What happened to the Fortuniana roses in southwest Florida?

16 years ago

It seems that all the local places have stopped carrying fortuniana roses, or carry them very infrequently. Lowes and Home Depot used to carry wonderful fortuniana roses all the time. Now you rarely find one at all. The thing I can't come to grips with, is, if fortuniana roses are the only ones that will survive in southwest florida, why does anyone carry anything else!!? Are these people simply retarded? When I was new to south florida, I mistakenly planted standard dr huey roses, and every single one of them withered away til it was merely a small stick that occaisionally gasped out a weedy wisp of foliage and tiny undernourished rose, while the fortuniana roses I put in the same area are continually loaded with new growth and large, well formed roses on thick sturdy canes. I've heard the same stories from others in my area. What can be done to make people sell plants that actually grow in your particular area!! This is one of my pet peeves.

Dave

Comments (6)

evie1955
16 years ago
I'm with you there...

Where do you live? I might be able to help you with links.

Have you joined your local rose society? They'd be able to tell you where to get fortuniana stock roses.
an_ill-mannered_ache
16 years ago
dave,
check out merrygro(dot)com. they're based here in FLA, have a HUGE selection of roses on fortuniana, and, even better, are having a clearance sale of 33% off. i bought seven new roses at the beginning of june -- the came to about $18/rose, delivered to my door. they were extremely well packed, and since they've been in the ground have already started to flower their heads off and don't seem to have noticed the transplanting... highly recommended!

oh, and i totally agree with you. it's very frustrating that the bigboxes sell many, many plants that won't work here. people waste their money, waste natural resources (think of all the chemicals used to make those roses look good while on the sales floor, and then the darn things die after a couple of months!), and make people think they cannot garden.

support your local small nursery! even better -- grow your own from seed & cuttings!
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Well, I don't grow these in Florida, but I do grow/have grown them here in the midwest so i do have a few notions about them. Gold Medal is a wonderful rose. Easy to grow as it is vigorous, disease resistant, and winter hardy, and it blooms freely and repeats quickly throughout the growing season. The blooms are large and golden yellow with a light red/dark pink edging to some of the outer rows of petals that is very attractive. There is a definite light scent that I like. The blooms open easily and is not particularly affected by hight temps here though I note that you will more and higher temps and humidity than we experience here. Full sun is very good for this one as it makes it most vigorous and healthy. The bush stays about 6' tall and isn't unruly or out of bounds at all making it a good neighbor. Mr. Lincoln is a bit different matter for me here. The bush is vigorous enough getting to about 5 1/2' tall and stays fairly healthy though I do see a little BS once in a while and often see some PM in the late Fall when the humidity and temps at nightime are higher. It is very important to keep your leaves of Mr. Lincoln's foliage dry especially at night to discourage fungal growth. Blooms on Mr. Lincoln can be very pretty and always have a strong old rose scent to my nose that is very pleasant. The blooms are of good size but you do have to watch that this rose I think needs a little protection fro the sun when it is at it's hottest as it will cause the petals to blue/brown and crisp up especially on the outer rows if they are continuously overexposed to high sun and heat. I think that Mr. Lincoln is a stingy bloomer and doesn't repeat bloom as quickly as it should so bloom production was always less than what I wanted. I eventually shovel pruned Mr. Lincoln after about 5 years of growing because I knew there were freer and more vigorous blooming dark reds available. This rose just kind of bored me and paid the ultimate price. Personally I would suggest Veterans' Honor, Olympiad, Beloved, Firefighter, Ingrid Bergman, Liebeszauber, Royal William, or Grande Amore if I were choosing a good dark red rose for my garden. For medium reds I would suggest Pride of England or even Let Freedom Ring as they are reliable garden roses that should do well about anywhere. Just my two cents!! John
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A little more then 1/2 of my garden is on fortuniana and I haven't lost any roses to rootstock failure. I plant all my roses with the graft at ground level. This way during the winter I can cover everything with a good, loose layer of pine needles and when it gets really cold I can throw a big pile of leaf's on top. This seems to keep everything at a constant cold, but not freezing temperature. Last week when we had the ice storm and single digit temps was a good test. I went out to the most exposed area of the garden and checked on one of my Moonstones. The top layer of leaf's was solid ice but the pine needles were good and fluffy. Cold and damp but not frozen. Last year when I lost so many roses, I had uncovered everything and had actively growing roses when we got hit with 22 degree temps and strong winds. A lot of roses died down to the grafts but the grafts were still alive. A month later I had a bunch of fortuniana and Dr Huey suckers growing all over the place. I paid the price for being lazy and not covering everything back up.
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barbcoleus
16 years ago
I bought one from a big box store. When I took it out of the pot to plant it, it had a rootball the size of my fist in a 3 gallon pot. I kept the receipt and six months later when I brought back a dead stick with thorns, you should have seen the look on the clerk's face when according to their policy she had to give me a full refund. I think if more people did that -return plants dead or alive-the information might get back to suppliers.

I don't know where you are in SW Fl but Scriveners in Ft. Myers has a huge assortment of roses on fortuniana stock
parrothead_fa
Original Author
16 years ago
I'll have to check out Scrivner's, it's just rather inconvenient for me, we live all the way in Cape Coral near Pine Island. Too bad, because the home depot fortunianas I bought in 3 gal sizes have done fantastic and are full of huge roses. I far prefer potted to bareroot plants. Also, at $12 -14 per plant, the prices far and away beat any other rose company I've ever seen for roses of that size and quality.
Dave
wildlifegarden
16 years ago
hey dave,
I have the same complaints. merrygro has closed and that sale is just JP clearing out what they may have left but the florida location is being developed for houses, go figure. if H.T.s are what you like, then I would buy up what they have. they ship fedex which costs more, but in the end you will like what you get.

have you checked out coolroses.com in west palm bch? they are great and will ship to you.

there are other companies too, like becnel, S&W, Baygarden who all do fort rootstock.

my issue is that I want old garden roses on fort but they only come own root. so, here is where my insanity has lead...I ordered a plant cloner and a fortuniana rose bush and intend to learn how to bud/graft the own-root roses that are easy to find and comparatively inexpensive and put them onto the fortuniana plants I will root from the parent rose.

this is going to take some time but at least I wont feel like I have to keep the lowes/H.D. roses in a pot just to keep them alive.

michelle
kelpie473
16 years ago
Have you looked at the Nelson's web site? I hadn't for quite a while but they are now open to the public and do have (always have had) some old garden roses on fortuniana root stock. They're in Apopka.

Suzanne

Here is a link that might be useful: Nelson's Florida Roses

What happened to the Fortuniana roses in southwest Florida?

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evie1955

an_ill-mannered_ache

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What happened to the Fortuniana roses in southwest Florida?

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evie1955

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