Lovely talk. I think the more we share with friends and family roses that are not fussy and get them to think about putting roses near veggies to attract bees, the more people will look at roses as an asset, not a difficult plant. The other big issue is that ARS has preached a spray program for years and many people want to grow organic and think roses must be out. I wonder if the local flower movement and supporting the bees would help?

I would have liked to listen to your talk...but I couldn't hear you. Volume was at max. Darn. I am hard of hearing though...so others may not have a problem.

Hi Brandon

I really enjoyed your video!

I agree 100% and I love that you, @rosegeek, and Jason from Fraser Valley rose farm are getting this message out.

I'll add to that a personal experience that really puzzled and disheartened me: About a month ago I called up Meilland's customer service (I live in Europe) to ask about roses suited for my zone 11 windy rooftop conditions.

Would you believe they actually recommended knockouts?! I was shocked, especially coming from them! To be fair they also recommended their own Bonica line but the first one they mentioned was KO's. I couldn't believe it.

A sad state of affairs. Thank you for speaking out!

I feel like I have my feet in three different worlds. One as a UC Master Gardener. One as a member of the Native Plant Society. One as a life member of the ARS. Sometimes they mesh beautifully but they sometimes feel like three different worlds to me. However, I am working on integrating them (in my head).

Roses are in trouble (according to my way of thinking and others will probably disagree with me). Like it or not, roses have a reputation for being fussy, water hogs, you have to spray them weekly, have to feed them all the time, etc. I hate to say that they are usually used as a negative example by the native plant folks even though there are native roses out there. Try to find any of them at a local nursery. Good luck! I haven't bought a rose in a local nursery for over 20 plus years. I pretty much have to mail order all my plants as the ones I want are so difficult to find. Maybe someday, that will improve, but the mass marketing/big box stores that carry only certain plants (whether they do well in your area or not) makes it difficult.

Due to extreme drought conditions, I have been pulling out many of my roses (those that don't do well or only marginally) and putting in native plants. I am only keeping roses I absolutely love, (mostly old roses--thanks to Jeri!). Even if I love the rose and it doesn't do well in my climate conditions, out it goes (ugh, that is so hard to do). I have a tiny garden and I can't waste precious space and water on something that doesn't do well. Eventually, I will have about 50--70% native plants and the rest will be veggies, fruits and roses. I am about there now.

I want to give a place for native pollinators to exist. They love my native plants. We need to pay heed to them and provide a place for them to live. Did you know that squashes, tomatoes, etc., are pollinated by natives (not honeybees)? https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=25418. https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=51033 

The native pollinators also love my semi-double and single petal roses. We need to get the word out about those types of roses as well as our native roses. Because of the "myths" about roses (yes, they are drought tolerant and fire resistant--contrary to popular opinion), people lump them all in one category and dismiss them for the fussy reasons listed above.

As a Master Gardener, I write a monthly column for our website, on taking care of your roses, highlighting the ease of care, organic methods, integrated pest management, watering needs, fertilizer (get your soil tested and only use fertilizer if you need it!), etc.

My entire yard is on drip and I have my emitters (more emitters on my roses for their water needs then the number of emitters for my native plants--I have chosen natives that are native to my area where I live). In a year or so, I will pull the emitters from the local native plants (once established) and only have emitters on the fruit trees and roses. I am doing keyhole gardening with my veggies and using ollas as necessary. Keyhole is a great way to grow veggies using very little water and no fertilizer (since you are constantly creating a compost situation for them by the very nature of the technique). I wish I had space to create a keyhole garden for my roses. Unfortunately, I don't. I would love to try that as an experiment.

Because of climate changes, watering issues, nitrogen issues with the over-use of fertilizers in my area affecting the ground water, the gardening world here is changing. I try to support my local rose breeders as they deal with the same growing conditions and climate as I. Their roses tend to do better in my garden as a result. I am trying to find ways to live with all of the changes happening and those coming. l grow plants that I absolutely love. That love includes my roses. Their beauty and history have been around for 100's of years. I would love to keep it that way for now and in the future.

@rosecanadian was it that i spoke too quietly that you had trouble hearing my video? I rea really don’t know, and my wife tells me that i have a hard time regulating the volume of my speech.

@ann beck 8a ruralish WA I thin think that attempting to show bees and roses is a great idea; hopefully that would get people to realize that roses can be grown without spraying.

