I've been wondering exactly the same thing. Though no stalking - just the very rare visit to Lowes for other things. Never saw any, on quick surveys of garden offerings on these trips. Next time I'm there, I'll try to locate any grower reps on site and question them - they usually know, or can find out when/if. Hopefully Chris can beat me to it.

Even if I see any, don't know what I can do with them. Just got 3 Kordes offerings from Palantine in the ground this past weekend; no more room.

Rifis, as I live in Europe, I can't be of any help. But "no more room" in my case always means that I can squeeze in at least three more.

I'll check out the locals tomorrow and will sound the alarm if I see any.

I've found that you can't always depend on finding the same assortment of roses at the big box retailers garden centers. I've gone to the northside store & they get some varieties that never appear in their southside store and vice versa. And if I drive to the next big city 50 miles away, this same big box retailer has a different assortment.

Yep, that is what I am afraid of.

Yes, but worth a try anyway. This is big Knock Out and "traditional" HT country (meaning, Mister Lincoln and JFK sell huge amounts).

Lowes Union, NJ 7:30P tonight (4/15):

No grower reps on site.

Rack outside garden center: BR (Certified?) KO's on top shelf. Maybe 4 varieties BR HTs (including Mr. Lincoln) bottom shelf. Just like Diane ^^^ said!

Inside garden center gate.: Some Monrovia Flower Carpets (including Amber!) in big pots. Nice. At a very ambitious price point. No thank you.

Also: about 6 varieties in 1.5 gallon pots. Bud union high above soil line. $12 and change. Including Iceberg and Kordes Perfecta. No Kordes from the post-Eisenhower era. I see Iceberg got an ADR back in its time.

Obviously it's a fluid situation. A rose-cam w/live feed at eack Lowes would be nice.

Hahaha, rifis! That's exactly what is needed. I'm glad I'm not the only one. And if they could have a cam on the clearance section too, win/win : )

You never know. If a live cam makes economic sense, why not? ! :)

I have been to two Lowes, one is as far as 40 miles away from my house. Essentially, the same thing as rifis has observed. Flower Carpets at a very inspirational price, plus Sunsprite standards and various mostly hybrid teas in black plastic containers with markings of a North Carolina nursery.

A bunch of the new shrub Kardinal Kolorscape at our Lowe's. There was one Lemon Fizz in there and on a cool overcast day was a lovely clear yellow.

Check Home Depot as well, I saw Kordes Winter Sun yesterday in Maryland.

None at one of the Lowes. KOs, Iceberg, some random hybrid teas, a couple of Drifts, and two Sunsprite standards. Bolero in bags. I'll have to check HD later this week.

It is still a bit early in NJ for the big box stores to have anything besides Knockouts, but that could change with this week's weather. I work in a H.D., and the rose assortments do vary by store. What part of NJ do you live in, and what roses of Kordes are you hoping to get?

I am in Essex County. Got into the Fairy Tales to a large part due to Dianne NJ's postings on this forum (and her Caramel FT picture) several years ago. Now, I have quiet a few ADR and newer Kordes varieties, about twenty at my last count, mostly from Palatine and Chamblee. They are all wonderful garden plants here except for a couple that ball like there is no tomorrow in our rain and another one that has developed galls. I don't spray for fungal diseases.

As you know, as an addict, I need constant fix.....hahaha.... Would love to snatch up a good-sized plants from Lowes and have been hunting, to no avail.... :) Out of sheer frustration, I grabbed a Tahitian Sunset the last time I was at Lowes.

Chris at Newflora -- any insider information?

I'm in Monmouth. Barlow's in Sea Girt is having their "Rose Day" this Saturday and Sunday. I'll be there on Sunday. I'll check Sickles in Little Silver, and Dearborn in Holmdel they both usually have most of their roses out the week before Mother's Day. I still don't hold hope for any Kordes at any local nursery, big box or not. :-(

I am hoping that I can get Milwaukee's Calatrava from HD this year, I didn't treat mine well last year.

Hopefully the idea proposed by Chris, here

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3282514/first-crush-rose-by-kordes-at-my-local-lowes?n=75

last summer can be implemented this year.

" I think it is a great idea to have a website that posts where the roses
are being shipped to at Lowe's. I will float this idea with the growers
and see if we can get something put together for next Spring".

Thanks, Chris. This would save me a lot of gas money...hahaha....

Well hopefully next year we can improve the distribution in the northeast. Not sure why it is so hard to get the Kordes roses up into that area.

