Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Roses are the longest blooming shrub in this climate. Fill your garden with their colors and fragrances by planting bare-root rose bushes now.

• Spray fruit trees with a dormant oil spray. Spray from the bottom up, including the undersides of limbs and the ground around the tree, to prevent early spring insect infestations.

• Primroses will give you the most color during this cold weather. Choose some pretty ones now for your boxes and beds.

• Start seeds of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and other cool season crops indoors for planting outside in March.

• Roses should be pruned in February near the end of the dormant season. You can clean them up now, however, by removing all the old leaves on and around the plants.

Bright Colors for the New Year

Two new roses took the coveted “AARS Winner” title for 2008. After two years of testing, ‘Dream Come True’™ and ‘Mardi Gras’ were chosen as the best new roses by the All-America Rose Selections committee.

Both of these new roses ring in the New Year with their golden highlights. ‘Dream Come True’ is a lovely combination of vibrant colors. This rose produces perfectly formed yellow blossoms, blushed with ruby-red at the tips, all set amongst abundant matte green foliage. The big, bushy vigorous plant is a Grandiflora rose. It yields long-stemmed, long-lived blooms with mild tea fragrance, making it beautiful in the landscape and a great choice for bouquets.

With flamboyant blooms in a novel blend of pink, orange, and yellow, and a delightful peppery scent, ‘Mardi Gras’ creates a festive atmosphere in any setting. Each high-centered hybrid tea style bloom begins as an apricot-orange bud that slowly spirals open to reveal a 4-inch bright pink and orange bloom with a yellow base. This festive Floribunda has proven to perform exceptionally well across the country with little-to-no care. The colorful blooms are perfectly framed with dark green, semi-glossy foliage, and its upright columnar habit makes ‘Mardi Gras’ an ideal rose to use as a hedge or in a border with mixed perennials.

New from Weeks Roses this year is the lovely ‘Falling in Love’™ with its big classically-formed fragrant flowers of warm pink & porcelain white. Each long-lived lovely blossom is carried on top of sturdy stems, excellent for cut flowers. The 6″ blooms have classic, Hybrid Tea rose form on attractive, bushy plants.

A fine new introduction to the Polyantha class is ‘Wing-Ding’™. Polyanthas are small plants that cover themselves with trusses of tiny, delightful blossoms. The blooms of ‘Wing-Ding’ are scarlet red carried in large, pyramid-shaped clusters that repeat bloom late into the season. It will add lots of bright color to the flower bed.

An exciting new Climber is named ‘Night Owl’™ for its dark wine-purple blooms that blink with bright yellow stamens. The showy clusters of semi-double blooms have a sweet, spicy fragrance. They repeat bloom readily on vigorous, long canes and hold their dramatic claret color to the end.

‘Brilliant Pink Iceberg’ is a color sport of the beloved ‘Iceberg’ rose. The plant is exactly like its parent, ‘Iceberg’, except the color has been kicked up a notch to a bright cerise pink painted onto cream. With showy clusters and a free-flowering habit, it makes an excellent tree rose.

Bring in the New Year by adding some bright new colors to your garden palette.