@seasiderooftop being in the US, I can, sadly, believe that the rose company suggested knockout roses before their own. That is the power of the mass marketing behind Knockout and its ilk. I also find that Knockout is aprly named, because it is working on knocking out all other roses off the market. in some places it already has🙁

@mustbnuts zone 9 sunset 9 I don’t have much experience with native plant societies, but i can imagine that they can be pretty rigid on what a native plant is/isn’t. I completed the master gardener class for missouri and when we talked about roses RRD was the first, and to some th the only, problem that could be impacting roses. I think that RRD has become such a hot topic that it is the first thing people go to now. Even the moderator of the class stated that there wasn’t enough information given in the discussion question to warrent a diagnosis of disease over damage from chemical/lack of nutrients. as for the ARS, I think that it has become antiquidated and could use some new blood. As an example of being outdated, the november/december issue was dedicated to showing roses. in this day and age of get results in 30 seconds or less or move on, most of the younger people don’t have the paitence to show roses. Also as has been stated roses have been pushed as a plant that has to be sprayed, tha thank you ARS, and a lot of people don’t want to do that. I think that we really need to get societies and the ARS aware of the roses that are good without spray and fuss.

well i didn’t mean to get on a soap box and do appolgize if i offended anyone

I didn't think much of roses growing up. My mother grew some, and my recollection was the smell of chemicals on ugly, thorny plants having bad hair days with occasional blooms, and beneath which it was my job to weed. I first became interested in roses after seeing some large old tea roses growing in an historical park-like garden in my home town of New Orleans. I was told they were hardly tended to, and had that natural health and vigor, and was shown how to propagate some from cuttings.

When I first started as a hobby hybridizer, I recall an older hybridizer asserting that they "weren't concerned" about health. "That's what the chemical industry is for." That was the teaching of his generation. And today, the predominant roses carried by big box stores in affordable (and hence, the introductory gateway to rose gardening) "body bags" are still those hybrids from a half century ago, despite the expiring patents on so many superior cultivars.

Ironically, it is the obscene success of the KO rose that has facilitated the spread of RRD. It's creation was, by any measure, a very impressive accomplishment, and I thought that cultivar might inject some life back into a waning industry, but I am on the fence as to whether the KO rose has ultimately helped as much as I feel it has displaced other roses and created monotypic Plantings that facilitate the spread of a fatal virus. The thing has been out of patent for some time, but is still sold as the latest and greatest with the same branding and apparent monopoly.

I will concede that I get frustrated with the number of discussions on this forum that obsess over other's regimens for coaxing the maximum out of plants I find to be unsuitably fussy for my garden. I am struck by the irony of a people who fixate on the beautification of their personal environment while ignoring the consequences to the environment-at-large from the over-reliance on pesticides, fertilizers, and irrigation. The fact is that so much of the practice of rosarians flies in the face of modern sensitivities about gardening and landscaping, and until the rose industry and those who grow them express a more enlightened attitude, it is wrong to blame the larger industry.

Brandon - your voice is just too quiet for my hearing. Maybe for your next video you could move the microphone/computer closer? It does sound like a very interesting discussion. There are some really good comments about your talk...so well done!

Bill DeVor gave a great talk at the 2012 ARS convention regarding the "current state of rose growing." His family has been in the rose business for a long, long time. He called out the ARS as creating the continuing myths that roses are fussy and you have to spray them all the time. Here is is presentation. I think it is still pertanent for today, even though it is 10 years old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fGsRSW02Vk

I appreciate that there are plenty of experienced rosarians on this forum who share their experiences with unfussy ways to garden that focus on growing what's best for a particular climate. The type of advice these particular forum members give follows my own inclinations. I'm relatively new to rose gardening but have been vegetable gardening for a while. I've found that the same practices seem to work well for both vegetables and flowering perennials (roses included): focusing on soil health (with composting), deep watering (that's spread out over time) and planting for biodiversity and good companion planting. My garden is full of insects and birds of all types and has created such a joyous haven. (Ive also got squirrels and other critters.) My house stays cooler in the summer because of the happy plant and life (and minimal lawn). It seems like the larger conversation has been moving towards the line of thought of the folks who have been contributing to this thread. <--or maybe that's just my hope.

MustBnuts, I have been on a similar path to yours for some years now, though my garden space is about an acre. I still love roses, but have reduce the number I grow from 150 to somewhere around 50. The front garden is still full of the traditional plants I have loved all my life, and I water it weekly. Most of the roses are there. The back fence has climbers and teas and is watered about every 10 days, as are the fruit trees. But the rest of the garden (2/3 of the space) has slowly been transforming into a native plant garden. My goal is that once fully established it will be watered once every 3-4 weeks in the dry season, and not at all when it rains.

I've been debating the use of mulches, given that we live in a wildfire-prone area. Traditional wood-based mulches are quite flammable. We have removed all the wood-based mulch out to about 10 feet from the house, replacing most of it with stone mulch. We are happy with that decision. (We also selected a fire-resistant siding when the time came to replace the existing siding of our 80 year old house.) Recently I read an article on the Garden Professor blog stating that arborist mulch is much less flammable than bark mulch. I am considering putting it on the native plant areas which are more distant from the house. I spend a lot of time weeding, and I suspect that I'm paying for the bare soil in time spent weeding. I'm also using more water for that same reason.

