Zone 5b (Maine) Hardy Romantic Roses
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strawchicago z5
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rose suggestions for zone 5b/6a
Comments (11)Okay--another question for ya--have you considered miniatures, since you'd prefer something more mannerly? Many of them have fabulous bloom form that never collapses, especially if you're looking for that perfect, tight spiral. Most minis aren't that fragrant, but there are a few that are fabulous. I'm sitting outside right now, so I'll give you a rundown of some of mine that fit the bill: Voodoo - Tall & narrow grower. Lovely orange-juice colored blooms with yummy fragrance that are phototropic and change in sunlight to a screaming scarlet-orange. Pretty darn good disease resistance. Jean Kennealley, an apricot miniature. She has the bonus of fragrance, and gets pretty big for a mini. Spent blooms will flatten out & fade to nearly white, but I think she's spectacular. She's held a very high rating for a long time. Folklore is a hybrid tea with perfect spirals & yellow reverses to coral petals. Lovely scent, big shrub, good disease resistance. Grows taller than it does wide, at least for me. Gemini is a drop-dead gorgeous hybrid tea. New blooms open ivory with just a hit of a deep coral picotee, then it changes with sunlight to almost a completely coral flush. Mine like to pitch candelabras and I think that's due to the Grandiflora breeding line. Great scent. Flawless is a true, medium pink miniflora with a nice scent. It is very disease resistant for me & blooms like crazy, but it tends to have more decorative or frilly blooms than the classic high spirals. I love it nonetheless. I really want to recommend Secret, but I have to spray her to keep her happy. The scent and the blooms are worth it, though. It does not mind the heat and rain does not spot her blooms as badly as most of my other light-colored roses. How white is your white requirement? I grow Irresistible, another miniature. It has no scent, but oh MY!! The blooms retain their form for at least a week and a half, it grows spectacularly, it's very mannerly, and disease resistant. It is a bit cream-colored upon close inspection but looks white from a distance. Also in my white-ish category is World War II Memorial. It's technically a mauve, but from a few yards back it appears to be white. It has glorious scent, very good disease resistance, and I just cannot describe the way the blooms contrast with an almost forest-green set of foliage. The aroma is incredible. It does spot with rain, unfortunately, but it's one of the few whose spots aren't that unattractive. If we get rain while there are blooms present, it looks like a white rose with pink freckles. One of the hardiest I have is Garden Party, but I'd describe it as an ivory rose that likes to have pink petticoats every now and then. Very good disease resistance and AWESOME fragrance, but mine grows like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors. I think I witnessed her eating a rabbit this morning. [Or maybe it was that Swamp Tea.] All of these are repeat blooming, and I'd say that Flawless, Folklore, and Irresistible are the quickest to repeat. Gemini is sluggish, but when she blooms, she chucks out about 30 at a time. I live where blackspot pressure is very high due to silly nighttime cooling and condensation. I spray for blackspot, but these are the best of my 60 roses that fit your bill. And since I am too lazy to edit my post [Swamp Tea again...dangit], I totally forgot Tahitian Sunset. I am in love with this rose and put her in a bad spot where I can't admire her while on the deck. It is a skyscraper of a hybrid tea with apricot to pink blooms that have a perfect spiral, and the scent is unusual. It has been described as anise, licorice, myrhh....but everyone at work loves to stick their nose in her when I bring her in. Very, very good disease resistance. These are some of my faves, and if you haven't been over to HMF to check out people's rose pics I would encourage you to do so. There is no better enabler for rose buying than this website and that one, combined....See MoreNeed some zone 5b info on these roses
