What has been your best performer? Our lady of guadalupe & don juan

What has been your worst? blushing knockout...really it got chilli thrips bad and spread them to the other roses. I pulled it out.

What continues to be a problem? Sigh... sandy soil and no rain. That's Florida!

What has surprised you? The darn chilli thrips. First time I have had them. The cooler weather has killed them now I think.

Best Performers: Mlle de Sombruil, Cramoisi Superior, Melody Parfumme, Gold Medal

Worst: Tipsy Imperial Concubine, Princess de Monacco, Golden Celebration

Ongoing Problems: Chili Thrips, definitely the worst. Since we had the cold snap a while back, the garden is doing better.

Surprises: Last year I planted out a new bed with Old Blush, Mlle de Sombruil, and Carefree Beauty. It has become my favorite area in the garden, flowers tumbling everywhere and beautiful disarray.

Elaine

I can't really add much to this. I just started my rose garden this year and have 27 rose plants so far. I have definitely noticed a difference with the weather, the flowers are bigger, etc. Love it!!

The best bloomer has been Gingersnap. I cannot say enough about the color, large flower, etc. It is definitely not a good cut flower though.

Haven't had any problems to speak of, but I am sure as the weather warms up next year, that will change.

Here are some flowers:

Gingersnap (multiple shots)
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Chicago Peace
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Heirloom
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John F Kennedy
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Unk
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Thanks

Here are a couple of pictures of one of my year round bloomers, LD Braithwaite. There are a lot of buds that aren't evident in the shots. This time of the year the blooms aren't all destroyed by thrips. This rose would be huge. I cut about 2-3' about 3 times a year. As you can see it is still well over the 6' fence. It grows tall and narrow, which is great for a small garden. This rose holds up beautifully in the vase too.
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Not a great arrangement, but here it is in the vase.
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Nancy

When y'all talk about cooler temperatures, what kind of cool are you talking about?
Cool up here is below freezing, but I don't think that that's what your cool is.
Thanks,
Ann

Ha. Cool for Floridians? Oh, maybe 60, 70 degrees! (That's jacket weather as far as I'm concerned!)

Elaine

What has been your best performer? Louis Philippe, Monsieur Tiller, Climbing Maman Cochet, LeVesuve

What has been your worst? Gruss an Aachen - I have 5 of them!

What has surprised you? The effect of the hot summer and the rebound - just this week - from cooler temps. (Only my second summer growing roses.)

What continues to be a problem? Lack of leaves throughout the garden - not necessarily from disease. May be due to very young roses and a very hot summer.

Nancy, do you spray L D Braithwaite?

Ann, the cooler temps in the daytime aren't as dramatic as the nighttime. Days are mostly in the 80's (and the sun is still strong), but the nights are what is having the greatest effect on the roses, I think. They are mostly in the 60's. We had a few nights in the lower 40's earlier in the week. Now if it would only rain, the roses would think they're in heaven.

Sherry

Sherry, yes I do spray all of my roses every week with a combo of 2T of Bayer all in one and 1T of Bayer fungicide and a sticker spreader after they have been well watered a couple of hours earlier. LD would not be a good choice for a no spray garden. It still gets some blackspot even with this routine where most of my roses don't. It never stops blooming though even if there is fungus or thrips or hurricanes.
Nancy

I figured that I should give me two and half cents given my starting this thread (lol).

What has been your best performer?

Hands down I can always count on my Elina's for abundant flushes of near perfect blooms. I've also had much success with my Veteran's Honor (the form, color, and vase life are hard to beat).

What has been your worst?

I've about given up on White Christmas and Diana Princess of Whales. Both have been very slow to establish and are extremely stingy bloomers.

What has surprised you?

I'm surprised at how quickly roses respond to some cool weather. It seems like I had several weeks of rain, then came the cool weather and everything began to spring back into life.

What continues to be a problem?

Damn Thrips! Like most of us, I can't seem to shake them off. I shy away from bombing everything with insecticide since that merely makes things worst in the long term. The other problem I'm having is with weeds. I've spent days on my hands and knees picking out weeds just to have them spring back to their former glory days later. I'm currently converting all of my rose beds from the floor to raised beds in an effort to fix this. Let's see.

Thank you to everyone sharing their knowledge and experience!

Adrian.

Hi Adrian
My best performer is Pope John Paul II (on Fortuniana), hands down. One plant gets dozens of roses at a time, and it repeats very nicely. I've also heard that Belinda's dream is good here. I just bought 2 and I'm waiting...
Worst performer: Queen Elizabeth II - very stingy with the blooms.
Your Vet's Honor does well? Mine is a serious problem child. How much sun does yours get?

I do not spray and I grow ALL of my roses in containers.

Lady Hillingdon can get spotted leaves but nothing serious and I manually remove these. Louis Phillippe and Cramoisi Superieur can have a few spotted leaves too just like LH. Duchesse du Brabant and Clementina Carbonieri do not seem to get spots. The color on CC at this time of the year is wonderful! The chilli thrips are a big pain for me. Mrs. Pierre S. du Pont and poor little Sweet Chariot really is suffering from those vermin! What do you guys do to combat them??

Interesting how some things change while others stay the same.

Avalon: My Vets Honor gets a fair amount of morning sun. I have to say that it is a heavy feeder and performs best when fertilized consistantly. Belinda's Dream is a work-horse in my garden where I have almost as many of it as I do of Elina. I recently purchased two Pope John Paul II after being pleasantly surprised by the growth of one that I ordered from J&P in the Fall on own-root. I was able to find it at a nursery in Miami. Appearantly a nursery up in Central Florida has begun to take up the slack left behind from MerryGro and is selling J&P roses on Fortuniana rootstock under the name of Armstrong Roses. I've spotted a few of these roses at my local Home Depot in Pembroke Pines. Well, bottom line, and a return from my tangent, PJP II is creating quiet a sensation in my garden.

Peggy: My hat goes off to you. I can't get into OGRs. I can just imagine that they're huge in their pots. I was just up to the Cool Roses farm this weekend and Geoff echoed what has been a growing problem in my garden, regular thrips. He said that the weather is keeping the Chilli Thrips at bay but that the regular thrips are reaking havoc everywhere. I was warned against overly using ConserveSC and to stock up if I found any for sale as it has become restricted due to nurseries over-using it to combat Chilli Thrips.

In other news: My raised beds project is 40% complete and coming along nicely. I hope to post pics some time in the future.

Enjoy our Spring while it lasts Florida!!!

Adrian.

Adrian, I treat my teas and chinas like HTs and they don't seem to mind that treatment. I prune them to keep them in bounds. I don't get as many flowers as those that are allowed to reach gigantic proportions but they bloom well enough for me. The teas' flowers do not sit up like a HT but their nodding flowers are charming nonetheless. I recently purchased Belinda's Dream. I heard it holds its pink flowers upright like a HT (it has HT shape too), is fragrant and because it is an Earthkind rose it doesn't need spraying! :-)

Oh, I forgot to mention the climber America - clusters of very large( 5'-6') blooms, clear unfading coral pink color, good repeat, grows fast. I just planted them recently, so I hope that this performance isn't just the honeymoon!