Like several of you, I am a master gardener and prefer to use science based information when making garden care decisions. Mulch, watering, plant selection all play into this. But there is no point in putting in time gardening if you cannot grow at least some of the plants that fill your heart with joy.

Rosefolly

How sad to hear.

Many absolutely worthy roses are easy to grow and so very resilient. Native species roses can make lovely shrubs with the benefit of autumn colour, but as I learned from roseseek and is R. arkansana experiements, our natives can easily be induced to rust through water stress. I once had R. palustris and currently have seed raised (by me) R. setigera which rusted this year for the first time. It's going to be six years old next spring (IIRC) and is getting big. Its bloom in 2021 was very nice and bees of all species truly loved it. The hips provide cold season interest and food supply for wildlife., There is a species I've collected hips on that I have not yet sown or identified that I found growing in a light woodland setting and only around two feet tall.

Dozens of single and semi-double varieties are also available that are easy and the beneficial pollinators appreciate them as well.

I profess to disagree with the implication of Knockout roses being uniquely responsible for the spread of Rose Rosette Virus Disease (RRD). The reasons being are that any rose can come down with it, if any variety had achieved the popularity of the Knockouts due to their marketing machine and general ease, I can guarantee that that different variety would be accused of "being the witch" so to speak due to mass, monoculture plantings as well.

Another is Rosa multiflora. Ah yes, the preferred, non-native INVASIVE species host of the virus carrying mite. It deserves far more of the blame, and who may we thank for introducing this pest to the U.S. and encouraging its widespread use as a highway median crash barrier? That's right! The federal government! Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20! Multiflora should be kept where it belongs- underneath and serving as an understock for superior varieties.

Jackie, how sad to hear (from the sounds of it) that the ARS is doubling down on old-fashioned, fading, and in this case, unsustainable practices and cultures growing roses. Truly the new way needs to be implemented and rose shows the way they are and the obsession with the the bloom styles/types they typically promote need to shift away from the "high centred" buds and "perfect whorl" or petals. Especially since roses original to (many of our members) cultural backgrounds are of the full, cabbagey type. We didn't get the high centred buds until the China and Tea roses were "brought" from China.

Steven

@jacqueline9CA the only reason I haven’t thrown the last issue of the ars magazine is because i want to reach out to someone about an offensive sidebar picture and need to know what page it was on. after i do that i will throw mine away because of like you said thete was no variety of opinion.

I must be really lucky Milwaukee has three vendors that sell DA roses and one fabulous one a daytrip away in Chicago (Gethsemane, ask for Victoria!). I met Will Radler of Knockout fame here at the Cream City Roses convention in September and he definitely appreciates all roses (and most unique plants, and orandas!)--I mentioned the Dogwood rose I got from A Reverence for Roses and he mentioned a white Dainty Bess from a while back that had fallen out of commerce. All the attendees I spoke with were huge fans of DA and Kordes roses, but those that were up for auction were almost all HTs. I feel like ensuring there are young people represented in leadership would help with modernizing some of the practices and focus.

I used to hate the single and semi-doubles, but now I'm obsessed with them. Grace Seward, Jacqueline du Pre, Dogwood, and Little White Lies are so dainty I can't even.

The ARS will always be the ARS its been in the past.

At its core, its about show roses and their cultivation. Any other content that makes its way into the magazine does so only because the ARS feels pressured to be "more inclusive", but it does so only grudgingly. Stewards of the organization have talked for years about how they were working towards including more varied content about other areas of interest, but as far as I can see, very VERY little of that has happened.

If you go to the ARS web site, this is one of the things you'll see on the first page:

That says it all, loud and clear.

If you click on "find a rose for your garden", you're taken to a regional set of documents listing recommended varieties for your part of the country. I clicked on the list of recommended roses for the Portland, OR region and how many roses on the list were NOT Hybrid Teas/Floribundas, Modern Climbers, Austins, Miniatures and Shrubs?

TWO: 'Sombreuil' and 'Zepherine Drouhin' in the Climbers list.

Pathetic. Very few of the roses on that list are more than 20 years old.

So whatever it is you wish to promote and achieve in terms of preserving the vast variety of roses for the future, don't waste your time looking to the ARS as your savior. That organization really has only one thing in its sights, and it will always be the same.

Edit: I apologize if all that sounds particularly harsh, and I do not wish to insult any of the hard working volunteers that make the ARS happen. I just find it sad that - especially in these times when "better living through chemistry" horticulture is increasingly seen as a bad idea - the ARS still promotes such a specific (read: limited) vision of rose growing.

