Each year we grow more and more excited for the arrival of roses in the Spring. The rosa bloom is a sure sign that spring is finally in the air! Roses need to be planted in plenty of sun and thankfully don’t mind our clay ridden and often sandy soil. In fact, a good rule of thumb when amending the planting site for your rose is one third clay, one third sand and one third compost. That means you can skate out of here with merely your rose, a bag of fertilizer and some compost. It certainly won’t hurt to mulch with some soil building condition, however. Once you amend the hole, take the time to make sure there is sufficient drainage. You can test this by filling the hole with water and if the water remains after a few hours you should continue to amend. Now for more fun let’s get to know our rose categories a little better, shall we?
For anyone who enjoys having fresh cut flowers in the house, adding a Hybrid Tea rose to the garden is the place to start. These rose bushes are famous for their perfect, almost picturesque blooms that are excellent for bouquets or contestants on the dating show we all hate yet continue to watch! Now back to reality. They have long stems with attractive foliage only adding to their elegance and beauty inside of your favorite vase on the kitchen counter. They are available in a wide range of colors and we made sure to bring in many of the fan favorites this year. To name a few you can find here are; Chrysler Imperial, Henry Fonda, John F Kennedy (left), Good as Gold, Mister Lincoln, Perfume Delight and so many more!
Named for boasting an abundance of blooms on every branch, the Floribunda roses are a big hit with the rose community. Unlike the Hybrid Tea they produce clusters of small blooms at the end of each stem. The best part is that they are also repeat bloomers so the more you deadhead the more blooms you get! And it gets even better, gardeners! These roses are delightfully more disease-resistant, compact and bushier than the Hybrid Tea or Grandiflora making them great for eye-catching hedges that will make your neighbors jealous.
Now for the, dare I say, “GRAND” combination of floral greatness…The Grandiflora rose brilliantly takes the elegantly flawless blooms of the Hybrid Tea and then multiplies the quantity on each stem like the Floribunda to give you a little bouquet of stately roses at the end of every stem. This group of roses also packs a punch in the fragrance department. With their beautiful, fragrant blooms and overall, very handsome upright shape it is easy to choose a Grandiflora rose as a standalone attraction in your garden that you and the bees can both admire.
We bring in over 200 roses every May that are zone hardy to our area. The tricky part to brining roses into the nursery early in the springtime is that they can commonly become victims of our late frosts. They have these beautiful tender new leaves that can easily turn black from frost. If you experience frost damage on your rose (or any other hardy plant) that first spring that you plant it, don’t sweat it. Once we get to reliably warm weather you can prune back some of the more damaged parts of the plant and let new growth fill in. Even if your plant still shows some battle scars from frost damage for the rest of the season it will be just fine health wise. This is a common experience for plants spending their first spring here in the high desert. They get a head start over in the more temperate climate in the valley and therefore have vulnerable foliage in our environment. Once that plant is over wintered here it will wake up a little later the next spring with the rest of our plants, putting out new growth when there is a reduced risk of frost.
