Thanks for the link, Henry. I'll have to keep an eye out for those in the future. Savanah is lovely!

I'm curious about Radler's Peachy Keene--sounds like he has produced another highly BS resistant rose. Peach I like. Maybe businesses can stop planting that one type of cherry red Knock Out if Radler can keep offering more BS resistant choices. Myself, I really like his Sunny Knock Out.

Kate

I like Sunny KO too, Kate! I have it in a bed with Carefree Sunshine, Tiger Eye Sumac, echinacea, heliopsis, baptisia, tall ornamental grasses, and arundo, and a dark purple smoke tree. The butterflies love that bed.
Seil, Chamblee has the Savannah rose. I looked at the test roses at the Biltmore gardens last summer and I was dying to know the names. So many looked familiar, and now I know a few are ones I am growing! Good news!

Thanks for posting Henry!

So did I miss the part where anybody specifically says they don't spray these roses? Since Queen Elizabeth won 'Best Established Rose', a logical assumption would be they are still regularly spraying fungicides.

I'd love to be proven wrong on this.

What does "Best Established Rose" mean?

Radler roses do really well here so I'd gladly try any new rose William Radler introduces...

Queen Elizabeth on the other hand does not work as a no spray here either... "Best Established Rose???...

I was able to find Phloxy Baby this year. I think I'm going to like it. Planted a bit away from the house so I'm hoping that Bambi does not find her.

"This garden is carefully maintained by Biltmore Rosarian, Lucas Jack. His role is to maintain the integrity of the trial, allowing NO SPRAY or chemicals to be used in the garden and to employ organic methods of growing."

https://redneckrosarian.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/biltmore-international-rose-trials-2014/

I'm curious what Flying Kiss looks like.

Queen Elizabeth stays clean here in Kansas in my no-spray garden.
Has anyone seen Flying Kiss for sale? I'll be in line to buy that one. Popcorn Drift is one of my newer favorites. The color changes from bud to bloom are lovely. Radler and Ping Lim introductions are ALWAYS healthy and clean in my garden! I'll buy whatever they introduce even without seeing it in a test garden first. Kordes and Meilland roses have proven hardy and healthy too.

Any good tips on how to build up the soil so that artificial fertilizers aren't required as much? Im trying to make my rose beds "sustainable". Not necessarily organic (because I do spray) but at least build up the soil well enough so that they can live happily without the use of constant fertilizer. Right now my rose beds are amended but still quite sandy (S.FL soil) but I'd like to really work on improving the soil.

Good to hear, Paul :) BTW, your videos have help me soooo much. Thank you for all the work you do.

mad_gallica's point is a good one.

QE defoiliates repeatedly here in Asheville where the Biltmore House is. It was recently discarded from a no-spray garden that I visit. Here's my guess: the trial roses like 'Savannah' are not sprayed during the trial, but the "established roses" are sprayed with something that counts as "organic," such as sulfur or copper.

Portraits of the winners http://tinyurl.com/nwtc9j2. FlyingKiss is second to last.

Someone suggested recently that 'Peachy Keen' is the hardiest apricot climber, plus it won "most resistant" in a climate with truly terrible blackspot pressure. I hope that resistance holds up with wider exposure to races of blackspot. Sounds like a really important new rose.

Michael, I'm a lot more skeptical than you are. My guess is that the trial roses are sprayed to death with sulfur or copper, and the established roses are sprayed with who knows what.

If you look up Earth Kind Trials, it takes approximately 3 seconds to find out that they don't spray the roses. Every articles says they don't spray the roses. So a reasonable conclusion is that they don't spray the roses. With this trial, it takes super-Google-fu to dig up a year old blog post from someone with no official ties to the garden to get anything. So either they spray and aren't keen on spreading that news, or their publicity people don't know their job.

HI All. Lots of questions. Let me see what I can do to answer them.

