How many roses did you lose last winter?
How many more are borderline cases—weak looking and with a lot of die-back when you start to prune them, but still with a bit of life left so that as you go over them you decide to let them remain, on the slim chance that they may “grow out of it”?
(Chances are that if they do, they will not give you many good rose flowers before autumn.)
In Such A Situation, There Are Three Things You Can Do Now!
The first is to select additional rose varieties that are cold-resistant and then get the rose planted as soon as possible.
The second is to plant your roses in a more sheltered location or a better one if they are exposed.
The third is to resolve to provide better protection next fall than you did last. That is a matter to note for the future: not much you can do about it at the moment.
If you live in a tough climate, you will do well to rely chiefly on roses that have been bred primarily for resistance to injury from low-winter temperatures. Such is the sub-zero race created by the Brownells during several decades of patient work.
These varieties include many bush roses of hybrid-tea type with good form and a fair range of colors.
Indeed, they do not, as a group, “show” roses with the almost unlimited spread of colors available in modern hybrid teas, but they are unusually winter-hardy roses.
In 15 years of rose growing, we have never lost any Brownell roses.
Most of them, too, are much more resistant to black spot disease, which weakens many of the general runs of hybrid teas and thus makes them more susceptible to winter injury.
Brownell Bush Roses
Among the Brownell bush roses we particularly like are:
- Peach-pink Break O’ Day, very double;
- Orange Ruffles, with waved petals;
- Lily Pons, cream;
- Anne Vanderbilt, deep grenadine-red semi-double;
- Pink Princess;
- Handsome Red Dutchess
And among the climbers, vigorous, ever-blooming Climbing Break O’Day; Golden Climber; hauntingly fragrant Orange Everglow with beautifully formed buds and recurved outer petals; and chaste White Gold.
Standard-type Hybrid Teas
Some standard-type hybrid teas that have stayed with us for many years, with occasional temperatures of 15° to 20° degrees Fahrenheit below zero, are:
- Eclipse, the far-from-new yellow with the most beautifully shaped buds of all;
- Katherine T. Marshall, with stately coral-pink buds and flowers on long, strong, straight stems;
- Hill Top, a delicate coral buff with flowers of fine form;
- Peace
All these are fragrant and distinguished for their dark, leathery foliage.
Of course, there are many, many more. Information on the winter-hardiness of new varieties may be gleaned from the “Proof of the Pudding” reports published annually in the Year Book of the American Rose Society.
Floribundas Harden Than Hybrid Teas
Floribundas, as a class, have with us proved even harder than hybrid teas. The old World’s Fair, Betty Prior, and the newer varieties.
Vogue, Fashion, and Independence come back vigorous and smiling year after year.
Unfading-rich red Frensham is one of our favorites. We are enthusiastic about last year’s geranium red Spartan, with its many brilliant, well-formed blooms throughout the season, its lustrous, dark, dark foliage on bushy plants, and the disease resistance and iron-hardiness which gives it its name.
Most Shrub Roses Are Extremely Hardy
Old Harison’s Yellow, Hugonis, and Rosenelf—not to mention the rugged rugosas and their hybrids, one of the best of which is silvery-pink Frau Dagmar Hartopp—withstand decade after decade of the worst buffeting winter has to offer.
Undue exposure to winter conditions, including late winter winds, should be avoided if you want your garden roses to come through uninjured.
Poor drainage is another cause, often unsuspected, of winter injury. In planting, avoid locations that provide such hazards.
And in rose spring planting or replanting, other dangers must be guarded against. These are the possibility of high spring winds and strong spring sun drying out the canes before the roots have become established; or of a late, hard frost killing back the soft new growth.
Hill up well with soil, to a height of 6” inches or more, any rose bush set out in early spring, gradually removing the soil as growth develops.
44659 by F. F. Rockwell