Thanks, Jackie. Your garden is gorgeous!!!

I'd love a climber, but don't know where to put it. Luckily I don't have deer in my neighborhood. Little white pet sounds great. Thanks for the encouragement! I want to make this work :)

Below is my backyard in early June. It's south facing and the afternoon sun is pretty intense. The pots by the trees get some afternoon shade. The pink flowers are cistus (sunset rockrose). They mainly bloom in the spring. The hedge is salvia hot lips. It's all looking pretty scraggly at the moment. I may want to replace the salvia hedge with 3'x3' rose bushes and the cistus with a taller variety rose.

Wow - your space looks perfect for roses - lots of sun! If I were you I would do some more investigating before buying any roses. Going to your local nursery and buying grafted roses (the "bare root" ones you spoke of) is not what I would do. My reason is that grafted roses are actually 2 roses - one is the top (called the "scion"), and the other is the roots (called the "rootstock"). They are grafted together at the soil level, in a lumpy thing called the "bud union". In our warm climate, my experience has been that the usual rootstock on roses sold here is one called 'Dr. Huey'. The problem here is that Dr. Huey likes our climate so much that it decides to take over the entire bush, and puts up its own canes within 2-3 years, and can then take over and kill the scion. Dr. Huey is a once blooming climbing rose with medium sized red flowers (if you look around at neglected gardens near you, you will see LOTS of unintended Dr. Huey bushes!), which in our climate gets horrible powdery mildew all over it. To prevent Dr. Huey from taking over you have to continuously recognize and tear off the emerging Dr. Huey canes, which is a pain, especially if you have roses in a hedge - OWE!

What I would recommend is that you purchase "own root" roses, which are grown on their own roots - there is only one rose, not two. This means that any new cane that shows up is good news, as it is part of the rose you want.

Own root roses are becoming available at local nurseries, but the best selection is from mail order nurseries. I order my roses from "Heirloom Roses" and "Rogue Valley Roses" - both are in Oregon. You can google them. They both have lovely catalogues in addition to their web sites (personally I like to look at catalogues). They both sell old and new roses. Another nursery I love is the "Antique Rose Emporium", which is in Texas. You can easily get catalogues from these nurseries, and then you can see all of the different kinds of roses which are available. Many times these nurseries will ship you roses in "bands", which are very small pots. These are just as good (and probably better) roses than you can buy locally. They just need some time to get bigger before you plant them in your garden. What most folks do is to plant them immediately into a one gallon pot, and let them grow in it (out side only!) for 6-12 months, at which point they are big enough to plant. In our climate, you can actually plant roses 12 months of the year. The only conditions I would avoid planting in is if it has been so rainy that the soil is completely saturated (I will be SO HAPPY if that happens this Fall/WInter!)- wait until it has had time to drain and dry out a bit.

The types of re-blooming (as opposed to once blooming) roses which do best in my garden (contrary to what "they" will tell you, roses are VERY climate specific) are old tea roses, china roses, hybrid musk roses, and polyanthas. Look at the catalogues - once you have found some roses you think you would like, look them up on the website "Help Me Find/roses". A couple of things to keep in mind:

1) The higher the climate "zone" numbers at the bottom for a rose, the better it will like our warm climate (I, and I think you, are zone 9).

2) The sizes they say the roses will grow on HMF are smaller than they really get in our climate.

After you get a list of roses you think you would like, I would post it on here and as about people in the Bay Area who actually grow those roses what they think about them - that is the best way to find out, next to growing them in your own garden.

Lastly, you are lucky re where you live! There is a thing in the Spring called the "Celebration of Old Roses". It is in El Cerrito - very close to you. There are roses for purchasing there, and also an immense display of all kinds of roses - thousands of them laid out by type - cut blooms in little glasses.

There are also 2 local fabulous roses gardens where you can go and look at various types of roses growing - one is the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, and the other is the Historic Rose Garden in the Sacramento Historic Cemetery. I would go see these in Oct, when they will have lots of roses blooming, or of course next Spring.

Sorry to be so long, but I can tell by looking at your garden that you are a gardener, and just need some encouragement! (BTW, if I had your garden I would plant a huge climbing rose like, say Madame Alfred Carriere, on that fence way in the back, and start it up that huge fir tree - it would go up to the top!).

Hope the above is helpful.

Jackie

Jackie,

Wow. Wow. Wow. I can't thank you enough for the info!!! I learned so much more from your post than from hours and hours of research this past month. The "own root" vs "grafted root" business had thoroughly confused me. Now I'm clear. The info about bands, zones, and varieties is also extremely helpful.

I too love a good catalogue and will order some from the companies you mention. My only concern- I've been reading about this horrible rrd and that it's that it's centered in Texas. Should I be concerned about ordering from that area?...

Annies Annuals in Richmond does "own root" roses. They don't have a huge selection, but there are a few that interest me. There is a hybrid musk called "Felicia" and a polyantha called Phyllis Bide, though the latter may get too big for my garden. Btw, my backyard isn't as big as it looks in the photo. My neighbor and I share a short fence, so the fir tree you refer to is in her yard. Though I could possibly add some kind of structure for a climbing rose. Hmmm...

I'd never heard of El Cerrito's rose celebration. Will definitely check it out. And I'd love to make it to the other gardens you mention. A trip to the UK last summer was definitely an inspiration to start this rose project... sigh... But we are blessed with a much warmer climate. They're saying we're about to have a 'godzilla' el nino. Always one extreme or another.