Pat Shanley really tried to enlarge the ARS mission with wonderful articles on Antique and OGRs but once she was out it reverted back. She was so refreshing.

@PaulBarden The ARS will always be the ARS its been in the past.

I don't think you were too harsh.

I mentioned my one experience with the Richmond Rose Society in another discussion recently. When I first became interested in old roses, I attended a meeting with the same friend who had introduced me to old roses in her garden. The President began by reminding everyone how much he disliked roses that "showed their stamens" after which the rest of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of chemicals. Although I knew I had a lot to learn about roses at that point, I certainly wasn't going to learn it from the Richmond Rose Society.

Plus ca change....

Lindsey

I don't know. Still plenty of lawns around here. Some of that water could have grown some beautiful rose bushes. Our local Armstrong nsy had a few tables of potted roses. I remember when they had tables all down the front of the nursery. San Gabriel nsy still carries a big selection. I try to promote polyanthas to people who are curious.

I also hear some dis ouraging stories of first time rose growing with floral dept grocery store minis on a kitchen windowsill.

Sam's club had some older varieties crowded into a metal rack. Lowes has had some new ones but never any good old antiques. Around here, I think people plant them, the nearly invisible Chilli thrips destroy them in the summer and then they decline over a few years until they get removed. Iceberg is still planted, both white and pink. Sometimes I see a big planting of roses go in a shopping center, but unless the gardeners know what they're doing, it gets replaced after a few years.

@PaulBarden I actually thought of both you and David Austin, when the closest local ARS president told me (when I asked about own root roses versus grafted) "no one grows roses from seed, that just doesn't happen it takes too long!" After I did a double take, I realized I was not going to get much good information from this guy. The good news is that there is another ARS group that is very interested in organic, own root, propagating and sustainable...so I am going with them.

My husband deals with a big organization and we often talk about how very hard it is turn a gigantic ship around even if lots and lots of people want it, just the shear momentum makes it hard. I think that ARS has got the public talked into roses being fussy and "we focus on shows," even if they wanted to change, it would be extremely hard.

I wonder if the facebook groups (an other internet places) that focus on "romantic roses," are the way that the public and the new Covid gardeners actually learn about roses and rose care?

@mustbnuts zone 9 sunset 9 - please provide a link to some of your articles! I would love to read more. I feel guilty that I've taken away some of my native plant space for roses...and we may have to remove a huge old oak that is now pushing up my house foundation...but I love having the natives and the roses and the fruits/vegetables growing in harmony. Further out from the house I have all natives (except now a couple of fruit trees to try to fill in some gaps for privacy -- the toyon are just taking way too long and the deer browsed the ceanothus to twigs last summer). Rosefolly -- I hear you about mulch. The chunks of wood left from the arborist chipping from our brush clearing are huge -- look like kindling to me. So I've started using cedar mulch. My native rose has taken over a huge area -- I think the gophers chew up pieces and replant them in new places. I've actually had to start pulling some of them out because it's becoming a nuisance!

Do you know if anyone has bred a rose combining a native with an OGR?

Poor roses are so misunderstood for too long. I didn't realize how easy it is to take care of roses until the roses I have weren't killed by my mistakes, lol! I think it is most essential to have easy access to "rose education" available in every possible way. I personally have watched at least a thousand videos on Youtube to finally conclude that rose is in fact one of the easiest plants to keep. They respond very well when we give them simple proper care. AND there is always a rose plant that will suit your needs and situation. It is just very unfortunate that the knowledge to grow roses are not shared well enough. I found myself being lucky as a bilingual so I was able to get rose information from different cultural sources which complement each other to say the least. Anyway, my point is people need to know that roses are not as fussy as they think :)

Aaron, Gesthemane is wonderful, but have you ever been to Meinke in Niles? They have a HUGE selection of roses, perennials and annuals. I love that place! Their roses are huge!

It also occurred to me that if ARS keeps with the show theme, they need roses that last in a vase, that cuts out many roses from ground cover to David Austins to OGR (although some do last in a vase enough). What they really are needing would be the florist roses only sold to South American greenhouse growers when the US tried to get cocaine farmers to switch from coca to roses. But that would mean that farmers in the US would have to go local flowers and pot growers start growing roses instead, which could happen as the market saturates. Wonder what will end up happening....ARS changing or the florist industry changing??? Either way like many others have said we need broader rose education groups and ways people can share experiences and help each other.

I did see kordes roses at home depot this morning and the label on the container said ' no fuss ' very large print with the variety name very small. The picture of the bloom large. I bought a 15 dollar pink parfait because I had that rose years ago and it makes the prettiest buds. Fun to have it again. I wonder how many people buy roses like this and grow in a pot for a season like annuals.