The purple is a ground cover petunia-like thing called "million bells" - I think it is calibrachoa. Comes in zillions of colors.

Jackie

Emily thanks for the extra information on Coral Drift.

I love the Drift roses here, also. Nonstop bloomers.

note to floridarosez9, what part of Fl are you in?

Northeastern Polk County.

I just mentioned in my post on carpet roses that I was out looking for Apricot Drift today and couldn't find it. After reading your post, I'm not sure I want it. I wish they would come out with some new ones. I never see the white or popcorn in my area. Orange is my least favorite flower color, but I'm wondering if I should try Coral instead of Apricot.

msrose, do you have peach drift. By far the best of the drifts next to red. Its very similar in color to apricot drift but a much better performer and bloomer. If you do already have it, go for Coral drift. Its a great bloomer too.

I've had Peach and Sweet for about 3 years and added 3 Pinks (1 in the back yard and 2 in the front yard) this year. Beth, where did you find them for $3?

I really want Sweet drift. I found some at my local Home Depot marked sweet, but they were clearly mislabeled. They looked much more like peach drift.

If I find Sweet this summer I will definitely be picking one up, this thread has me convinced. Every time someone comments and I get an email I end up looking at these photos all over again! :)

Wow, I only have one Drift rose, a Peach Drift standard, but from the above comments it sounds as if I accidentally picked the best one! Here is a pic of it from yesterday - it is getting bigger & bigger.

Wow! Where did you get that peach drift standard. It's amazing!

Just wanted to add my picture of Peach and Sweet. The weight of the blooms and the recent rain has Sweet looking more like a low grower right now, but it's not.

Should anyone with red Drift happen to see I have a question. Would you be able to describe what shade of red it is? Our Menards had that one and Popcorn Drift. So I'll be finding out how they handle growing in Illinois. I tried pink last year and it did mildew badly but that was it's 1st year. I did not have good luck with them before, My soil is better now thou so since y'all been praising them thought I would try again. Sheesh I'll never learn.

Id say the red one is more of a cherry red. Bright and cheerful. It also has a yellow eye. The flowers on red are smaller than that of peach or coral drift. But the red is still superb, being rarely out of bloom.

Thanks for the shade of red Drift. I like To keep orange red in a separate bed and do have a spot for a cherry red.

Looks like there will be a new White Drift coming out in 2016. Does this look like the original white?

White Drift

msrose, this is defintely not the original white, looks more like the revised white (icy it's called). also the coral drift is not orange, orange, it's a wonderful reddish coral and just as an aside, it holds its blooms longer than any of the drifts. jacqueline, your standard peach rose is just magnificent! havent seen any standards in my part of the country.

by the way, havent heard of a new white drift, where did you get that info?

I'm not MSrose but out of curiosity I looked it up and found this link http://starrosesandplants.com/plants/groundcover-rose/white-drift-rose

it sure does look like what was sold as "icy" drift. hard to tell without seeing size of bush and blooms in comparison. I'm gonna google icy drift and see what it says there.

this gets more and more confusing. these are closeups of the original white drift which I've owned for many years, size of the entire bush is posted above.

I called my local nursery in the off chance I could get the rose specialist. She said both the original white drift and the icy drift have been discontinued and replaced with what they are calling the new white drift. Supposedly it is a second generation and is more disease resistant. A few nurseries are getting them in this spring and summer but they won't be mass market available until 2016.

She said the original white drift looks very close to the white out knock out rose. They were too similar and confusing for nurseries and consumers.

Beth, I also had the whiteout rose which as I understand it did not have the name "knockout" attached to it because it did not live up to the other knockouts. Technically, it was not a knockout. My original white drifts dont look anything like or even grow similar to any of my close to 85 kos.

so much for asking the expert......we may have to live with the confusion.

I love your pictures of the original white! I sure wish they were still selling it. I think I'll try the new white when it comes out. Maybe I'll get lucky and find one this year.

Emily, since you've been growing Drifts for a long while can you tell me if they are as easy to root from cuttings as the KOs are? If so I may try to find someone locally who has the original white or icy white since I don't have either.

havent tried to root any since I have so many.....what I can tell you is that the pink is the only spreading groundcover type and it does spread. the pics I originally posted of the pink were cut back in January to 1/3 the size shown (this is suggested by the hybridizer) and when the stems get so heavy with buds and blooms, they touch the ground and presto.....they root! the sweet doesnt spread like the pink but it sprawls and gets bigger and bigger and the stems root all by themselves. in fact, I've had little plants keep coming up after the mother bush has been moved. msrose and beth, I would send you some cuttings of the original white drift if I knew how to reach you.

