» Archive for March, 2013

New Roses for 2013

Friday, March 1st, 2013 by Jenny Watts
    • Spring vegetables can be planted now.  Start your garden with broccoli, cabbage, lettuce spinach and chard.  It pays to grow your own!
    • Clematis that bloomed last summer can be pruned now.  Wait on spring-blooming varieties until after they bloom.
    • Plant peas in well-drained soil for a spring crop.  Protect from birds with bird netting or lightweight row cover.
    • Asparagus will provide you with delicious, low-priced spears for years to come if you plant them now from dormant crowns.  
    • Pansies and violas will fill your spring flower beds with their bright faces in many shades of blue, yellow, red, pink and purple.

Roses Galore!

Many of us look forward each year to seeing the new roses. This year we have a beautiful yellow floribunda rose, and a lovely pale pink hybrid tea rose. And there are others, just a year or two old that you may not be familiar with.

The sweetly pink hybrid tea, Francis Meilland, edged out the competition to earn the All-America Rose Selections award for 2013. Statuesque form, fragrant flowers and disease resistance helped it earn the sought-after honor. Her name honors the 100th birthday of the breeder of the famous Peace rose.

AARS Winners are grown in test gardens for two years where they are judged on color, fragrance, flower production and disease-resistance. Only the most successful roses become Winners each year. This year there was only one rose given this honor.

Sparkle & Shine™ is a “bloomin’ fool” of a rose with large clusters of ruffled yellow blossoms. The long-lasting yellow color, dark red new growth, and improved disease resistance make this an excellent landscaping rose. It can be used as an easy care flowering hedge. 

For an old-fashioned rose-pink rose, the new Grande Dameâ„¢ is hard to beat. The intense old rose fragrance invites you to bury your nose in its large, glamorous blossoms. These lovely, nodding flowers grow on a vigorous, shrubby bush with fewer thorns than most rose bushes. A nice cutting rose, this is a modern antique that grows well in all climates.

You’ll find a unique rose in Ketchup & Mustard™. “Slap a layer of the brightest red onto a backside of darkest yellow and set it atop the greenest glossiest leaves” and you have this stunning red and yellow floribunda. The medium-sized flowers hold their color well and repeat bloom all summer. 

Red roses are considered the most romantic and In The Moodâ„¢ is a lovely way to say it with flowers. Its large, double, classic hybrid tea flowers hold their brilliant red color well. And the bushy, prolific plant will give you lots of long-stemmed roses for cutting.

A most unusual rose is Koko Loko™. Opening up with perfect hybrid tea form, its petals are the color of a creamy caffe latte. But as the flower matures, it turns into a round, ruffled lavender that lasts a long time either on the plant or in the vase. 

Purple Splash™ offers a new color combination in a climbing rose: wine purple striped with white. The pyramid-shaped clusters bloom profusely over a long season. It has light green foliage on a vigorous plant with climbing canes 10 to 14 feet long. The flowers have only 5-10 petals each but they carry a sweet spice and rose fragrance. 

Dress up your garden with some glamorous new roses.