Roses for the New Year
- • Bare root season is here. Choose and plant your favorite fruit trees and roses now.
- • Start seeds of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and other cool season crops indoors for planting outside in March.
- • Strawberries can be planted any time now. Get them in early, and you’ll be picking strawberries this summer.
- • Fill your winter garden with color from primroses and pansies.
- • Prune fruit trees, grapes, berries, and ornamental trees this month. Take in a pruning class and sharpen your shears before you start.
Hot New Roses for 2009
The new year always gives rose enthusiasts tempting new varieties to add to the garden. This year we have three new Hybrid Tea roses that are surely worth a prominent position in the rose bed.
‘Pink Promise’ won the hybrid tea division of the All America Rose Selections for 2009. It is a pink-and-cream blend that reaches its peak of color before the summer heat. With long stems and perfect buds opening to an elegant, classically formed flower it is beautiful in a vase as well as the garden. Its fruity fragrance makes it especially appealing, and, in addition, a portion of the sales from each plant will go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
A beautiful new Hybrid Tea rose is named ‘Legends’ thanks to Oprah Winfrey. She was involved with the development of this rose from the beginning and she originally considered lending her name to it. But she decided instead to pay tribute to the 25 African-American women she honored in her 2005 Legends Weekend and named it the ‘Legends’ rose.
It is one of the largest hybrid teas ever created. The rose is red with black tips and ruffled petals, with large, shapely buds unfurling to massive ruby red blossoms. It takes only one to fill a vase and lend its fruity perfume to the room.
There’s nothing that lights up the garden better than a touch of soft luminous yellow. ‘Summer Love’ is a new Hybrid Tea with large, full flowers of gentle lasting yellow – sometimes tinged with just a touch of pink. Its shapely 6-inch blossoms exude a mild, sweet fragrance, and the compact, bushy habit make it easy to tuck into smaller spaces.
An attractive new bicolor rose is called ‘Rock & Roll’. As the 4 to 6 inch blooms open on this vigorous Grandiflora, they reveal stripes and splashes of burgundy, red, white and pink with cream reverse of the petals. Each flower has its own unique patterning. The strong rose and fruit fragrance and disease resistant foliage make this new rose worth planting.
One “oldie but goodie” climbing rose is ‘Don Juan’. Possibly the best red climber, it has luscious deep velvety red flowers on an extremely healthy plant. The highly fragrant flowers on ‘Don Juan’ appear singly or in small clusters and have a lovely hybrid tea shape. Grow it on a wire fence or on a trellis where it gets plenty of sun.
Bring in the New Year with some bright new roses for your garden.
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