Soil health. Focus on compost and adding organic materials like composted leaves, mushroom compost etc. Generally if that hasn't been done start this way. Add around 2 inches of compost to the entire bed. On top of that hardwood mulch to whatever depth you usually do. Over the year that compost will help break down the mulch and next year it will be compost and you add more mulch on top. If you want to jump start the process get some work castings. About every two feet with a bulb auger drill a hole and put castings in it. Use organic fertilizers and avoid chemical drenches in the soil and also those 3 in one products.

Regarding spraying. For those who don't know I created and am coordinator of the Biltmore trials so I wrote the rules and care protocols. The trial roses are not regularly sprayed with fungicides and in fact not at all with anything. We have a three strikes and your out rule. If the rose exhibits blackspot coverage of more than 35% it gets sulfur spray. If it does it three times in one year it's pulled from the trials. To date any rose that had to be sprayed this way was yanked or scored poorly and wasn't a factor. The healthy roses make themselves known very quickly.

These trials are advertised and promoted as sustainable. That being said good to know we need to make that better known and easier to find.

The rest of the garden is not regularly sprayed with chemical fungicides. I can find out exactly what they are using (I think Cease is one) but this is not one of those spray regularly and rotate products gardens. A lot of work has gone into it over the last five years to make it more sustainable.

I agree with sentiments regarding Queen Elizabeth but for some reason in that garden it thrives. Go figure!!

Thank you for the clarification, Paul.

Thanks Henry for the reference.

Hey Paul, your videos is my bible to rose gardening..lol. I learn a lot from them. Thanks for taking the time to teach us about roses. I am still waiting for recent videos of your garden!

QE is one or the oldest rose in my garden. I have no problem with it. It does well in my garden. Like all my roses, I get bs later in the season. It doesn't defoliate the plant but I snip the leaves off. It is one of my favourite rose of all time

I don't enhanced the soil in any ways around my roses. I do add manure and bone meal once in a while but other than that, it is on its own. I don't spray, I try to live with bs but I am trying to grow more disease resistant ones. Then again, I am so used to bs and mildew that it is part of
"rose culture" for me. I try not to let it bother me since I have a short growing season.

OK I just never like the quick photos done by someone else like what was in the PR release by Biltmore for the 2015 winners . Savannah (KORvioros) is such a pretty rose and beautiful in bud as well as open. Here is one of my images.

Here at New Flora we do not spray sulfur or any other fungicide in the rose trials. Sulfur is actually quite toxic to some people and cause severe allergic reactions -we are quite careful about any applications of sulfur for our benefit and that of our employees. For applications in Oregon we are required to use a full protective body
suit and a respirator -the same protection that is required for the more
toxic pesticide products. We think very few home gardeners are going to use sulfur for the above reasons. Even Oregon Tilth which controls our designation for organic farms is limiting the use. It may be natural, but that does it mean it is safe.

Chris

You are right. Savannah is a beautiful rose and so is your photograph. Thank you for showing it. There aren't too many photos of Savannah yet on Help Me Find Roses.

Agree Savannah is fetching! Beauty backed by health & scent is my cup of tea. Placed an order yesterday with Chamblee's, along with Summer Romance & Polar Express. (Last call to order from Chamblee's for this-season shipping is by noon today Central Time.) Highest ratings for blackspot resistance for these three. They'll be put to the test in this no spray, hot & humid central Virginia garden.

Queen Elizabeth reigned here for many years in stalwart health.

Hi jasminerose - hint taken I will get more photoas & info to HMF

vasue - great choices. All really good roses. i would be hard pressed to say Savannah is better on disease than Polar Express as it won an ADR. So far Savannah has not been entered at ADR and I don't think Summer Romance has been entered at this point. ADR limits the number of entries each year by breeder so it can be a slow process but all you have chosen should be excellent.

Thanks Henry for posting this. I was happy to find out about the rose chat podcast.

Hey Paul

Keep up the good work and thank you very much for your description on rose care and focus on soil health and the three strikes rose out. your videos. They are great. Thanks

Does Biltmore have to contend with midge? If so, what Rx is employed?

