Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• The “Wave” petunias make wonderful hanging baskets for full sun. They come in purple, bright pink, reddish-purple and pale “misty lilac.” They can also be used for a colorful summer ground cover.

• Asparagus plants should be fed with good, rich compost when you have finished cutting spears. Keep the bed mulched and weed-free all summer, and the soil moist.

• Colorful Gerberas with their large, daisy flowers are a standout in containers. Water them infrequently and give them plenty of sun for flowers all summer.

• Earwigs are out and about and hungry. Control them with the new “Sluggo Plus”, or diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the plants, or go out after dark with a flashlight and a spray bottle of Safer’s Insecticidal Soap. One squirt will put an end to the spoiler.

• Tomatoes are the most popular summer vegetable. Choose from the many varieties, both Heirlooms and hybrids, available now, so you can enjoy delicious home-grown flavor.

Enjoying the Color and Fragrance of Roses

Roses have long been revered for both their stunning colors and their memorable fragrances. It is usually the color of a rose that first catches one’s attention but as soon as you get close to one, you want to smell it.

The palette of roses now includes an amazing array of colors. Flowers may be solid-colored, striped, bi-colored (different colors on the insides and the outsides of the petals), or blends (two or more colors intermingled on each petal).

To create a warm color scheme, choose a combination of red, orange, gold and yellow roses. These will draw the eye into the garden and make it look smaller than it is. A cooler color scheme, composed of violet, mauve, purple, pink and white, is soothing and refreshing. It is the best choice for a quiet garden meant for relaxing. It also makes a small garden look larger.

When it comes to fragrance, there are many fragrant modern roses as well as old garden roses. Color and fragrance are related and have to do with a rose’s heritage. The classic “rose” fragrance comes from the damask rose and is found mainly in the red and pink roses. It is a heavy fragrance that needs heat before the rich odor is released. White and yellow roses have a lighter fragrance that is best sniffed on a warm summer morning.

Many red roses have a strong fragrance. ‘Mister Lincoln’ has long been the yardstick that all new introductions are measured against. Its richly perfumed deep crimson blooms make it one of the all-time favorite roses. The lovely dusky red rose named ‘Lasting Love’® has a rich pure rose fragrance. It has shown itself to be a strong, healthy rose in our climate.

‘Perfume Delight’ has rich pink flowers with a strong rose fragrance and the super-sweet fragrance of the classic ‘Tiffany’ rose has made it an award winner. The pink petals suffused with yellow on long stems are excellent for cutting.

The large flowers of the new rose ‘Crescendo’™ are white, blushing to light pink at the edges with a strong honeysuckle and rose fragrance. It is sure to please.

Purple roses tend to be very fragrant. The dark velvety purple flowers of ‘Midnight Blue’™ have an old fashioned form and a strong, spicy clove fragrance.

‘Gold Medal’ has it all. The deep golden yellow flowers rich with fruity fragrance are borne on long stems with disease-resistant foliage. And ‘Strike It Rich®’ is a soft gold rose with a spicy perfume. The long elegant buds of gold are polished with rosy pink. It is an excellent rose in the garden or on the table.

The new, bright coral rose ‘Sedona’ ™ brings the bright colors of the desert into our gardens. Its unique, fruity, pear scent is strong and exciting.

Remember that one fragrant rose in a mixed bouquet will perfume the room and give you the colors you want at the same time.

For a climbing rose, ‘Autumn Sunset’® with its apricot gold clusters of shapely flowers has a rich, fruity fragrance that is hard to beat. It is also very resistant to blackspot, and blooms well the first season.

Few flowers bloom for as long and abundantly in this climate as do roses. Choose beauty and fragrance to decorate your garden and home.

• 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.

• Pansies will fill your spring flower beds with their bright faces in many shades of blue, yellow, red, pink and purple.

• Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce and other cool season crops should be planted this month for delicious spring harvests.

• Rhubarb, the “pie plant”, can be planted now for mouth-watering pies for many years to come.

• Cherry trees are still available for bare-root planting, but only for a short while longer. Start your orchard now!

• 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.

Bright New Roses

The line-up of bright new roses looks pretty appealing this spring. Wish reds and yellows, pinks and purples, there are roses that are perfect for almost any garden.

Start with the new, and only, AARS Winner this year: Sunshine Daydream. The light yellow Grandiflora, the first garden rose to win under no spray conditions, was selected as the best of the best after participating in the rigorous two-year AARS testing cycle. With fantastic bloom production and great vigor, this rose is sure to brighten any garden. The light yellow, cup-like flowers mature to a creamy yellow and are set off by its dark green, glossy foliage. With excellent disease resistance and a long blooming season this is truly a winner.

Another lovely yellow rose is Walking on Sunshine. This bushy floribunda rose sports tight clusters of fragrant, bright yellow buds that open to ruffled blossoms. Add in disease resistance and you have a great rose for any gardener.

Red is the color of the year and red roses are always popular. Firefighter is a large, intensely fragrant, classic Hybrid Tea rose. It was chosen as the first sponsorship rose of the ‘Remember Me’ garden fund to honor the victims of 9-11. This vigorous, bushy rose grows 5 to 6 feet tall and holds up well even in intense heat.

Purple Splash brings a new color scheme to climbing roses. Its wine-purple and white striped and speckled flowers bloom the first year with a moderately strong, spicy perfume. The mostly single flowers come in large clusters on canes that have minimal thorns. It will be a real eye-catcher in your garden.

For a bright rose with peach, coral and salmon all wrapped up in one beautiful flower, look for Colorific. Warm sunshine deepens the hues to orange, scarlet and burgundy, resulting in a festival of colors on each bush as new blooms open and others age. Strong, long stems are great for cutting and disease-resistance rounds out the colorful package.

White Licorice is a floribunda rose with ivory white blossoms touched with lemon-chiffon, that emit a powerful perfume. The hybrid-tea-shaped flowers bloom continuously all summer on sturdy stems. These beauties will look and smell lovely in a vase.

With lots of lovely roses to choose from, now is the time to check out the bright new roses for the new year.