I've been perusing this link and the other about Kordes at Lowes. We need more live cam coverage. (Btw, in grocery stores they have them for security, but they can also be used to observe the expressions on customers' faces when they pick up a Hess avocado with a steep price, if they buy it, hem and haw, put it back...)

Type in Lowes plus the name of your town into a search engine. Click on the store. Then Outdoors. Plants. Then ROSES. I see at a nearby Lowes that there are various KO's at various price points. Lots of Monrovia roses as well. I only have about ten varieties these days.

As for getting the stores to stock what you'd like, I recall that YEARS ago on GW there was a mini rose devotee who was instrumental in getting Lowes to carry Knock Out and on educating the buyers about disease resistant and hardy varieties. I forgot his name. Maybe Steve. Maybe min-rose? L-o-n-g while back on the roses forum.

I'm tempted by ? Madame Anissette (not sure if name is right). I used to have some of the most delicious roses. I had to be out of town for extended periods, and my dear roses paid ;(

in the past few years, hard winters wiped out my Eden and Graham Thomas. Last year I bought another GT along w a 'Harlow Carr' <<----- I hope the latter wasn't a mistake. Thorny devil!

Sorry about NJ, here in MO at my local Lowes we have 6 varieties of Kordes roses including First Crush, Dark Desire, Summer Romance and Beverly.

How cool is that, starsplitter - thanks for the tip! I googled my Lowes and while they sadly don't have any Kordes roses that I can see, they've expanded this year into quite a few Canadian Explorer roses, which they sure ought to for our cold zones! Looks like I could score a Cuthbert Grant and Henry Kelsey that I've been waffling over, and there are other "mystery" listings of 1-2 gallon roses that are probably the rest of the HTs and floribundas. My Lowes also had a ton of Easy Elegance roses last year, which were also well under $20 and healthy and hardy in our zones. All in all, way better for roses than either Home Depot or Walmart, particularly in the health of the plants and the suitability for our zones. Of course, the rest of the mail-order rose companies leave these big box stores in the dust!

Cynthia

Well, farmerduck, Tahitian Sunset is a beautiful rose. It was an excellent choice, even if borne out of frustration, lol.

Lowes doesn't list the Kordes roses online but they are in my local store

I checked two local Lowes and they only have Kordes Perfecta, which I then saw as a bagged rose at Walmart. I really want to try a Kordes, but not that one. I guess I'll make some calls to Lowes in the other direction, before the mother days gift shoppers scoop them all up! Does anyone know why the price of these are so reasonable? ( $12.98) The other potted roses were $24.98.

Kordes Perfecta is not patented and mass produced. I think nearly all of them are budded on Dr. Huey and I have seen a lot of virus on these from not refreshing the genetics. As far as the Kordes work on disease resistance it started in 1990 and the first roses to really reflect this attention to disease resistance in the breeding started to be available in about 2002-2003. For the HT's it came about in 2008 and later.

Thanks, chris2486!

In Fort Worth, TX Lowe's, there were some early March, and I bought Savannah, Soul Sister and Deja Blu (I don't think this one is Kordes though), they hadKardinal Kolorscape also but I did not want it because it look kind like Knockout Rose...

I scored a Kordes Perfecta at Lowes for $12.95 in a 2 gal. pot. Big and beautiful!

Lowes Union NJ today had Kordes Kolorscape 1 gallon (Kardinal and Flamingo) and 2 gallon (Cherri). $13 and $19. From Zelenka Farms in NC. No buds yet. 2 gallon didn't have visible roots at bottom.

Slight change of topic: Any way to visually distinguish multiflora from Dr Huey from other understocks on a potted budded rose?

Good news! Zelenka produces the Kolorscape own root. No I think it very hard to distinguish one root stock from another after the plant has been budded - unless there are some suckers. Zelenka is also producing some of the Kordes HT collection - Eleganza so hopefully these make it into NJ also.

Rifis -- I was at the Union store this past Friday, and saw some "forever and ever" roses. Did not realize that they are Kordes Colorscape.

Chris -- thanks for the tips! It would be interested to see how the Eleganza roses do here in terms of hardiness. They seem to be mostly (if not all) hybrid tea. I have some of them, each Grand Amore and Bervely has had almost no winter die back this past winter. Winter Sun has some live canes, and Sunny Sky died to the ground. We had a very mild winter. I saw Wedding Bell in the Bronx botanical garden. Not sure whether they winter protect.

