There are few roses that I would see as a candidate to place either an Olivia Rose or an Easy Does it next to. If it is a stand-alone, I would vote to buy Olivia Rose, but I am partial to pink roses. If you are a lover of hot or warmer colors, EDI could be a better choice visually etc. EDI is known for providing blooms throughout the growing season. It probably has a better repeat than O.A.

Thank you, Lynn.

For some color perspective, the new rose would be to the left of Good as Gold (may get the shovel pruning soon), Julia Child, Dick Clark and Belinda's Dream soon to come - in this order, from left to right. Not much color coordination here.

I love whites and very light pinks that look almost whte from a distance - and would have loved to introduce one here; but at this point, continuous blooming might be more important to me, as I don't have that many bushes. This would be my 6th.

O.A. is closer in color to Belinda's Dream, with differing bloom characteristics.

Olivia Austin

Belinda's Dream

I cannot comment on having 6 roses and buying one rose for continuous blooms. I am a self-admitted and proven rose-aholic and try to buy all that I want... I think within reason (space for them), and would purchase both...

Yes, I was thinking about that!

With OA, I would have had a light pink to the left end and a similar light pink to the right end (Belinda's Dream). In the middle, I'd have some warms - Good as Gold and Julia Child...but then there's Dick Clark too as a wild card - kinda cherry color). So the light pinks would have sort of flanked the warms.

This would be closest to some attempt at color coordination, considering the garden is in the front yard, left of the drive way.

I am just so tempted by the continuous bloom of EDI...and its frilly blooms. :)

"relentless bloomer" = Easy Does it. Olivia is a wonderful rose, but I've never seen anything bloom like Easy Does it.

You are warmer than I am in Middle Tennessee, but I can speak to how clean Olivia Austin was for me last year for it's first year in my garden. Grew like gangbusters and while it didn't have a ton of blooms it almost always had something. None of the Austins I've tried were worth keeping in terms of disease so this was a really nice surprise. I much prefer it compared with Belinda's Dreams in terms of flower color and form as well as disease resistance. I have never grown Easy Does It.

A light pink might look good next to Dick Clark.

subk3,

I just ordered a band of EDI (the only kind I could find) but I know I will eventually get OA too.

I love the pale pink, almost white color (so romantic!) and its general reputation - but some of the comments about OA being only a moderate/intermittent bloomer caused me to err on the side of EDI.

My problem now is that I dug a hole as big as China in my rose bed because I somehow thought I was going to find a larger rose to order.

But I could not find a mature EDI - which means I will have to take my chances and plant the band straight in the ground because I have no intention of leaving my garden bed with that hole in it throughout the entire summer. I guess I will have to fuss over it some.

Hopefully it's still early enough where it will have enough time to grow some by the time the bad heat strikes.

You picked two of my very favorite roses and I adore them both but there is something about Easy Does it that just makes me smile

And...I guess an impulse hole must also draw an impulse buy.

Not only did I get EDI but I also got Love Song. A couple more spots available to the right, IYKWIM.

I came across a Weeks video on You Tube where I saw Violet's Pride...and one thing led to another and that's how I found out about Love Song.

By the time I saw a picture of BenT's Love Song, it was absolute love at first sight. So with or without song, I got it.

This puts me at 7 bushes total this spring. 6 in the ground, 1 in container.

Maybe this will allow me some cut bloom after all. :)

Thank you all!

I just planted Love Song yesterday. I am pretty excited about that one too.

Kristine - that means we can watch our babies grow up together! :) We can even get jealous over each other's milestones. :))) LOL.

I ordered my Love Song from Edmund's Roses but I am not sure what size it will be shipped.

On the site, it says: Size Shipped: 2 year, #1 grade.

I assume this is not a band or a bare root - but the price sounded almost too good to be true for a mature rose in a larger pot. So I am not sure how it will be upon arrival.

Either way, I think I will place Love Song in the 'impulse hole' which will put it right in the front and slightly to the left of Julia Child. Those two seem to make a color match made in Heaven.

I will place Belinda's Dream and Easy Does It in temporary pots then plant in fall, as both of these are bands.

I am so excited about my rose bed this year and all the floribunda additions.

In the meantime, Julia Child which I planted on 3/7 as a bare root is leafing out like crazy. In less than 3 weeks she is almost all caught up with my 2 year old roses which admittedly were aggressively pruned this year due to last year's neglect. But still. I am already impressed with her.

I don't mean to be a downer, but the tree will grow back those roots very quickly, within a year or two, particularly in the rich, moist amended soil that roses like, and roses don't like root competition for the most part. I learned this the hard way. Rosa woodsii doesn't seem to care. Another option may be to use a large container in the spot, elevated so that the tree roots won't grow up through the drain holes. Then as the tree canopy grows back, if you don't want to cut the tree back again, you can also move the rose to a sunnier spot without wrestling the rose roots from the intertwined tree roots.