Are judges' scorecards made available for public online viewing (like they are for roses at the UGA Trial Garden)?

What watering is provided to the contestants?

The judging rules seem to heavily weight rose performance in the week of judging by the International (artists/government representatives/other celebrities/etc) Jury - at the expense of performance judged during the rest of the year (by only the Standing jury). This may be so that Rose Trial week is more than just eat/drink/dress up/be merry. But doesn't that potentially mask problems such as high heat summer performance? I am thinking again of the UGA Trial Garden rose assessment scorecard, which equally weights each month's performance.

I am pretty sure they judge the roses throughout the year. Paul has mentioned it before I believe. Maybe on one of his videos he breaks it down.

The roses are judged 4 times per year by a permeant jury. January before pruning, May during spring bloom, July during the heat of summer and late September to assess fall blooming. That ends up being a total of 10 judging dates by the permeant jury. The international jury only judges at the end of the trial period and that is also awards day. In the end the permeant jury's scores far outweigh the international jury.

Watering is soaker hoses as needed. All roses are treated equally in terms of watering feeding etc.

There is some midge but I don't know at the moment what specifically they use. They are making a strong effort to make the garden more attractive to beneficials.

Hope this helps.

Paul

Thank you.

diane previously posted this
Biltmore International Rose Trials Rules

on another Biltmore thread. I do realize that the awards timetable has since shifted. 10 judging dates by the permanent (Standing) jury are mentioned above. For this year's awards, are July and September the months receiving 3 years worth of judging? Does the International jury's single assessment in Sept. still count for 25% of the final score? Does each of the Standing jury's 10 assessments contribute equally (7.5%) to the remaining 75% of the total score? Were this year's contestants planted the same time (spring 2013) as last year's contestants?

I've heard the roses at Biltmore in late September are spectacular. As midge is present at Biltmore, its organic approach to suppression must be quite effective. Here in NJ, midge (and its sequelae) is still quite a problem in mid-late September. Like ebola, you can't have just "some" midge without effective treatment. And, sometimes, not even with Rx. Many forum members would love to learn the details of Biltmore's success.

We used to just judge 8 times over two years when we did the awards in spring. We moved the awards to fall because the garden is more predictable then in terms of bloom. Also, in late May we were competing against other trials and rose events.

The International jury does not count for 25% of the score. They are simply treated as extra judges on the 10th judging. I'll ask what they are doing for midge.

Today's the big day!

Any update on midge control methodology at Biltmore?

I was at Biltmore earlier this year, the roses were blooming, but many just had buds. I did notice a bunch of sachets hanging on some of the canes. I asked one of the workers and they were for thrips (which are usually more of a problem in the spring). I looked into getting some for my yard, but the shipping was too prohibitive.

Paul Zimmerman Roses

The International jury does not count for 25% of the score. They are
simply treated as extra judges on the 10th judging. I'll ask what they
are doing for midge.

Any update (midge Rx at Biltmore)?

I have not had a chance to ask but will.

Sorry for the delay. Here is the response from Emily Wilson who is head rosarian up there.

"We honestly do not do a thing for rose midge. It has not been troublesome enough to need to do anything about. Unfortunately, they have a few generations throughout a growing season. But some suggestions would be prune out and destroy infested plant parts, and removal of old mulch in the spring (then of course reapplying new) to eliminate overwintering pupae. These two things would hopefully lower populations significantly."

Wow - time really does fly.

Are the votes from today still being tallied?

rifis (zone 6b-7a NJ), they were released on Saturday.

Easy Elegance Screaming Neon Red (Ping Lim) won Best Overall, Best Shrub, Best Growth Habit, and Best Disease Resistance.

Dee-Lish (Meilland) won the Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil Award for Most Fragrant

Lion King (Lim) selected for The Edith Wharton Award for excellence in a Floribunda Rose

Anastasia (Michel Adam) selected for the Pauline Merrell Award for excellence in a Hybrid Tea.

Thank you, Diane.

What was your source for the news; is a link available?

The American Rose Society's Facebook page.