About Basic Care

Old Dependables

by Sue Streeper

This month's article on great-performing roses was inspired by our recent pruning of plants in preparation for a nice October bloom. I could not help but be impressed with the growth and health and heavy bloom that we had experienced from certain warhorse varieties. What I share with you now are eight super roses, none of them new, which I recommend without reservation. For newcomers to rose growing, these varieties can be easily purchased and will grow well if given the basic requirements of sun, adequate watering, and occasional fertilizing.

HONOR:This rose was introduced in 1980 along with Love and Cherish, and it won the AARS award. We grow about a dozen Honors in El Cajon, and it has consistently grown huge and loaded with white blooms. It is classified as a hybrid tea, but it fits the classic description for a grandiflora -tall and bearing sprays of blooms. With no exaggeration, I can say that we pruned four feet off the plants in August and left them at five feet. Honor must be religiously disbudded in order to persuade it to grow one to a stem for entering in rose shows. It is capable of exquisite form along the lines of Touch of Class and is essentially disease free. Its blooms can be much affected by thrips, so spot spraying with Orthene is necessary at some times of year to reach snowy white perfection. If you do not spray or disbud, you will still get long-stemmed sprays that can be combined for mass arrangements in your home. Fragrance is especially noticeable in mass arrangements.

BRIGADOON:This sturdy hybrid tea won the AARS award in 1992. It is officially classified as a pink blend, but it is not pink. I would describe it as an orange blend, with no tendency to fade. Everything holds up well on this plant. The canes are as big around as your thumb; leaves are large, leathery, and dark green; and the blooms are bright and long lasting. Our plants are about six feet tall and equally as wide. We have experienced no disease. There is no fragrance. Brigadoon obviously loves to grow, sending out plenty of basal breaks every year. Beginners should have great success with this lush, colorful variety.

PRISTINE:I consider Pristine to be the perfect rose for a novice rose grower. Like Brigadoon, this rose is a great grower. It grows as wide as it does tall-about five feet in diameter. It features fat, thorny canes with large, dark, healthy foliage. Introduced in 1978, its blooms are a delicate white and pink blend with crisp substance. You will never have ugly brown petals cluttering a Pristine bush. When the blooms are spent, either on the bush or in a vase, the still-crisp petals drop cleanly and suddenly.

SECRET: In many ways, Secret is an improved Pristine which is one of its parents. Sometimes the blooms are hard to distinguish from Pristine because Secret has the same delicate white and pink coloring. However, there are definite differences. Secret has great fragrance whereas Pristine has none. Secret '~c blooms are somewhat smaller, but they have classic pointed-center form, whereas Pristine's large blooms are not as symmetrical. Secret's leaves are smaller and duller than Pristine's. If fragrance is an important characteristic to you, Secret is the rose you should buy.

ICEBERG: Speaking of warhorses, Iceberg has to be right up there at the top of the list. This familiar floribunda is a staple of gardens all over the world, and rightly so. It reblooms frequently with cascades of white blooms topping glossy, healthy foliage. Iceberg makes a nice background behind colored roses, especially red ones, since it typically grows about six feet tall. Introduced in 1958, it shows no signs of losing its popularity. It is available in a bush, climber, and tree.

SIMPLICITY: If Iceberg is the floribunda warhorse of the world, Simplicity is the same in the United States. Introduced in 1978, this pink rose is found planted as a hedge in gardens everywhere. My earliest memory of Simplicity is from the ads on the back of Parade magazine in the late 70's and the 80's. It was available only by mail order, and you had to order a group of five or six. The idea was that it was meant to be used as a hedge, and the claim was that it was nearly carefree. It has lived up to its extravagant claims. Water it and feed it occasionally, and it will rebloom frequently. It does need to be pruned after each bloom cycle, but new growth will be along in a matter of a few weeks.

PLAYGIRL: Like its parent, Playboy, this single-petalled floribunda has beautiful glossy foliage and a great propensity to be in bloom. Both of these roses have well-earned fabulous reputations, but the nod in our yard has to go to Playgirl because it performs so continuously well for us. Classed as a medium pink, it really is better described as shocking pink or fusehia. Plants are four to five feet tall, with stems unusually long for floribundas. You can cut sprays for vase use with twelve-inch stems. Playgirl has a lovely fragrance which is increased if you put multiple sprays in a vase in the house.

SALLY HOLMES: This amazing climber has become hugely popular in the United States in recent years since people have discovered how well it will grow here. It was introduced in 1976, but it has been only in the last few years that everyone has seemed to find out about it. Sally Holmes is officially described as a shrub (hybrid musk), but in California gardens she will outclimb most any other climber. Large clusters of single-petalled cream flowers develop from peach-colored buds. This rose needs space, so you need to put it on a trellis or fence that is a minimum of six feet tall, or better yet against the wall of a two-story house.

Well, there it is. I wanted to limit the list to those with which I had had personal experience and which are easily available. These roses have thrived for many years in our El Cajon garden. There are doubtless many more roses which you might like to add which meet the criteria of health, vigor, and long-term dependability in your own experience. How about a letter to the editor of Rose Ramblings describing one or two of your old faithfuls?

This article was originally published in Rose Ramblings, Vol. LXXII No. 7, September, 1999. © 1999 San Diego Rose Society, Inc.

Keywords: Basic, Buying, Planting, Variety, Varieties