Yellow Roses in Cold Zones
jlalfred
16 years ago
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Comments (41)
canadian_rose
16 years agojerijen
16 years agoRelated Discussions
moving roses from a warm zone to a cold zone
Comments (7)The hardiness or lack of hardiness is in the genetics of the rose. This is why I can mail order a rose from a warm weather vendor/propagator & have it grow in my z4 area. As Karolina11 pointed out the wrong root stock, & as seil pointed out moving during the winter months may be the issues that will give you problems in the move. If your roses have the ability to be grown in z5 (Brunswick, ME zone?), you should be able to move them if the noted problems can be avoided. This post was edited by wirosarian on Sun, Nov 10, 13 at 21:28...See MoreCold zone rose gardeners who don't winterize. Are grafted roses best?
Comments (16)I really have mixed feedback on this issue. I totally agree that the robust growers in cold zones do fine on their own roots and you don't have to worry about suckers from the graft. Too robust growers (like gallicas) can be better grafted so that you can plant the graft ABOVE the soil (only) for those super-hardy roses and avoid the gallica taking over the garden bed. I also agree that grafted roses of the wimpier varieties of HTs and floris are more robust in their first year or two and tend to grow bushy faster than own root versions of those plants. However, I've recently started to experience the down side of grafted HTs in a cold climate. First of all, virtually all of the grafted HTs and floris that I've planted with the graft properly buried have gone own root over time if they've survived. For instance, I bought In the Mood grafted from a local nursery and it was fabulous and bushy in its first year. The second year and for every year after that, it was a knee high one-cane wonder until it finally gave up the ghost and died after about 6 years. The same process has been happening more gradually with my grafted Savoy Hotel. It was lush (maybe 4.5' by 4.5') and incredible in its first year or two, ranking in my top 20 of roses. Every year since then it has declined and come back from the winter more slowly. By August this year, my plant in optimum sun and soil conditions has just now reached almost 3 feet with 3 canes on it and a couple of blooms here and there for the first time all season (nothing at all in June). Here's a contrast picture to show that effect - this is 2013 in June for Savoy Hotel at its full 4.5'x4.5' glory. Savoy Hotel is at the bottom right corner keeping up with Madame Isaac Periere in the back of it with no trouble. Granted, this was a particularly good rose year, but you can see the relative sizes. Now just one year later in 2014, here's Savoy Hotel in front of MIP (bottom center) also in June, and this was an average rose year for me. It's too late for MIP on the shepherd's hook to be blooming, but you can see MIP's height by the purple clematis. Notice that she's now in 2014 only 3' high and has about 4 blooms every couple of weeks. She has declined from that since, even though she's still a very nice rose. I don't have any more recent bush pictures for her since I only get the scattered blooms any more, and only late in the season to boot. One other effect I'm seeing in my older grafted roses this spring in particular is graft failure for a lot of my well-established roses with the graft well buried. Even under the soil, it seems like a grafted rose starts running out of places to grow new basal shoots after a while. For instance, this spring I lost an 8 year old Dream Come True (the tall rose at the left of the first picture) for no good reason that I could see, and it was a mild winter. Sure, you see pictures of 50 year old grafted HTs in warm climates, but those are warm climates. I suspect that if we have a 50 year old HT rose in cold climates that started out grafted and is still alive, it has gone own root in that time and is a robust rose on its own roots. My reluctant conclusions are that if a rose is going to be a wimp, it will reach that state on its own whether own root or grafted. If I get an own root HT rose through its first winter it will increase in size to its sustainable height and vigor and more or less stay there for the duration. If I get a grafted HT rose through its first winter, it will decrease in size to its sustainable height and vigor and stay there till the graft fails or it goes completely own root. There are only a few roses where I think the graft did give the rose a little boost in survival over that first winter, Memorial Day and Oklahoma come to mind, but for the most part I don't think it buys me anything in either survivability or vigor after the first year. That's why I tend to grow my HTs and floris on their own roots. I want to know the long-term height it's really going to be in its early years, I get reliable winter survival of the original rose from own roots if they get to a good size in their first year, and I don't have to dig up a massive root system when it dies or deal with suckers. Just my two cents Cynthia...See MoreQuestion for Cynthia, Patty and cold zone gardeners for rose spacing
