Oso Happyï¿½ Smoothie

10 years ago

does anyone have garden experience with this rose? i have read the online (company provided) information and it sounds like it might be ideal for a somewhat unusual list of requirements... but i know that most commercial rose descriptions are misleading at best.

what i'm looking for:

my 85 yo mother in law is living at home with a caregiver. we live a 5 hour plane flight away. we need something that is disease resistant and low maintenance. we've hired a landscaper who is suggesting Drift roses. i think this sounds like an excellent choice... EXCEPT, my MIL, who is a free spirit and has moderate dementia) likes to mess around pulling weeds and she gets pretty cut up from bushes such as barberry. she either doesn't remember or refuses to use decent gardening/rose gloves. i checked this morning at a nursery and it seems like the Drift roses are at least as thorny, if not more so, than the barberry it's going to replace.

i was hoping that the Oso Happy Smoothie might work. how 'thornless' is 'thornless'? and is it healthy?

the garden is located in mid-Missouri, zone 6a (for 1976 to 2005). whatever we put in needs to look nice (front yard) with little care other than an automated watering system and some minor weeding that the mowing guy can do. we will have a landscaper at least once a year to do any real pruning and shaping.

i'm also thinking that the Drift roses might work, if i can't find out more about the Oso Happy Smoothie, or if the news is bad... as long as the landscaper is super vigilant with mulch and a pre-emergent such as Preen, so there aren't weeds near the roses to pick. i don't think that MIL would mess with them otherwise. another thought was to add a small, unobtrusive 'fence' around the bed that will line the sidewalk, so that it would be more difficult to access the plants.

anyway, thanks for any reports.

cheers,

nancy

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Comments (2)

Kippy
10 years ago
I have no info on the rose, but was going to tell you that I made decorative picket fences next to the walk-ways to hide a hand rail on. Mom can use to steady herself and it looks like a picket fence. I put the rail for the pickets on the back of the post and then put the handrail on the front of the post. When mom fussed she did not need the handrail, I said they were for her friend _________ who was unsteady on her feet :) It helps to keep mom out of that planter bed too (helps because she is determined to get exactly where she should least be to "pull a weed" Oddly she does not pull the weeds close to the walk)
pat_bamaz7
10 years ago
Nancy,
I'm not familiar with OSO Happy Smoothie, but I've grown OSO Easy Paprika for several years. My Paprika bushes have been carefree and completely disease free without spraying here where even knockouts are bad to blackspot. Our humidity level hovers in the 90s and temps average in the mid 90s throughout the summer months, but these bushes never shut down. They provide constant color spring through fall and ask nothing in exchange. The Paprikas are thorny, but they are not marketed as thornless. I wouldnÃ¢ÂÂt think OSO Happy Smoothie would be advertised as thornless if it wasnÃ¢ÂÂt at least very nearly so, and I would assume Smoothie to have similar disease resistance and bloom power as the others in the OSO series. I only have personal experience with Paprika, but have seen some of the others grown locally, and they seem to be winners, too. I also grow Apricot Drift and Coral Drift. They are carefree, very disease resistant and constant bloomers, as well, but both do have thorns (Coral is very thorny; Apricot doesnÃ¢ÂÂt have many thorns, but enough to prick you if not careful). The Drift roses stay much shorter in my climate than the Paprika bushes (and other OSOs that IÃ¢ÂÂve seen). I prune back my Paprikas each winter to keep them at about 3 feet X 3 feet, but the Drift roses never get over 2 to 3 feet in height (and at least 3 ft wide) here without any pruning. Both the Drifts and the Paprikas will look better and give you a greater quantity of blooms with some deadheading, but both will continue to flower reasonably even if you donÃ¢ÂÂt. I donÃ¢ÂÂt think you could go wrong with any from either series as far as ease of care, but I'm not sure on the thornless part. HereÃ¢ÂÂs a picture of Paprika this weekÃ¢ÂÂ¦loaded with buds and some blooms beginning to open:
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David Zlesak
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For some reason the link to this page would not copy so I copied the whole page (without pictures). -------------------------------------------------------------------- David Zlesak Assistant Professor of Horticulture Courses Taught: Horticulture 120: Plants and Society Horticulture 161: Introduction to Plant Science Horticulture 200: Plant Propagation Horticulture 352: Woody Landscape Plants Horticulture 369: Plant Tissue Culture Horticulture 452: Arboriculture and Nursery Management Research Interests: •Coordinator of the Northern Earth-Kind® Rose Trials (purpose is to identify well-adapted, low maintenance landscape roses for our northern Midwest region). •Woody plant pathology. •Breeding regionally-adapted woody and herbaceous landscape plant cultivars. Publications: Lockhart, B, D.C. Zlesak, and J. Fetzer, 2011. Identification and partial characterization of six new viruses of cultivated roses in the USA. Acta Horticulturae 901:139-147. Zlesak, D.C., V.M. Whitaker, S. George, and S.C. Hokanson, 2010. Evaluation of roses from the Earth-Kind® Trials: black spot (Diplocarpon rosae Wolf) resistance and ploidy. HortScience 45:177-1787. Zlesak, D.C., 2009. Pollen diameter and guard cell length as predictors of ploidy in diverse rose cultivars, species, and breeding lines. In: Zlesak DC (Ed) Roses. Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology. 3(Special Issue 1):53-70. Harp D.A., Zlesak, D.C., Hammond, G., George, S., and W. Mackay, 2009. Earth-Kind® Rose Trials��"Identifying the World’s Strongest, Most Beautiful Landscape Roses. In: Zlesak DC (Ed) Roses. Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology. 3(Special Issue 1):166-175. Zlesak, D.C. and B.J. Hanson, 2008. ‘Tuscan Sun’ Helopsis. HortScience 43:927-928. Grabowski, M.A, Zlesak, D.C., and J.H. Gillman, 2008. Control of black spot on rose. Plant Disease Management Reports 2:OT005 Zlesak, D.C., 2007. Factors affecting seed germination of Heliopsis helianthoides (L.) Sweet. Seed Science and Technology 35:577-594. Zlesak, D.C., Zuzek, K. and S.C. Hokanson, 2007. Rose pollen viability over time at varying storage temperatures. Acta Horticulturae 751:337-343. Zlesak, D.C., Bradeen, J.M. and N.O. Anderson, 2007. The use of AFLP markers to resolve clonal origin and integrity in rose, hydrangea, and lily. Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology. 1(1):51-60. Horticulture Specializations: Woody plant identification, culture, pathology, and genetics; Plant propagation; and Plant breeding. Cultivars: •First Editions® Little DevilTM ninebark (PPAF)- Compact ninebark that won the 2011 American Nursery Landscape Association’s Garden Idol Award as the best new plant of the year •Oso HappyTM Smoothie rose (PPAF) •Oso HappyTM Petit Pink rose (PP22,205)- Winner of the American Rose Society Award of Excellence for miniature roses 2012 •Oso HappyTM Candy Oh! rose (PP20,471) •'Tuscan Sun' heliopsis (PP18,763) •Monarch MedianoTM and Monarch GrandeTM series of ageratum (PPAF) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A to Z Index Staff Directory Vision and Values About Us Maps Administrative Login University of Wisconsin-River Falls 410 S. 3rd Street, River Falls WI 54022 USA Campus Information 715-425-3911 This post was edited by henry_kuska on Thu, Feb 28, 13 at 22:26
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Oso Happyï¿½ Smoothie

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Kippy

pat_bamaz7

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