Hi Farmerduck,

We have had Sunny Sky and all of the Eleganza up in the northern botanical gardens for years and they have been hardy. Sorry to hear about yours not surviving. I always worry about some of these small plants that are sold. One of the things that makes a rose hardy is carbohydrate reserves stored in the roots and not just the genetics. Another problem I see is when it is a mild fall early winter and the roses do not go dormant and then a hard freeze hits the roses when they are not dormant can create damage.

The collection Eleganza consists only of HT's we have introduced.

Thank you, Chris! I was not clear in my last posting. Sunny Sky did not die. It is growing back from the ground up. Glad that it is not necessarily an indication of its winter hardiness. I am a big fan of Kordes yellows.

So glad to hear it is still alive. Our experience is that Sunny Sky has been quite good in the north. The surprise for us is how hardy Winter Sun has been. I share your caution about Plum Perfect, it is slow to gain size in cooler temperatures. I have reports from Zone 4 & 5 that S. Africa is hardy and we were cautious about this release and how cold hardy it would be. Chamblee has Lone Star (KORsteimm) which we released. A soft yellow and an ADR winner. Very sturdy and I think will do well in the north. Image below.

Thank you, Chris, for all your comments on this (and other) discussion(s). Insights that make this forum very valuable. I, for one, have learned a lot from them.

Farmerduck - I didn't realize initially that they were Kordes. either. Recognized what they were only on closer inspection. "Forever and ever" certainly didn't help.

Is your Sunny Sky OR or grafted (w/bud union buried)?

Chris, I am grateful to your input as well!!

Rifis-- it is a grafted plan from Palatine. I bury the grafts of all of my grafted plants.

Here in NJ, the parade of new big box Kordes arrival has not FIZZLEd.

HD Union today: another Kolorscape with nice LEMONy buds!

In pots; about 1 gallon $15. Looks like bud union 1 to2 inches above soil line.

HD's Vigoro brand; grower Ivy Hills nursery. West Grove PA.

Related to CP in same town?

Any info, Chris?

Ivy Acres Greenhouse? Lemon Fizz Kolorscape? container grown own root roses if that is what you are looking at.

Two days ago, at same HD (Union, NJ) referenced above: supply on hand of KORfizzlem (LF) INCREASED 3-fold over what I observed 8 days earlier. They now filled an entire table outside front gate to garden center.

Also: I almost missed this - inside the gates, behind a mass of KO's, were about 20 containers of Innocencia (Vigorosa). Substantial bushes w/many canes each. Pots 5.7 litres, I recollect. $20. Grown by Hopewell Nursery (NJ). Healthy, shiny foliage (in a Kordes x Noack sort of way).

Curious, I asked if this grower's rep was on site. I was told the "supplier from Hopewell" was there. I had previously asked him if he had anything to do with supplying roses to the store, and he told me: "No; we do the trees and shrubs" (!) When I approached him again, he laughed and said he forgot about the roses I saw. Unclear if he was an intermediary, or a Hopewell employee. Possibly the former. I asked if HD would receive other Kordes roses from Hopewell this year. He said "Probably not; we did it as a test"

But then he said Hopewell grew other Kordes roses, but he wouldn't bring them to HD "now" since "Ivy Acres already brought so many roses to the store; they don't need more".

Ha, this thread has already cost me. Thanks to Chris's comment on Lone Star I now have three coming. I actually wanted to order it to begin But could not find enought info. about it growing in the north. So thank you Chris, I think. Plus I ordered another Sunny Sky.

Always available to talk you into more roses..... Seriously I think you will really like it. OK a bit more eye candy as I was just out shooting some more images this morning.

Dark Desire

New introduction Soul Sister

Lemon Fizz Kolorscape

Ooh, where can we find Soul Sister?

Oh my, I am working on another order from Chamblees. I might as well give them an automatic monthly withdrawal since that is how often I'm ordering from them. Just ordered Lone Star, Carmella Fairy Tale, Lions Fairy Tale, Cream Veranda, Polar Express and Earth Angel. Now to find a place to put them.

Kelly - Soul Sister is new to the market. I think you can find it at Chamblee, Roses Unlimited and maybe Northland Rosarium. There are some field grown plants coming to market next spring also. I really love this rose.

Lemon Fizz is back (with Milano) at HD Vaux Hall now - 1 "gallon" OR from Ivy Acres under HD house brand Vigoro. Nothing yet spotted at Lowes (Union).