Marvelous New Roses
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• Spring vegetables can be planted now from nursery starts. Begin your garden with broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, chard and onions. It pays to grow your own!
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• Potatoes can be planted this month. Plant red, white, yellow and russet for a variety of uses and flavors.
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• Plant bright and cheery primroses to brighten your flower beds and boxes.
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• Pluots are a cross between plums and apricots. Their meaty fruit has a wonderful flavor. Bare root trees can be planted now.
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• Prune wisteria trees and vines by cutting out unwanted long runners and removing old seed pods. Don’t damage flower buds that are clustered at the end of short branches.
Marvelous New Roses
Although the All-America Rose Selection (AARS) program has been discontinued, as of 2014, there are still many fine new rose introductions each year. Weeks Roses is one of the primary rose breeders today and each year they introduce several fine roses.
Happy Go Lucky™ is one of the new roses this year from Weeks Roses, and this rose has it all. The big, fragrant, pure yellow blossoms have all the charm of an old-fashioned English rose. Add to that excellent disease resistance and rich green foliage that sets off the 6-inch flowers, and you have one winning rose. This grandiflora will delight you with flowers all season long.
Miss Congeniality™ is another beautiful grandiflora rose. After 14 years of research, the experts at Weeks got this rose just right! Perfectly shaped buds cover this extremely disease-resistant plant all season. When they open, you’ll be treated to clusters of large, breathtaking blooms with strong pink edging. It is quick to rebloom and has a pleasing fragrance.
Pretty Lady Rose™ is one of the Downton Abbey® hybrid tea roses. As vibrant as her namesake, this rose has a high petal count that creates big, showy, ruffled blooms with a sweet fragrance. The rich, rose-pink flowers retain their large size even in summer’s heat. This rose is extremely disease-resistant and easy to care for. It is one of a new group of roses called ‘landscape roses’, which are exceptionally long-blooming and carefree.
The fiery redddish-orange, 3 to 4 inch blooms of Smokin’ Hot™ hybrid tea rose have a white reverse, a smoky purple overlay and a wonderful fragrance that hints of tea and spice. The young foliage emerges burgundy maturing to a deep lustrous green with hints of red burning at the edges. Produced singly on long stems, cut them for the vase any you’ll have an outstanding arrangement.
Tuscan Sun is a tidy floribunda growing 3-4 feet tall. Its clusters of deep apricot buds open into spectacular high-centered bronze blossoms that mature to lovely coppery pink flowers. The strong straight stems are 12”-14” long, and the spice-scented flowers last exceptionally well in the vase. This generous bloomer is a wonderful garden plant with a fine, well-branched habit and highly disease resistant foliage.
Roses need at least 6 hours of sun each day. Select a location that is free from tree roots and has good drainage. New roses should be watered twice a week, making sure the roots don’t dry out. Established roses only need deep watering once a week to moisten the soil 5 inches deep.
Fertilize new roses with a liquid fertilizer beginning when the growth is about six inches long and repeating every two or three weeks. For established plants, once every three months is sufficient, or use according to instructions on the package.
Like all living plants, roses may be attacked by insects and fungus diseases. Neem oil is a both a fungicide and an insecticide, and should be sprayed on susceptible roses every 10 days through wet spring weather. The newer, highly disease-resistant roses should only need spraying if you see a problem developing.
Take good care of your roses and they will reward you with abundant blooms all season long.
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