WANTED: thornless repeat bloomers, Old Roses and Noisettes best
Tropical Gardener
9 years ago
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Tropical Gardener
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Thornless Rose Rankings
Comments (20)I like to use the Peter Beales Classic Roses website for things like this. You can choose to search by thorniness, and they have a category for 'No Thorns' and 'Not Many Thorns' or similar. Then next to each rose, if you click on them, they have a thorniness rating from 0 to 10, with 0 being smooth roses like Zeffy and 10 being some hard-core rugosas. I only have a few 100% thorn-free roses, including Zephirine Drouhin and her sports Kathleen Harrop and Martha, Reines des Violettes, the banksia roses, and Renae (can't get Annie Laurie McDowell here in Oz, so I must settle for Renae). I'm pretty sure the Hybrid Musk rose Nur Mahal is totally smooth too. The other roses I have with hardly any thorns are all Noisettes and Chinas, and I don't know how they would go for you in zone 6, but I can tell you about them if you would like. Other than that, a couple of my Austin's have hardly any thorns at all - somewhere between 0 and 1 on your scale - Windermere is a good example. I am also told that the Delbard climber called Nahema is almost smooth (DA's Heritage is one of its parents, which is not particularly thorny for me, so that figures), it's also very fragrant, repeat blooming, and has very double blooms, so it may be worth looking into. (I certainly will be!). This post was edited by muscovyduckling on Fri, Jul 25, 14 at 3:34...See MoreNeed repeat bloomer, thornless or nearly
Comments (22)Wow beautiful, Diane! Time after time, I have seen so many gorgeous pics of Bro. I am running low on space for now but as soon as one opens up, Bro is going into it. Your pics just seal the deal for me. Vapor, regarding ALM, it is too tender for me to grow as a climber. It will get to about 3ft shrub by the end of the season. Even with the tote protection, some weak branches will die. I think I can get it to 5ft if I fertilize it and give it compost each year. I have been too busy with other things that I have not a chance to care well for it. In spite of that, it still blooms for me every year though not as prolific. I love its clusters of dainty blooms and complete thornlessness. I don't dare to risk it by not providing protection. So I cannot say if it will survive without protection in my zone....See MoreWhat are the best rose books on old roses?
Comments (21)Yes, your location makes a huge difference when considering advice from an author. Quite the opposite of those in zone 9, I first started growing roses while living in zone 4; so I started growing OGRs because they are mostly hardy and robust. I devoured the three Graham Stuart Thomas books, but I didn't take into account that the climate in England is very different from upstate NY. It is not only warmer, but wetter. Moving to the Eastern US coastline in zone 6 was a very different matter. I no longer needed the extremely cold hardy roses, but the amount of rain was now diminished compared to PA, NY, Western MA and the Boston area. All that said, I now understand my climactic conditions and will happily read any rose book for the pleasure of learning about different roses while being aware of my own climatic requirements. If I were to start with those most close to hand, I would recommend the two astonishingly complete masterpieces by Brent Dickerson: 'The Old Rose Adventurer' and 'The Old Rose Advisor.' 'The Old Rose Adventurer' is a 600 page compendium of every once blooming OGR that was every mentioned in any print publication along with that description and image if there was one. The 'Old Rose Advisor' covers all the re-blooming, mostly European, OGRs with 274 images included with the contemporary description. I see that he now has several other books published about roses, but I haven't seen them. These are true reference quality books for the serious rose enthusiast. OK, I can't press "submit" without mentioning GST again and his three books, 'The Old Shrub Roses', ' Shrub Roses of Today ' and 'Climbing Roses Old and New.' All three books were combined into 'The Graham Stuart Thomas Rose Book' that includes a little new information. No other author has so profoundly affected my enthusiasm for OGRs and modern shrub roses. I have read his books over and over and even though I know most of them by heart, I still enjoy reading them. I suppose there is something appealing about his enthusiasm and knowledge. Again, I can't take all his recommendations literally as my climatic conditions are different, but for the most part his observations have been trenchant and his recommendations accurate....See MoreBest European Roses that Repeat
Comments (11)Lindsey - in my garden, I have exactly the opposite issue than you do. Teas, chinas, noisettes, hybrid musks, and polyanthas all do very well, and the few European roses I had dwindled away to nothing. Madame Hardy, planted in good soil in full sun, produced one (1) cane per year, which produced one (1) bloom. Then the cane would die back to the ground, and in the Spring one (1) new cane would grow, and produce one bloom. After several years of this, I gave up. Meanwhile, all of my china hybrids, teas, etc., were and still are very happy. I have a (uneducated) theory why completely different rose types thrive (by thrive I mean, among other things, they grow two or three times the size the rose books say they will - I have trouble finding any rose which likes it here which will stay smaller than 8-9 feet high, even if it is NOT a climber) in my garden, and the other types thrive in yours. Even though you are zone 7, and I am in zone 9 (trending towards 10 b/c of global warming), the other aspects of our climates are very different. We are dry for 6 (now trending towards 8-9) months of the year. No rain, and low humidity. The winters here are cool, with rain, and no snow whatever. I understand that your climate is very humid in the summers, including rain, but has a colder winter than ours (our winter lows rarely get below 40 degrees, and if it freezes, it makes the front page of the newspaper). So, my simple thought is that our climate more closely resembles that of the native climates of where the china, etc. roses come from, and yours more closely resembles the climates in Europe where the European old roses were developed. I learned a long time ago to only try to grow roses which I knew LOVE it here - the others just cause heartbreak. Jackie...See MoreTropical Gardener
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meredith_e Z7b, Piedmont of NC, 1000' elevation