Many thanks again, Jackie!

You're welcome. Some last comments -

1) I don't order roses from Texas, for the reason you mention. I just get their catalogue - it is full of great info, and also the owner has written 2-3 books on warm weather roses which are fantastic.

2) Annie's Annuals is a wonderful nursery. A fabulous rose they sometimes have is a mystery rose (mystery roses are roses that have been found, but no one knows who they really are - if they are fantastic roses they are put into commerce under their "mystery" or "study"name) called "Grandmother's Hat" (the rule is single quotes for the original names of the roses, and double quotes for mystery or study names).

3) 'Phyllis Bide' is a climbing polyantha - it likes our climate

Jackie

Another thing I forgot to mention - if you hang out on the "Antique Roses" forum on here, you will see notices of the Celebration of Roses, Open Garden days at the 2 large rose gardens, and other interesting stuff. The gardens are open all of the time, but on certain days in the Spring they have special days with tours, lectures, etc..

The Historic Rose Garden at the Historic Sacramento Cemetery was established as a place to grow all of the mystery roses found in CA. Most of them are not in commerce, but at their Open Garden in the Spring they sell many of them which have been propagated from their collection. It is the only place some of them are available. There will be a catalogue, which you will be able to find on the Antique Rose forum.

jackie

Mary, I have ordered roses recently from Antique Rose Emporium and have a pending order and they have been fantastic plants. No RRV.

I live up in the Santa Cruz Mts and have been growing roses for 38 years. I use to live In San Jose and had heavy clay soil. I would get lots of compost and rototiller it in to help with drainage. Here we have very sandy soil and I add peat moss to help retain water.

I plant new roses starting in the Fall, bare root, than later in Spring from pots. One good thing with pots is you know what roses you are getting and how healthy they are. I have had bare root roses take forever to put out leaves and even some that never did. I prune once a year in Spring after the end of the rainy season. I have them on drippers for watering. I fertilize with Bayer Advanced 2-in-1 Systemic Rose and Flower Care Granules.

I have bought roses from local nurseries and big box stores. There seems to be no difference except price. For Old Garden Roses there is Roses of Yesterday in Corralitos.

Roses of Yesterday

In the shades of color that you are interested in I have grown these roses for many years, mainly HT's.

white.

JFK (1965) Hybrid Tea, White, Strong fragrance

Julia Renaissance (1996) Shrub, Pale Pink - almost White, Mild fragrance

pink

Duchesse de Brabant (1857)Tea; Lt. Pink Cupped Double; Repeats; Strong Tea fragrance

Bewitched (1967) Hybrid Tea, Bright Pink, Damask fragrance
Double Delight (1977) Hybrid Tea, Dk. Pink/Cream, Strong Spicy fragrance

apricot/peach

Brandy (1982) Hybrid Tea, Apricot, Mild Sweet Tea fragrance

Brass Band (1993) Floribunda; Tree, Apricot Orange, Mild Damask fragrance

Sundowner (1978) Apricot, Grandiflora, Strong
Tropicana (1960) Hybrid Tea, Coral Orange, Strong Fruity fragrance

You can view my roses and other gardens here to see what else grows in our climate.

My Roses

Good luck and enjoy your roses.

Thanks, Jackie, I love the look of your Phyllis Bide. My options open up if it can take a bit of shade. I'm an Annie's Annuals fanatic! I'll try to get there this week to see her roses in the display gardens. I do love the pictures of "Grandmother's Hat". Perhaps it's not too difficult for a novice? They also sell a shade rose called Lyda which looks nice for my patio. And there's one called 'Nearly Wild' which I'd love to have, but it's for zones 4a-9a, so maybe not? Incidentally some maps list my Oakland address as 10a and others as 9b. So I'm not really sure where I am...

I'll check out the Antique Roses forum for garden tours. I grew up in near Sacramento, and I think I visited the old cemetery at some point. My grandma used to take me to gardens when I was a kid. The Berkeley Rose Garden, though small, has always been my favorite. Maybe since it's relatively small, I felt like I got to know the roses there. And I love the view!

Thanks, Sheila. Is the general rule of thumb to avoid big box stores and nurseries? I'd like to get a few drift roses, but don't know where to order for fear of this disease.

Thanks for the tips, caflowerlover. Your roses are beautiful! More new varieties to look into :) I've only been gardening for four years and had a steep learning curve with this clay/concrete soil. Only now do I feel ready to attempt roses. I mainly use a manure mix compost from Annie's Annuals which seems to work pretty well. The drainage issue hasn't been too bad so far... but then we haven't had much winter rain. The bayer fertilizer sounds good. I normally use compost for fertilizing, but figure roses will need an extra boost.

Mary, I have had great experiences with Antique Rose Emporium, High Country Roses, Rogue Valley Roses, Heirloom, Northland Rosarium and Greenmantle. I want own root roses of particular varieties and that is why I don't shop at the box stores. Jacqueline has great advice and a lovely garden. ARE roses have been the largest generally I wanted to say and took off so quickly. Good luck, although you won't need it where you are hopefully.

Mary - when you have decided what to do, please let us in on your rose purchasing plans, and post some pictures of them on here next Spring - can't wait to see them!

Jackie

Will do, Jackie. I'll be combing through all the great advice and resources posted here. Thanks again!