Thanks Emily, email me at beth9116@suddenlink.net

Emily, I found this post and after re-reading it all I see a lot of my questions have been answered here. In fact, LOL, I answered some of my own questions from research I had done. I have trouble with memory. Not dementia but a small non growing tumor but it does effect memory. Thank you for re-directling me to this post.

I was at a nursery yesterday that had Drift roses and checked to see if they had the new white yet, but they didn't.

Emily, you mentioned that the Sweet Drift is the largest of your drifts, and noted its size, which was quite helpful to me. If it isn't too much trouble, could you please tell me how big your other drifts are? I'm most interested in coral, red, and pink, but also thinking about peach. I've only come across the "1 1/2 x 2 1/2" tag size, but am assuming that at least the pink gets somewhat wider than that, and that they probably all (except sweet) come closer to 2ft in height. I haven't been able to find any depth measurements anywhere on these, and would definitely like to know how much space they're going to need in between my other plants. Also, someone mentioned that their pinks mildewed -- have you had any diseases/problems with any of the drifts, or are they all really as disease "resistant" as they say? I did just get a few small pinks delivered through the mail, and they all have reddish spots all over the leaves and buds...not sure if that's normal for this time of the year and/or from the shipping process, or if I should be concerned. Thank you in advance.

I just wanted to add in info from my zone. I have the popcorn drift - it has done really well for 2 seasons. Continually blooms. At one point I could not see any green because of the amount of blooms. Sometime breaks from blooming, but is quick to get going again. The yellow is very short lived, so you may as well get a white drift anyways. I do deadhead by hand regularly. I find the white looks a bit dirty at the end of its cycle. I also have a few from the oso easy line - mango salsa & paprika. They have different colours available than the drifts. I find that they are suitable for the same use as the drifts. Just in case someone is looking.

Thanks much for sharing your experience. I'm not a fan of popcorn drift (or yellow roses in general), but the white drift does look nice (however, it is not available in my area, so it would have to be another mail-in order, which I'm a bit reluctant to do now...would love to have some of Emily's cuttings though, but have no experience at all with rooting them). I did see a popcorn drift at a local nursery this week, and it had pretty pink spots all over the flowers (was told it's because it's nearing the end), which I actually loved, but unfortunately it doesn't always look like that, ha! I've looked into the OSO Easy and Flower Carpet lines too, and decided against both...can't remember exactly why (am getting all the comments mixed up now), but recall both disease problems and something about shooting long canes up and/or being too tall in general. Just heard back from the seller of the small pink drifts I purchased online, and was told the reddish spots it has all over its leaves and buds are normal for the end of the season in their area (SC), and that they've already been sprayed (with Cleary 3336, which I learned is a fungicide, and isn't exactly cheap either). The drifts I saw at a local nursery had spotless leaves that looked much more shiny than these too. I wanted roses that don't have to be sprayed, and am hoping that these little pinks from out-of-state won't have ongoing problems here (OH). If they do, I'll take care of them but probably won't be getting any more. The only other roses I have are the double Knockouts (in pink and red), and their leaves look pretty chewed up halfway through the season, but they're towards the end of the flowerbed where you can't see the leaves well unless you get up-close, and they do continue to bloom and return each year (for several years now) despite of the leaf damage.

will try to answer all the questions...the coral, red, peach and original white (not icy drift) all get about 2'x2-1/2' when established. as noted, the sweet will sprawl wider than that when established and will root by itself just laying on the ground, I have also moved more than one and later found small ones coming up where it used to be. the pink (my absolute favorite) is a true ground cover and will get wider than tall, especially if you cut it back to 1/3 its size every January (the hybridizers recommend this). for the most part, the drifts are pretty disease free, I have a couple of peach bushes that dont get morning sun until around noon so I spray them with Bayer and they're fine. all in all, a nice rose bush that keeps giving and giving. This time of year all my roses are suffering from the heat so I dont expect more from them than they are able to give.