Comments (20)Vaporvac, it's so nice to hear that an expert like Peter Schneider agrees that spacing roses close together in a cold climate is just fine. I'd agree with his spacing except I'd put most HTs at the 12" and floris at the 18-20". My floris tend to bush out a lot better than my HTs - even when my HTs get tall they are often narrow bloomers. Sharon, sympathies on the passing of your friend and aunt. That's interesting that the ground was still not frozen in January and February. Perhaps they had a protected spot for digging. I've had bulbs arrive backordered in December and I can't possibly get a trowel in the ground by then. November the roses are usually still blooming though they're starting to wind down. For your rose protection, it sounds like you might benefit from some kind of wind break if you don't get reliable snow cover. I find that a lot of my rose canes die back to the level of the snow and/or windbreak, so I suspect that it helps the iffier ones. I just roll filled leaf bags around the borders of my beds and stand them around the truly fussy ones, and they're otherwise on their own. As for how I decide which roses to plant together, I start out thinking I'm more systematic than I end up being in reality. My first decision is a color one, related to what bed a rose will end up in. Between the time I order and the time the rose arrives, I spend time researching on hmf and here about the rose's characteristics across the board in zones like mine. I put down an expected height and use that in my plantings. Sometimes that is wildly misleading, like with Sunrise Sunset that's listed at 2' and it's one of my most vigorous and aggressive climbers. When I get down to planting a given area of a bed, I set all the roses I'm planning to add to that bed, look at the characteristics of the roses already there, set the roses around in their pots, hmmm a while, move around those pots, and give it my best effort to anticipate height, color and vigor. I've learned the types of roses that aren't very vigorous and when to ignore the California expectations of 5-6' for HTs. Sometimes roses at the front of beds are much bigger than I expect, so I peg their canes or drape them along a handy surface (like a low fence at the front of a bed), or tuck their canes under other nearby roses, or plop in a shepherd's hook for them to scramble up if needed. Frankly, I wish I would have more frequent problems of roses being too big. Mostly when I plant HTs and floris, they're much more often smaller than I expect. That's another reason I can get away with planting roses as close as I do. Given all that research, I find that roses can't read and they do unexpected things nearly half of the time (some of which includes dying). I can only control so much, so I give it my best shot and live with the results. If I can't live with it, I move it, but I think in my rose growing career I've moved a grand total of no more than 10 roses, a few of which were unsuccessful, so it's much easier to be lazy and work around a less than optimal height. Bottom line is that I don't fuss over my roses which includes not worrying too much about their height or color, as well as not fussing with sprays and such. A little mystery isn't a bad thing and sometimes it's a happy "mistake". Cynthia...See MorePioneer roses in cold zones.
Comments (7)I've started growing a lot of Pioneer roses here in zone 5 Nebraska and they as a whole do pretty well. Thomas Affleck has survived about 4 winters with a little surviving cane so I'm pretty sure he would have surviving roots with a little soil mounding and better snow cover. Cole's Settlement is only two years old and didn't have any surviving cane so his limit might be zone 5. I haven't been able to overwinter Star of the Republic more than one winter so I think it's marginal in zone 5, but it's a young plant and might be better with age. Pioneer roses that I haven't been able to overwinter at all include Mier Y Tieran and Lady Pamela Carol, as well as a few others that I can't call to mind at the moment. Belinda's Blush has definitely died to the ground and we'll see if she comes back in spring - first winter so far. Good bets would be the delightful Rockwall Sesquicentennial that is mostly cane hardy and blooms most of the summer. I loved Field Roebuck and it lasted a couple of years in a non-optimum spot, so I think with better placement it will do well. Out of stock but I'm eager to replace it! Doreen's Centennial is several years old but it dies to the ground and only barrrrely came back from the winter last year with plenty of snow cover, so I wouldn't try it farther north. Bottom line is that most of the Pioneer series are rated to zone 5 in the ARE catalog so they're definitely worth a try further north on the sunny side of your house. We'll look forward to hearing about them. Cynthia...See Moreshootingstar2
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