Comments (4)I have or have grown all the ones on your list, and by far the easiest and most rewarding one is Earth Song. It's trouble free, disease resistant, blooms all summer, and has at least some surviving cane most winters. The blooms are loosely double hot pink and it can make an impressive mound at about 5' by 4' if happy. All of the "Peace" varieties are variably tender for me even in a protected area, so I'm impressed that Dingo has overwintered two Pink Peace plants. At least 3 tries each for Pink Peace and Peace have failed, and Chicago Peace seems to be failing its second try. Same for Colorific - three tries in protected areas and it doesn't survive well. Star of the Nile died after two tries, and Gentle Giant only once, but it was in my protected spot. Among the "Easy" series, Livin' Easy is a better hardy rose than Easy Does it that can be variably hardy. Livin Easy puts out orange loosely double blooms and tops out a little over knee height for me, probably more if it had surviving cane. It's relatively trouble free. Dick Clark and Dream Come True are fabulous blooms of more traditional "rose" looking hybrid tea blossoms, both with dark pink edges on the blooms. I love the zowie pow high contrast of Dream Come True especially, and it's about 4-5' tall in a very narrow bush, and blooms a couple of spectacular blooms a year. Not exactly bushy, but a nice accent. It only survives in my protected zone 6 spot though, so it's probably marginally hardy in a regular zone 5 spot. Dick Clark is in a regular zone 5 spot and is about 6 years old, but barely knee high. He puts out a few blooms a year and has come back every year, but I'm sure he'd be taller and a better bloomer in a warmer spot. Winnepeg Parks is a Canadian rose and should have no trouble with your winters and it would like Colorado. It isn't a very prolific rebloomer, and the one I planted last year in a less than ideal spot didn't come back. I suspect it will do fine in a normal spot. It has dark pink loose semidouble blooms, and it probably would take a couple of years before it bloomed much past the first spring flush. So my recommendation is Earth Song definitely, Winnepeg Parks probably but put it in a less prominent spot, Livin' Easy if you like orange, and Dick Clark and/or Dream Come True to push your zone limits a little and go for pizzazz. As you can tell from Dingo's response though, there's a lot of difference among zone 5 gardeners and you may need to see what does well for you by trial and error. Don't be afraid to experiment! Just be sure to bury the graft (the knobby bit where the canes start growing) at least 2 inches below the soil so that it protects the main growing part from the winter. Otherwise, the rose you want may die and you're left with the dark red rootstock "Dr. Huey" that's mostly a pain in the neck. Cynthia...See MoreAre Honey Jar Jujube & Li Jujube hardy to zone 5b?
Comments (14)Thanks meilkeeatplants! I don’t sell any fruits. I shared the fruits with a couple renters on the property last year. They didn’t mind the spots on the apples. I had thousands of pears but I didn’t get any. not even one, not sure what kind of animals got them. It would be nice if I could bring spotless apples to work and share with the city folks, I know they won’t like the spots..........See MoreDevoniensis (grafted) from Palatine hardy to zone 5b? really?????
Comments (10)There are zone 5s and zone 5s. Since that number is only for average winter lows, it ignores things like summer highs and precipitation amounts. Köppen was among the first to create a climate map*, and it is still being used in modified forms 100 years later. If you look at that map, you will see that the eastern half of the US is described as the same climate type, divided in half by temperature. That is the fundamental assumption behind the USDA maps - that within a climate type the variables track fairly well so only one is needed to provide valid information. I have seen versions of this map where the eastern half of the US was divided into an eastern, maritime influenced climate and a midwestern, more continental climate. This seems to be an important distinction for many types of roses. The difference being that the east gets more rainfall, and has comparatively cooler summers. Since many roses apparently dislike both of those characteristics, they will perform better in a midwestern zone 5 than an eastern one. At one point, I decided that you essentially gained at least half a zone between eastern New York, and Michigan, for example. Then you picked up another half zone between Michigan and Montana. This is all a very long way of saying that Yes, I do believe there exist zone 5bs where you could overwinter a grafted Devoniensis, and get some flowers from it. However, I wouldn't expect that to be anywhere remotely near here. *the last time I searched for online versions of this, I could not find any that were legible. Sites that had been using it as a working tool had switched over to various bio-diversity maps. It seems to have reemerged as an historic artifact....See Moremainely_gardening_z5b
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