Jackie, your roses are beautiful :)

Emily, thanks much for responding!

Pampered Peeps, I'm in Cincinnati and got a pink and red drift on the sale rack at Lowe's not expecting much and certainly not expecting to fall for them. I thought they'd be a good filler. However, I love them. They look great in my polyantha bed and I hope to get some more next year. (Hopefully, also for $3!) My neighbors got Popcorn, but it has reverted to peach and white!

Vaporvac, that is an awesome price, and I think I would love your neighbors' reverted popcorn! :) The pink spotted popcorns at the local nursery looked so pretty (actually liked them the most out of the bunch), but the regular yellow and white popcorn color just isn't my taste at all. Funny how that is.

The small pinks I got through the mail cost $13 each for a quart size, and they are rather small, but hopefully won't take too terribly long to get to mature size. The drifts at the local nursery are all $25 each for a #2 size, which is large. Haven't checked Lowe's but probably should have (will try to as we get closer to the end of the season). I'm in the Cleveland area.

Holy cow! That's expensive! You should check now as they mark stuff down all the time. ( See my post on Austins I "found" there: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4059156/darcey-bussell-and-or-heathcliff?n=27) They grow super fast and are floriferous. The red is actually a pretty deep red in bud, lightening as it opens and then deepening again. My red is fragrant, but I don't recall the pink having any scent. That one makes me happy.

The local nursery had a 50% off sale, so I bought one each of their #2 Drifts. Kept them indoors for less than a week, during which time I noticed the Pink started to have holes in its leaves like my Knockouts always do, the Red's leaves started to turn yellow (mainly in the middle of the plant, so it's even more "split" in the middle now), and the Coral got covered with powdery mildew all over its beautiful flowers and some leaves. Guess keeping them indoors was a bad idea, but also interesting to see what kinds of problems they might develop, especially late in the season. I must say though, I was not at all expecting powdery mildew on the Coral...if anything, I thought it would be on the Pink. Went ahead and cut off all of its pretty flowers (after finally planting them all outside), and going to try spraying with baking soda now since I don't have anything else at the moment. It is good that neither the Red nor the Pink got affected by the Coral's PM. Just sad since the Coral was my fav. The small Pinks I bought from out-of-state have reddish spots on the leaves rather than holes in the leaves, and that's despite of them having been sprayed by the nursery they came from. Definitely planning on getting the Bayer granules from now on, although not so happy about needing to.

Its performance really depends on where one is at and how they are grown (spray or no spray). I have three drifts, coral, red and peach? The red one is healthy and repeats well, but the other two are rubbish, bogged down by blackspot. Glad that they do well for some, but coral and peach are getting out this garden

My Popcorn Drift are wonderful, they bloom ALL the time. I will never see the huge plants pictured here in the warm zones but they flourish here and I love them. The colors change slightly with position, interesting to watch. The top two will have the occasional pink or yellow blooms and the rest don't. I am trying to learn what makes them change color patterns, dryness, shade, etc. -as I treat them all the same.

where is my pic? guess I didn't do it correctly.

Did anyone buy the new white Drift? I saw it in the nurseries, but it wasn't near as pretty as the original white Emily has, so I didn't get it. I thought about getting Popcorn, but I didn't see it this year.

as stated before, the red, coral, white and pink are the hardiest and best blooming of all my drifts. I have also said this new icy drift is nowhere near like the original white drift, dont care what various nurseries tell you. Isnt it interesting that you can hardly find it at local nurseries?

I know. I've never seen White drift or Popcorn drift in the nurseries around here. I do have red, pink, Sweet (which I love), coral, Apricot and Peach. Of all of them I like the blooms of Apricot drift the best. They are big and fluffy. But my Coral and Peach bloom the most. Red is also a very good bloomer. I like all the drift roses. I'm currently wanting to try Popcorn, but I never see it locally.

All the Drifts are patented. No cuttings or plants can lawfully be sold or exchanged.

Given away?

Thought I'd share a pic of my two Sweet drifts - planted them last year to surround our post light. They've bloomed nonstop all season! Love the varying shades of pink. They're about 2-3 times bigger than when they went into the ground...rather slow compared to some of my David Austins that grew 6 feet this spring/summer, but that might be an unfair comparison. :) I'm hoping they'll keep spreading.