I just added Drift to my collection of roses last year. I've been growing Flower Carpet roses for over 12 years and I've been really happy with them. Most of the varieties Flower Carpet that I have bloom almost nonstop from about the end of June through our first few frosts. The ones that seem to be the most full in our area are Scarlet and Pink Supreme but I also love Coral and Appleblossom even though they don't get as big. From what I can tell after the first year of having Drift roses is that they are considerably smaller roses - both the flower and the shrubs themselves - but I guess that makes sense because I think that they're promoted as being for smaller spaces. I have mine tucked in some spots between the Flower Carpets where I needed filler.

this spring one of my huge new dawns had rrd. i removed the plant, removed the 19 multiflora patches at the edges of my property and bought and distributed predatory mites. well another huge new dawn [i had three in all originally] has just put out fall growth full of witches brooms, so i am removing it now. it was about 30' away from the previously infected plant. there is a belinda's dream nearby with red new growth, which is small, but not really strange looking. i am keeping an eye on it, as i cant find any descriptions that mention if its new growth is supposed to be red. most of my HTs have red new foliage, and always have in the past. it is so frustrating that the biggest most vigorous established plants seem to be the hardest hit. i noticed the plants mentioned as getting RRD seemed to usually be huge climbers esp. new dawn, and shrubs, then HTs. i realized i hadnt seen minis mentioned. i searched gardenweb mini rose forum for rrd and rosette, and got zero posts about rrd. i dont know if minis are too short to get it, or mini growers are spraying miticide non-stop to kill the red spider mites, or the red spider mites are eating the eriophyid mite [which i've read can happen] ann, you posted last summer: The reasoning behind using wiltproof ties to the way that the flightless eriophyid mites get around- they are dropped by breezes when the breeze slows down. Thanks to the dissertation of Abdullah Kassar at WVU, if they land on a rose, they sense it and stay. If they land on a non-rose they try to catch the next breeze away. What we hope is happening with the wiltproof and other anti-transpirants is that they land on the wiltproof and reason "not rose" and leave. So as to how often to spray wiltproof...you'd like to keep the leaves and stems coated. Spray accordingly i bought wiltpruf to spray the new dawn i am in the process of removing, and the belindas dream i am watching. i am using it instead of hairspray. it forms a polymer coating, which i think might trap existing mites on the plants, just like the hairspray. i wouldnt give the mites that much credit in terms of intention -- it also might be that the anti-transpirants seal up the crevices they need to crawl into to not get blown about in the wind. in http://www.ars.org/pdfs/rose_rosette.pdf, it says shrub roses are most affected because their petioles provide a tight crevice, whereas HTs arent as good a host. if the mites are so prone to be blown about by the wind, maybe if the do land on a plant without good crevices,either because of the plants natural anatomy, or because wiltpruf has filled in those crevices,the mites get blown off on the next breeze before they can transmit rrd.

I just saw ICY DRIFT for the first time, just now. YOWZA! Not a bloom in sight, yet, but who cares! The foliage is GORGEOUS!!!!! A bright, happy yellow-green, and so packed with tiny leaves you couldn't see the canes. Icy Drift was in the same section with all the other groundcover roses at Madison (Mississippi) Garden Center, and there was no comparison. If the foliage stays anywhere near that nice, Icy Drift is up there with Mermaid and New Dawn as one of the greatest of the greats. I'd love to know how it looks after a year or two. I HAVE grown Peach Drift, when we lived in Madison before, and it seemed happier in the pots than once I (finally, after years of procrastination) got it into the ground. Still, they persist after seven years, being given sporadic care by the busy young surgeons who bought the house. We stopped by last week, before closing on our new Mississippi home, and the Peach Drifts I planted were looking happy - already leafed-out, with bronzy/maroon new growth: still small, though. Their new owners like them pretty well. Peach Drift continually sends up short blooming canes with showy clusters, in a delectable color range: basically, all the colors you'd see on ripening peaches. Once they start blooming, they continue up to the first frost. The ones I planted never attained the 'three-high/four-wide mound' size/shape I'd hoped for. But that may be my lack of soil amendment, or shortcomings in subsequent care. In Mississippi at least, Peach Drift tolerates a good bit of shade, and keeps right on blooming. Does not defoliate in the dead of Summer, and is semi-evergreen in Winter. I'm hoping Icy Drift will do the same. Has anyone down South grown Icy Drift for a few years? I'm tempted to send the truck by, to pick up every one the Garden Center has. But I'd like to know how the plant evolves over time. I'm thinking of planting a drift of Icy Drift beneath the sunny side of a clump of 'Shoal Creek' Vitex Agnus Castus (thank heavens the estate's last owners compiled a comprehensive set of books on the plantings... and the soil amendments... and the locations of the French drains: so I know exactly which cultivars I have of EVERYTHING, down to the Green Mountain Boxwoods). Anyway, I find blue to be cold and disturbing as a flower color, and white blossoms would be too cold, without the yellow-green foliage I saw today on Icy Drift. Can anyone tell me if the foliage continues to lean toward 'Lime', rather than maturing to a straight-up standard green?

Thank you, guys! Mommas_secrets, I can understand you, I have same fillings in early spring, when California's guys are posting their pictures))) (I am in 6b) Patients, patients, patients.. Here are little more pic Sweet drift and ... I still don't know name of this climbing rose. May be Bonica or Cl Queen Elizabeth I guess Coral drift, pink drift, Hot cocoa and baby Cl Made of Honor Baby plants - Pink splash carpet rose and Gene Boerner and Wild blue Yonder with Sweet drift