Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Mother’s Day is the perfect time to give a gift of a living plant. Rhododendrons, lilacs, hanging fuchsias and ivy geraniums are sure to please her.

• Plant an herb garden in a container near the kitchen door for convenient fresh spices like basil, oregano, parsley and thyme.

• Rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias provide lots of beautiful flowers for the shady spring garden. Choose now.

• Mulch blueberry plants with aged sawdust and feed with cottonseed meal or an acid fertilizer.

• Flowering dogwood trees are blooming now to help you choose a beautiful small tree for a focal point in your garden.

What’s New in Roses?

The 2013 AARS Winner, Francis Meilland, will be the last in a long line of famous roses. After this year, the All-America Rose Selection (AARS) program will be discontinued.

The Francis Meilland rose is named to commemorate the 100th birthday of Francis Meilland the breeder of the historic Peace rose. When Meilland foresaw the German invasion of France he sent cuttings to friends in Italy, Turkey, Germany, and the United States to protect the new rose. It took on different names in each country, but in the U.S. it became known as the Peace rose. The name was publicly announced on April 29, 1945, the very day that Berlin fell, considered the end of the Second World War in Europe.

The Francis Meilland rose has large, 5-inch, high-centered blooms of soft, shell pink that emit a wonderful fragrance that everyone identifies with a ‘real rose’. Though it will be white in the heat of the summer, the strong, fruity and citrussy fragrance will perfume the air. Francis Meilland is the first hybrid tea rose to win under no-spray conditions, so its dark green foliage should look good all summer.

Ch-Ching! is a beautiful golden yellow rose with an occasional kiss of ruby-red. A true grandiflora, Ch-Ching! provides clusters of elegant high-centered blooms against dark green foliage and deep red new growth. Vigorous plants grow 3-6′ tall with a spread of 3-4′ and have outstanding natural disease resistance. The strong fragrance is spicy and fruity.

The new novelty rose, Ketchup & Mustard, is a conspicuous red and yellow bicolor, with red on the upper side of the petals and yellow on the backside. The floriferous, rounded plants filled with extremely glossy green foliage bloom in flushes throughout the season. It will be a conversation piece in any garden.

The long lovely pointed buds of We Salute You open slowly to tones of glowing orange, then turn to warm pink, giving two distinct colors in each lovely bloom – orangey on the inside and pinky on the outside. The big open blossoms are carried on long stems clothed with very deep green highly-glossed leaves. Warm weather brings out the best flower colors. 

Purple Splash climbing rose bears large clusters of wine-purple blooms streaked with white and accented with sunny yellow centers. It flowers repeatedly from midsummer into fall, with the aroma of sweet apples. Climbing to 10-14 ft., it does best in full sun.

Spice up your garden with a fragrant new rose and enjoy its lovely blossoms all summer.

• Roses are the longest blooming shrub in this climate. Fill your garden with their colors and fragrances by planting bare-root rose bushes now.

• Spray fruit trees with a dormant oil spray. Spray from the bottom up, including the undersides of limbs and the ground around the tree, to prevent early spring insect infestations.

• Primroses will give you the most color during this cold weather. Choose some pretty ones now for your boxes and beds.

• Start seeds of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and other cool season crops indoors for planting outside in March.

• Roses should be pruned in February near the end of the dormant season. You can clean them up now, however, by removing all the old leaves on and around the plants.

Bright Colors for the New Year

Two new roses took the coveted “AARS Winner” title for 2008. After two years of testing, ‘Dream Come True’™ and ‘Mardi Gras’ were chosen as the best new roses by the All-America Rose Selections committee.

Both of these new roses ring in the New Year with their golden highlights. ‘Dream Come True’ is a lovely combination of vibrant colors. This rose produces perfectly formed yellow blossoms, blushed with ruby-red at the tips, all set amongst abundant matte green foliage. The big, bushy vigorous plant is a Grandiflora rose. It yields long-stemmed, long-lived blooms with mild tea fragrance, making it beautiful in the landscape and a great choice for bouquets.

With flamboyant blooms in a novel blend of pink, orange, and yellow, and a delightful peppery scent, ‘Mardi Gras’ creates a festive atmosphere in any setting. Each high-centered hybrid tea style bloom begins as an apricot-orange bud that slowly spirals open to reveal a 4-inch bright pink and orange bloom with a yellow base. This festive Floribunda has proven to perform exceptionally well across the country with little-to-no care. The colorful blooms are perfectly framed with dark green, semi-glossy foliage, and its upright columnar habit makes ‘Mardi Gras’ an ideal rose to use as a hedge or in a border with mixed perennials.

New from Weeks Roses this year is the lovely ‘Falling in Love’™ with its big classically-formed fragrant flowers of warm pink & porcelain white. Each long-lived lovely blossom is carried on top of sturdy stems, excellent for cut flowers. The 6″ blooms have classic, Hybrid Tea rose form on attractive, bushy plants.

A fine new introduction to the Polyantha class is ‘Wing-Ding’™. Polyanthas are small plants that cover themselves with trusses of tiny, delightful blossoms. The blooms of ‘Wing-Ding’ are scarlet red carried in large, pyramid-shaped clusters that repeat bloom late into the season. It will add lots of bright color to the flower bed.

An exciting new Climber is named ‘Night Owl’™ for its dark wine-purple blooms that blink with bright yellow stamens. The showy clusters of semi-double blooms have a sweet, spicy fragrance. They repeat bloom readily on vigorous, long canes and hold their dramatic claret color to the end.

‘Brilliant Pink Iceberg’ is a color sport of the beloved ‘Iceberg’ rose. The plant is exactly like its parent, ‘Iceberg’, except the color has been kicked up a notch to a bright cerise pink painted onto cream. With showy clusters and a free-flowering habit, it makes an excellent tree rose.

Bring in the New Year by adding some bright new colors to your garden palette.