Garden or Exhibition roses?

I started this topic because yesterday a very good friend asked me to help prune her roses for a wedding garden party in 6 weeks. Might be cutting it a bit fine time wise but had to do my best. There were about 12 roses all purchased from local nurseries over the past 10 years. They are facing north in full sun mulched with stable hand fed chaff manure and lucerne hay. Sudden Impact for roses was the fertiliser of choice they used. It all looked like an ideal position but they have never been sprayed with the usual arsenal of fungus and bug sprays.

The Roses:- All except two new ones needed pulling out and burning. Then the two re planted in a new freshly prepared plot.

No wonder roses are not being grown anymore if this is the best rose breeders can produce.

Be aware a lot of the show roses for sale at nurseries are not suitable for gardens and require constant work to keep them alive. The exhibitors like John on this forum are to be admired for the blooms and arrangements they show in pristine condition. However our working years are full on 12 hour days so if you must grow roses then choose suitable garden roses based on health. Check into Help me Find roses and buy only those shown as very healthy. Even this is not fool proof but it's the best advice I can give at this time.
Don't miss out on going through the Hall of Shame Roses on this forum for roses best avoided. Don't be backward in digging out a poor performing roses and dumping them in the garbage bin.

It hasn't been a easy road....putting up with salt and beach sand to turn into friable soil hasn't been an easy task........we won't even mention the amount of different roses I have been thru to find roses that will grow in this area.....geez....and I thought this was going to be easy.......

It has come to a point for me that DA's for my climate (SE Qld, subtropical) aren't suitable. They can be a bit sensitive and they are the only roses I have that get anthracnose despite spraying with lime sulphur at pruning and copper when required. As they die I won't be replacing them with new DA's. Modern shrub roses seem to be pretty tough, so that maybe the way to go.
Cheers,
Louise.

Hello Louise, I would not continue with the DA's in your area. I have over the past years sent quite a few Riethmuller and Tea roses to Queensland and would suggest you contact Bilinbear on this forum because he grows these roses in the south east of Qld. I have a rare Riethmuller called 'Lady Woodward' which is really a HT and nothing like the others bred from 'Gartendirektor Otto Linne'. Most of these roses bred from GOL are bullet proof and root like weeds from cuttings. LW is rare because it has to be grafted, I would give this one a miss but all the others OK.
'Carefree Wonder' would be a winner up there. It's bushy and doesn't mind hot sun, it's one of my favourites because it's so healthy. I'm going to graft it to make standards.

Neptune, (John) I breed chooks and don't show because washing and keeping them in the right condition is just not for me.

David , please get medals struck for all the rose exhibitors, particularly John, a Gold One for achieving such great results in such adverse conditions.

Thanks Bruce for your kind words......I will cherish this medal.....


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John, that's just perfect except it needs a 2 carrot diamond set just under the crown.

Ozeboy wrote:John, that's just perfect except it needs a 2 carrot diamond set just under the crown.

I like your style, Bruce.......

Thanks Bruce. I've seen Reithmuller's Carabella in catalogues. It does intrigue me. Does anyone have any experience with it?
Thanks,
Louise.

Louise, try to find growers of Riethmullers in Queensland.
You should join the Heritage Rose Soc in Qld, contact Gary here on the forum or Barbara Beerling 3356 7827.

I have grown them all but my favourite is 'Titian'. It's a pillar rose worth a place in any Qld garden. The smallest one is 'Claret Cup' so suggest you buy both these to get a feel for very healthy roses.

Hi Bruce,
I was recently given a cutting grown of what they think is the hybrid musk Prosperity rose. Seems like a healthy thing although I am keeping it in a pot until it cools down a bit. I am thinking of trying to train it along my gate entrance posts.
Thanks again for the contacts.
Cheers,
Louise.

Louise, I like density in roses, the ones that are hard to see through. Those spindly roses with few leaves are best left tor someone else.  One of the densest Growing here is  'Mrs BR Cant'.  It seems to come in two varieties both Tea'swhich can grow quite large. Gary and I have discussed this rose which I think one is from a better clone.  He has it growing on his Qld property.  Mine are grafted from his rose and are extremely healthy here.

I don't know much about Hybrid Musks because I did at one time do some breeding of roses that have 28 chromosomes and tended to stay with these.
It doesn't take long to grow a lot of roses, some that don't fit into your plans.
If I lived in Qld I would grow Tea roses exclusively,  some gifted and supermarket bargain roses should be viewed with caution. The best days work you can acomplish is contact Bailinbear on this forum and hope for a garden tour

Some Hybrid Musks don't do too bad up our way. Cornelia does well as does Prosperity. A few of the others Felicia for example not so well. Others grow but don't flower as well as they should but maybe its because most of our roses are left to their own devices so far as water and fertilizer goes. If you have a smaller garden then some may grow to large (one of our Cornelias is about 3 metres diameter) but others would do well as you could feed and water them.

Our Prosperity's have been left as shrubs and they tend to spread out. If pruned I think you could do a bit with the Hybrid Musks.

Bruce is pretty right about Teas and Queensland though I have seen a Lot of modern and David Austins growing up this way but boy they take some work. We have several hundred roses and it would be impossible to grow that many moderns and David Austins unless you did it as a full time job with a couple of apprentices.

The Tea's are not only nice roses that flower a lot and for most of the year but they are also a great landscaping bush. I have spoken to a bloke form California who has a landscaping business and he is incorporating them into the landscape designs as shrubs.

Hi Bruce how are you going?

I forgot to mention the Riethmuller roses.

We have Carabella (grows well but can be a bit scraggly. We used to have a hedge of it but it was too untidy), Gay Vista (nice but only new to our garden), Claret Cup (whose life is going to be cut short if it does not behave itself as I always seem to get caught up in its thorns), Titian (we grow it on a pillar and it does well though it got hit around a bit in the heat) and Spring Song (does well in atrocious soil and conditions).

They can get very leggy but that is in their breeding. I have been told there is a backyard nursery at Crows Nest (the one near Toowoomba) that grows most of his plants. Not sure of where though.

Thanks Gary. That sounds like some garden.The information provided is good to know. Like I said I was given the prosperity rose and it is good to know it grows well. I was going to try and train it over my gate posts. Do You think it would work as a climber?
Thanks,
Louise.

I think that you could train it as a pillar rose or a small climber but not one something too large.

Are you getting the rain out your way. We had 97mm last night and a further 92 (in two hours this morning) plus its pouring at the moment and the gauge looks almost full again.

We had 100mm or so last week plus some a couple of weeks back so the roses are putting on a real growth spurt and are budding up. Should have lots of flowers (at last) for Easter.

Hi Gary,
Good to hear you are getting lots of rain. Only 55mm here last night up until this morning. But only light stuff this morning. It is nice not to be watering. I'm sure you feel the same way. As for the last month we've only had enough rain to keep everything green but not enough to put any water in the local farmers dams. I think we were actually drought declared a few weeks ago.
Anyway the roses have lots of nice red growth on them and I'm sure they'll appreciate the food I gave them this week.
Hoping the rain doesn't cause any problems your way.
Stay safe and thanks,
Louise.

Louise

The Mrs BR Cant Bruce was referring to:

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WOW! Gorgeous thing!

Louise, note the density of this garden Tea rose, makes a good screen for privacy. Another good Tea Gary probably growing up there is 'Mr. Williams' not as dense as Mrs.BRC but a real stunner. These are garden roses not vasing/picking roses

Thanks for the pix Gary.