Oh, good lord. Don't tell me I fought with that monster hole for nothing and now I will have to pour all that clay dirt back in. This is tough love, indeed! :)

To be honest, I knew, theoretically, the rule about not planting close to trees... but that bed is my only good sunny spot and I was really hoping to make that empty space work - somehow.

I knew it's not ideal for roses to share areas but I was trying to push my luck a bit. After all my next to the right roses in that area are not that far away from the tree either. But something's gotta give.

I really would have preferred not to have to use a container in that spot - I feel like it would look kind of off...but I guess I will have to do that. Urgh.

Here is a picture I just took from my door as it's pouring outside and I didn't want to get closer.

The interesting thing is that the closest to the tree trunk (closer than my newly dug hole) has been a Knock Out Rose which was there when we bought the house. Previous owners may have planted it. VERY close to the tree. So I tought if that one has been there for so long, mine would be fine too.

Then again, we've had the house for 7 years now and I remember the KO blooming a bit more during the first years. I don't care much for it as I am not crazy about Knock Out Roses but it did give a pretty touch of bright red in that bed.

Maybe what happened is exactly what you said. Duh. Over time tree roots grew back and now the KO is not producing much anymore.

It was in really bad shape at some point and I tried to revive it last year by pruning it back really hard - now it only has two canes.

Well, thank you for warning me. I will file all that effort under exercise for the day (and messing up the mulch for no reason whatsoever.

If it stops raining today, I will get that dirt right back into the hole. That was not my brightest garden moment, was it. :)

Hello There,

I say if you like to experiment, plant it there and see how it does. I do not know if the rose you chose will be able to compete because I don't grow it, but I have several roses growing under large trees doing well. I think the large pot idea sounds great if you don't want the risk of losing the rose. I can't tend too many pots so I have chosen to plant mine in the ground and trim the trees as needed (this could be a big deal and you may not want to deal with it.) Sorry for rambling on, but if you really want to have a rose there it may be possible with some effort. I planted this rose here in complete ignorance. I would have never planted this close to the tree now, but here she is doing her thing under a huge oak with only afternoon sun. Ballerina is a bit outside the tree (similar to your location) and she was doing great until RDD got her. Also Olivia Austin is one of the best roses in my garden here in Alabama which has very similar weather to your area (except colder winters). She has perfect foliage without spray and even as a first year she started blooming in May (2 months after planted) and did not stop until the temps went bellow freezing. Good luck with whatever you end up doing. Share your results =)

2018 Also · More Info

Feel free to disagree, haha! It’s good to know that others have had success growing roses under trees!

Noseo I edited my post lol =). Did not want to disagree with you. I do think it is a challenging spot to grow roses under tree, but I am just a crazy rose lady and don't listen to good advise. Hope you are staying safe and have a wonderful week.

What rose is that, dianele? So pretty!

Could this situation (roses close to trees) be handled by providing more water and nutrients than normal so that the tree and the roses will have enough to share?

Now I am stumped. I was going to place Love Song in that hole.

Belinda's Dream and EDI are bands - so I was going to let them mature in pots for a few months, then plant them in the fall all the way to the right of the rose bed, which would put them far enough from the tree. Hm.

I also took good advice and ignored it all when planing roses under trees.

I have 20 roses planted under trees, and all 20 are closer to the trunks than the spot you circled.

None have died, although they have been very slow for the most part. I just trimmed the canopies over the last two days so I should see some growth and additional blooms this time around.

I would try it, but don't be too disappointed if it doesn't turn out like you're picturing in your head.

Thank you, jc.

A container sounds better and better. Dirt will go back in.

I fall in the "What do I have to lose?" camp. If it CLEAR it isn't going to work transplant it. : )) I have smaller trees and those I've planted at the base seem to be doing well, but we get a lot of rain.

Vapor,

I am just afraid I would be disappointed. There's also the time factor. It can take years for a rose to get established and finally show what it's really capable of in one's environment . Making too many mistakes always sets me back to Year 1. :(

For me, if rose isn't happy in a spot it tells me early on in its second season in the ground at which point I move it to a better place. I figure, time moves forward regardless so I might as well experiment. If it's between a rose and another plant that's one thing, but other wise it's just an empty space. What is the tree? Why not try a once-bloomer with a longer bloom time such as Ceske Praci Cest, or something like Ghislaine de Feligonde or Peggy Martin which repeat, but not constantly. Yes, climbers take time, but most will show you their happiness by the second year in my experience growing climbers.

