Roses for Thanksgiving
David Austin has detailed descriptions of more than 4000 roses and detailed information about all aspects of rose growing. Mine even came with a CD so I can browse through roses onscreen as well.
There are also a great many web sites devoted to roses. If you want to know about specific varieties of roses, two sites that offer spectacular pictures, navigational ease, and in-depth information, are: Timeless Roses, which has pictures and descriptions of hundreds of roses, with information about rose care, and
Everyrose; The Rose Reference Database, which has detailed information on over 6700 roses, usually accompanied by magnificent photos.
One of the great features about the EveryRose database is that every entry includes an opportunity to comment on the rose if you've grown it, and to read comments by other gardeners. Both of these online databases are fully searchable.
Can't get enough rose photos? Then you'll definitely want to visit Trevor Inkpen's photo-essay "December Roses", which features glorious photos of 'Sexy Rexy', 'St. John', 'Renaissance' and other roses in full bloom. And there's no accompanying rose information, but Susan and Regina's Just Rose Pictures are truly spectacular.
Another way to find roses that are outstanding is to go with the consensus; the Canadian Rose Society has surveyed gardeners across Canada about their Canadian Rose Favourites, making it easy to find out what roses Canadian gardeners think are the most fragrant, most disease-resistant, or just plain outstanding in each of Canada's 8 climate zones.
Preparing for a Fall Flush
Even repeat-flowering roses can use a little help if they're going to produce the fall flush that will make your garden the envy of gardeners in colder zones. Regular deadheading throughout the summer is essential; you don't want your roses to start setting hips before their time. Deadheading roses is one of my favourite maintenance activities; it's a good chance to enjoy their gorgeous blooms and heady scent up-close (and spot any insect or disease problems that may be developing)!
Because roses generally rebloom cyclically, on a 45 to 60 day cycle from pruning, you can also encourage a fall flush by timing a pruning accordingly. Mark Whitelaw explains how to do this in "Fall Rose Pruning"; as he points out, this is a gentler pruning than the hard pruning you give roses in late winter or early spring, that needs to be done at least 75 days before the onset of
Latest Articles