranville'

"Barfield White Climber"

'Teasing Georgia' (on Fortuniana root stock)

'Mme. Antoine Marie'

"Pink Cracker Rose"

'Duchesse de Brabant'

 Francois Juranville

 "Pink Cracker Rose"

 "Moroccan Rose"

 'Baronne Prevost'

 'Mme. Antoine Marie'

 'Duchesse de Brabant'

 "Fairmount Red"

'Teasing Georgia;

Rosa bracteata blooming like crazy in the early heat...

"Fairmount Red"

Noticing this rose in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery in 1991  while on a bike ride turned me into a rosarian. I snuck back that summer with organic soil foods and pruners in my back pack and brought the sad bush from near death nestled up against a very old granite headstone. Years later, root sucker clones of it thrived in my Denver yard and landscape clients' yards.  I was obsessed with determining its true ID  for years. It shares much with 'Great Western' but when I showed the original plant to Mike Shoup, Fred Boutin, Bill Grant and Stephen Scanniello and others they agreed...very reminiscent but not the same as 'Great Western'.

I am so pleased that High Country Roses has carried it for years from cuttings I gave them, which is why I wrote about it  in 'Sunset Magazine' many years back in hopes that people from a wide mix of soil and climate types would give it a try. In Denver it is an arching, husky shrub rose, once-blooming June into July bloomer. It died for me a few times here in Tampa in the ground, as happened to a Sunset reader of mine who tried it in the Florida panhandle who moved there from out west. It thrives year after year in a Restricted Drainage Container Garden made from  a scavenged black plastic tree pot.

A specimen that Heather sold me  is now entering year four here in south Tampa, thriving in a Restricted Drainage Container Garden made from a scavenged 20 gallon black plastic commercial tree pot. It is SO cold hardy in Denver....I am baffled and delighted that "Fairmount Red" once again is bringing me joy with its vigor, saturated color, and evocative perfume.

I hope you enjoy the photos of it here....I will share the wonderful photos that my long time Denver friend Michael Mowry took of the original plant in Fairmount Cemetery one June in the late 1990s. So cool to see it go leafless as needed this mild winter...it is now breaking dormancy with swelling leaf buds. Tomorrow I will take cuttings.

An Article From My Rocky Mountain News Gardening Column Back Then....

In August of 1998 I had the honor and pleasure of visiting America’s top rose hybridizer, Tom Carruth, in southern California where he has created some truly unique roses for the joy of millions of gardeners. His keenly planned, and sometimes playful, swaps of pollen between two willing parent roses, have given us living gems like ‘Scentimental’, ‘Flutterbye’, ‘Gracie Allen’, ‘George Burns’, ‘Fourth of July’ and the sleek cool ‘Stainless Steel’. As an amateur rose boinker myself I was profoundly awed and inspired by the sight of 26 THOUSAND tagged pollinations ripening in one half of a vast greenhouse at the Weeks Roses headquarters in Upland, California. It was a thrill to walk with Tom between the seedling benches filling the other half, seeing the often gorgeous and deeply scented first blooms of his newest creations, and to hear their widely varying parentages.

   Tom is a gracious host who made sure I got to prowl through a few unique nurseries for exotic tropical Salvias and Ruellias to plant in my Tampa customers’ gardens this fall. He saw to it I experienced fabulous private and public gardens, including those at Balboa Park and the legendary Huntington Botanic Garden. His own garden is a soothing composition of bamboos, herbs, roses, subtropical perennials, pools, and a stunning assortment of variegated perennials, defined and linked by paths and boardwalks. And I was a sponge, soaking it all in.

   One memorable high point in a week of many was our visit to Weeks’ growing fields in Wasco, California, nestled in America’s farming capitol, the San Joaquin valley....600 acres of roses, a psychedelic profusion of hundreds of colorful rows extending to the horizon! He took me to several acres where many hundreds of his own creations are grown for open-air testing, their having survived his rigorous and ruthless culling process in the greenhouse, his keen eye and mind discerning flaws that often eluded me until he’d point them out. It was a thrill to walk with this amiable and talented man down those rows, me holding his breeding records and together looking up the parentages of roses we found especially attractive and/or interesting. Since Tom breeds specifically for fragrance (the main reason I became obsessed with roses) I had to sample them all, sneezing now and then, delighted at the intensity and quality of scent he often achieves. By using roses like ‘Westerland’ and ‘Autumn Sunset’ and ‘Gourmet Popcorn’ and others, plus some of his own hybrids, Tom is creating a very eclectic family that includes Hybrid Teas, Miniatures, Shrubs, Climbers plus many that defy classification. Some of the fine yet nameless, number-coded roses I saw that memorable day will no doubt in the future enjoy acclaim and commercial success.