Vapor,

To be honest, I am not sure what that tree is - and at this time of the year, it has no leaves. Some kind of oak...

Also, in that spot I wasn't thinking of a climber. Just a regular floribunda bush. I was going to place Love Song there, which already ordered - but with all the accounts I read about it not being a very vigorous rose, probably not. It would stand no chance against the tree roots.

I think I'll have to accept that if I want to fill up that spot, it will have to be a container.

Luckily I have three more spots to the right of that rose bed, if I plant them about 3 feet apart.

I agree. Do whatever gets you excited and happy. Have fun. If it's a rose, then it's a rose. I'm also imagining all the other plants that would grow in that spot in your moist climate. Here in the desert, the trees have to get what little water they can get, and that deprives anything planted under them of anything. I planted 3 Evelyn's at the edge of the dripline of a tree since the desert sun fries the roses and I thought the tree would shelter them from the intense west sun. They did fine the first year, but then dwindled away until I moved them. For me it was a sad process, and I had to decide which roses to keep or remove in the better locations. It was a lot of work to untangle the rose roots from the tree roots, and I ended up chopping up the roots of both tree and roses. Fortunately they all survived. I then tried again with Marie Pavie, which is supposed to do well in partial shade. There was a lot of adjusting of the irrigation system, a lot of hand watering and pampering. But these too, dwindled away until I removed them (a lot more chopping at all the roots and swearing, and apologizing to all the plants involved). Potted up, these Marie Pavie sprang to life and bloomed their little hearts out. Since I have no room elsewhere in the garden for them, they are being given to a friend (who has never grown roses before). Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I learned a lot about what roses want in my climate.

noseometer, that sounds like the time i cut into the bermuda sod to lay some of that plastic edging down, only to realize that the bed i made was still far too small for the plants i had.

I say get both. In Dallas, Olivia is never without a bloom and EDI has a great color and is reported to be a reliable bloomer in half day or less sun (which I have in abundance). I now have 3. We shall see, the bloom on my new bush is as pretty as it's pictures. If it matters, Olivia is a strong grower and big bush, wide and tall, in my state.

Cynthia is absolutely right. Planting roses at the base of trees is not optimal. However, if you're willing to #1 experiment, #2 move a rose now and then, #3 suffer losses, then go for it. I have roses planted at the base of many of the tall pines in my garden because they're there and looked like good support structures. I try to feed those roses more than the others, but that's feeding the tree, too, so not sure if that's the right thing to do.
The super hardy Canadian roses don't seem to mind the competition, but others pout and won't grow or bloom. So, since you are limited on space, it wouldn't hurt to see if it works out. You might be pleasantly surprised.

When I told the owner of Northland the roses I was buying were going at the base of trees, she raised her eyebrows and told me the same things Cynthia said, then she said to definitely give them more water. It's true, the soil under the trees is always dryer.

It's just my opinion, but young trees may deplete the soil of nutrients more than old, established trees that have reached maturity.

Dianela, your Ballerina is 1000 times more beautiful than mine with no tree root competition. Go figure! I would have cried like a baby to lose that one.

Flowersaremusic,

I followed your advice and that of others who suggested similar and I poured the dirt back into my unwisely dug hole. In general, I am not one for placing "the fine and the well-bred" in the middle of tough competition, mainly because such competition may employ "dirty" methods which 'the fine' have not been bred to resort to. :)

This is why we all them roses, I guess - to be pampered and protected for their beauty.

Plus, at this stage in my ...rose interest (OK, obsession) - I'd rather not experience too many setbacks. Even though I know, theoretically, that this is just learning and experimenting, I am too inexperienced for this. I need some successes to gain good momentul and to make my few bushes (6-7) provide enough bloom so I can also enjoy a few cut flowers indoors once in a while.

Last summer when we were out of the country for 3 months and my roses were left to fend for themselves - I almost gave up when I saw how they looked upon return.

Good as Gold was so eaten by black spot that eventually it lost ALL of it foliage. He is already giving signs this year that he will get it again, but then I will be hear to fuss over it.

If he hangs onto that black spot, he will get the shovel pruning treatment and in the fall someone else will replace him.

Trouble is he is my only hybrid tea and I wonder if I will ever be able to find one HT that is resistant to black spot in my area.

Floribundas are wonderful in terms of bloom number, but it looks like the bloom size is rather small compared to hybrids.

I have not had a floribunda so far, so I am looking forward to their performance this year.

I hope this season will bring a lot less black spot weather so your Good As Gold can recover and get good and healthy so he can survive whatever fungal diseases may find their way into your garden this year. We always hope for none, of course!