Hi marcindy,

I was reading somewhere on Gardenweb (it could very well have been on the Antique Roses Forum) a comment by Kim Rupert about planting, I believe, two Peace rosebush for his sister and how he cared for them - basically NOT pruning at all but only taking off the spent blooms back to the abscission point - I'll see if I can find the thread and post a link to it.

The result of Kim's treatment was that the Peace bushes developed into the large, strong bushes of earlier Peace roses.

Tricia

Hi Tricia... thanks for looking up the thread... if this is the case then this is bad news for me... usually my Peace rose canes freeze back to the snow line. I guess I can't expect a rose bred in the balmy south of France to do well in our northern frozen tundra.

My question would be where are you buying them. Since Peace is sold nearly everywhere and in every quality point imaginable could it be a matter of a poorer quality plant? I know the Peace I bought last time was a bagged rose from a big box store. Not the best quality and it did show in the plants performance. It died last winter and I wasn't surprised. Maybe a plant from a better nursery might give you more of what your expecting.

We inherited a Cl Peace rose when we moved into our house 25 years ago. I don't think it started as a climber, because it was planted next to the driveway in a row of HTs, with nothing to climb on. Family home, and from the lore that row was planted in the 1950s. The bushes behind the row grew, and the HTs dwindled in the shade, except the Peace, which I think mutated to a climber, climbed 10 ft up the bushes, and prevailed.

It was huge, healthy, and produced fabulous blooms until about 2 years ago, when it died suddenly (life span of 60ish years not bad). I managed to root a cutting before it died completely. The new baby rose, which I planted 1 year ago, has put out 3 canes about 4 feet long so far. Probably would have done more, but in this drought a small deer herd has moved into our garden (despite being 4 blocks from downtown!), and love to eat all of the leaves. Anyway, yesterday I went to look at it, and 2 new, very fat, large climbing canes are emerging from the base, now about 10 inches long and so far not nibbled. I quickly sprayed the bush with that horrid smelling rotten egg stuff, and will do so all WInter - I want to see what it will do this coming Spring!

Anyway, the point is that my bush is a clone of a very old one, and is very vigorous and healthy, and I expect great blooms in the Spring. If Vintage Gardens were still in business, I would ask them if they wanted a cutting of it, because several folks have said what you said about the new ones not being vigorous, and some of them lived in warm climates, so I don't think the only problem is the cold.

If anyone on here wants a cutting, I hope in about 12 months my bush will be large enough to provide some - just let me know. You would have to come to my house, however, which is in No California.

Jackie

Jackie - thanks for the offer, even if it comes with a string of traveling to N. Califormia...lol Right now we have snow on the ground and expect single digits for the overnight hours. So coming to N. California doesn't sound to bad...lol

Seil - some of my Peace roses were from big box stores as bagged roses in early spring. Hard to resist, and the price is usually really good... I am weak when it comes to roses in early spring...lol The last two I had I bought at a local nursery as potted roses. They were virus free, but it was from roses from that nursery that I got rose midge in my garden. So can't really compare them either.

I think I will try to order it from one of the reputable mailorder nurseries. I saw at least one that explicitly advertised virus free stock... we'll see.

I've never had a very vigorous clone. But this fall, I ordered clean scions & stocks from U.C. Davis. I'm very interested to see if VID stock will be significantly more vigorous.

I suspect it just might--the stuff they sent was HUGE--both scion material & rootstock canes were enormous. I ordered a lot of grand oldies like Peace, Tiffany, Chrysler Imperial, et. al.

Everything is budded to at least one Huey & one Fortuniana (VID) stock. Although the stuff was sent in late Oct. & is supposedly dormant, it doesn't look dormant, but rather, just harvested. I set the scions in sand to try to own-root, also. The timing isn't ideal, but I'm working with a covered hot-bed & mist to try to push them to root now & to give the budded sticks the best chance.

Three weeks in, things look good so far. We'll see this spring how this clean stuff does. I have high hopes to see how these cleaned plants do--both own-root & budded to clean, hefty rootstock sticks.

Here are some of the scion sticks. They were generous with them--I ordered 6 sticks each & received mostly 8 each.

And here are the rootstocks--you could club bears to death with these canes. At least 20" long, fresh & green, beautifully packed.

Hi everyone. I have been stalking for more than 3 years now and I am finally ready to come out from hiding. LoL.

I just wanted to say that I have grown Peace twice. The first time I bought it was a strong bushy plant with robust canes from Home Depot. I had planted it at the right side of my backyard and it died after the first winter. Nevertheless in its short life, it was bushy and seemed to be thriving but had blackspot like crazy.

Two years later I bought another Peace at a local gardening centre and decided to plant it on the left side of the garden. This bush rarely had blackspot except near the end of fall and is a blooming machine with big blooms. It only stopped blooming near the end of October. (FYI: I live in Toronto, Canada). However, my Peace seems to be more yellow with less pink than most other people's I've seen.

Therefore based on my experience I have to say that it all depends on location (the first location I've eventually noticed is more shady and waterlogged while I noticed roses in the second location to be have less blackspot) and the health of the plant itself.

Based on this experience, I have decided to grow Graham Thomas again (which I bought a second time this summer) and Marilyn Monroe (which died last winter but will purchase next spring).

I hope that helps.

Hi, marcindy. I have been growing this rose for twenty years. Probably have planted and killed 15 of them. A few years ago, I got one from palatine. It even survived last winter.