   Both Tom and Weeks vigorously support amateur rose breeders, (one reason he invited me)  and Tom pointed out some of their hybrids growing next to his in that testing field. And so it was a special thrill on this trip to submit to Tom one of my own mild-climate hybrids for stage 1 commercial testing in the Weeks greenhouse! And while the odds are slim mines will “cut the mustard”, he reminded me that ‘St. Patricks’ and ‘Sally Holmes’ and ‘Baby Love’ plus many others were bred by amateur back yard rose boinkers like me.

   Back in his minivan, we drove further, passing thousands of roses till he stopped and pointed out one bright row of roses, saying that it marked the beginning of what lay before us....OWN ROOT ROSES as far as the eye could see!  Weeks is growing own root roses on a vast scale: Hybrid Teas, Shrubs, Climbers, his own hybrids, Floribundas and more, having sold 600,000 last year as cold climate gardeners continue to discover own-root roses’ advantages of longevity and vigor. Tom knows how prejudiced I am towards own-rootedness, and had saved this moment for near the end of my trip. It is a joy to learn that thanks to Tom and Weeks Roses, own-root roses are once again becoming mainstream as they were early this century, no longer coveted solely by a “fringe group” of fanatics!

   I saw and experienced so much in that intense week that in a future article I’d like to share more, especially the highlights of visiting some excellent private and public rose gardens growing in a climate new to me, one that is neither Denver nor Tampa yet with elements of each. So imagine my surprise at seeing odd juxtapositions like  mild-climate Teas and Chinas and Noisettes and even Gigantea Hybrids (like ‘Belle of Portugal’) growing several yards from cold hardy Mosses and Hybrid Perpetuals and English Roses!  I’d always heard it was rose heaven there; now I know why.

'Oklahoma'

This lovely deep red Hybrid Tea with velvety black shadings boasts a soul-stirring Old Rose perfume. It is one of my very favorite roses and is my most beloved red rose. What a joy to see it in bloom this spring.

Easlea's Golden Rambler......

Is taking off in this tree pot-based Restricted Drainage Container Garden. Since the one I saw at Peter Beales' nursery and in Bill Grant's garden were huge husky semi-climbers, I need to choose carefully where I will bury the pot. I'm leaning towards it going due west of the fish pond so that it can fill that whole bed if need be. The new growth is uncannily glossy. A shame I can't find the photo I took two days ago!

Spring Pruning

Yesterday I gave a hard pruning to the Fairmount Cemetery Mystery Rose "Jo Ann's Pink Perpetual" and stuck the cuttings in hopes they root as despite south Tampa being Zone 9B this lusciously fragrant cold hardy rose that loves Denver THRIVES here in a 15 gallon Water Wise Container Garden. I hope to have plants to sell in about 18 months. Next I give it and 'Baronne Prevost' a good feeding and deep watering, then do the same to the lanky "Moroccan Rose" that Mike Shoup of The Antique Rose Emporium donated to my studies. The attached photo is of "Morrocan Rose" last spring when it bloomed for the first time, thriving in a buried 5 gallon Water Wise Container Garden.

A bit early but....

Today I cut back my young but thriving own root 'Baronne Prevost' in a buried Water Wise Container Garden and stuck the cuttings. Next I feed and DEEP water it in an effort to grow a bushier frame of canes. Tomorrow I will do the same with "Morrocan Rose", 'Louise Odier', "Jo Ann's Pink Perpetual" from Denver's Fairmount Cemetery, 'Graham Thomas' and "Fairmount Red". In six weeks or so I should see evidence of how effective these steps were.

Nothing Like The Scent of 'Nastarana'!

Spring is in the air in Tampa

What a delight to see and smell blooms on 'Mme. Antoine Marie', "Pink Cracker Rose", 'Marechal Neil', "Barfield White Climber", Rosa bracteata, "Fairmount Prosperpine', my own hybrids 'Gainesville Garnet', 'Sarasota Spice' and 'Gold Blush' plus 'Reve d'Or', "Maggie", 'Teasing Georgia', 'Archduke Charles' and 'Cramoisi Superieur'.

I was blown away yesterday ...the mailman brought me a GIANT specimen of a mega-rare climbing rose I've wanted since 1994....'Easlea's Golden Rambler'. And it was FREE from Cliff Orent of Desert Roses! I was on the phone with a local friend as I opened the box and got teary eyed when I read the tag! Attached is a link to a site with data and photos, plus I will attach a pic posted here recently by a Canadian rosarian of a PORTION of his monster plant. I've only met it twice....once at Peter Beales' nursery in England, and in author Bill Grant in Aptos, California, a huge hulking plant the size of a large garden shed. Thanks Cliff!!!!!

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.1698&tab=1

Woo Hoo!

Yesterday I got my roses' sales royalty check for 2011 from the good folks at The Antique Rose Emporium.....$35!  I better work harder promoting my rose breeding work!

So much to be thankful for.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ&feature=youtu.be