This Tournament of Roses Crowns 4 Blooming Winners
What’s on your rose wish list? More climbing roses? More shrub roses? More fragrant roses? More vividly colored blooms? You’re in luck. These are just a few of the characteristics of the dozens of new roses at local nurseries and garden centers.
Each year, the best of the best of America’s new roses are entered in the nationwide All-America Rose Selections process. The plants are carefully evaluated by experts for disease resistance, vigor, flower production, beauty and other desired traits.
Among the dozens of new faces are four 1998 AARS winners--two hybrid tea roses, one grandiflora and one shrub rose.
Opening Night, a tea rose hybridized from Olympiad and Ingrid Bergman by Keith Zary of Jackson & Perkins in Oregon, has long-lasting, bright-red flowers.
“It’s a very good cutting rose that will last, and it also has a nice red color,” said Lillian Biesiadecki, a judge and consulting rosarian with the American Rose Society and a past president of the Orange County Rose Society. Her Newport Beach garden contains more than 700 roses of all types.
The other AARS hybrid tea, Sunset Celebration, has so impressed Kevin Cartwright, assistant director for the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, that he is installing 100 of them in front of the library in January.
A fascinating creamy apricot-amber blend that evokes the hues of a lingering sunset, the flower was hybridized by Gareth Fryer and sold through Weeks Roses in Upland. The rose is named in honor of Sunset magazine’s 100th anniversary.
An upright grower with large blooms, this winner has also earned the prestigious gold medal at The Hague. Flowers have a moderate fruity fragrance.
The crop of shrub rose winners includes First Light, a compact, rounded bush that tucks well into most landscapes. Each plant covers itself with masses of single-petaled flowers with burgundy stamens. The somewhat spicy fragrance is an extra bonus.
Another new shrub is Raven, a medium upright and bushy shrub with clusters of deep velvety red flowers. The blooms open to reveal bright yellow stamens. They are showy but have little fragrance. The dark green foliage is disease resistant.
Adventurous gardeners with a love of bright colors can consider AARS winner Fame!, a grandiflora with large hot-pink flowers, also the work of Zary for J&P.;
The plant is disease-resistant and dazzles the eyes but not the nose. Zary is pleased with it because of its long life as a cut flower.
“With neglect, each bloom can last 10 days, with a little care for two weeks,” he said.
It may not be the best choice for Orange County gardens, said Biesiadecki because “it fades rapidly and doesn’t have enough petals for good substance.”
If you want fragrance in a rose, consider Sheila’s Perfume, a floribunda that resembles a small hybrid tea. Bred by an amateur English hybridizer who named the delightful rose for his wife, Sheila’s Perfume is redolent with a strong fruit and rose perfume. The yellow high-centered flowers are brushed with deep pink and the plant is an upright grower with glossy deep-green leaves.
“I have three bushes, and they’re never out of bloom,” Biesiadecki said. “This rose does best with some afternoon shade because the flowers can fade.”
Nostalgia fans may be lured by two new floribunda roses named George Burns and Gracie Allen. The late comedian selected the rose in honor of his wife, said Carruth, hybridizer of these roses.
He said Burns chose the plant because it produces white flowers with a pink heart, and “it made him laugh.” His namesake rose is more vibrantly colored with yellow, red, pink and cream stripes with a strong, sweet fragrance.
Roses that don’t win AARS awards are usually destroyed, never to grace gardens. But this year, J&P; made an exception and is marketing two varieties that were among the top 10 contenders for AARS designation, according to Zary, whose breeding program includes modern versions of old-fashioned roses.
Rose Sachet and Fragrant Lace are the current results of that effort. He promises more in the near future.
Rose Sachet is a hybrid tea with an unusual dusky pink color. The large, very fragrant flowers are quartered when fully opened. This rose is noteworthy because it combines fragrance with very good disease resistance, a breakthrough in rose breeding that hybridizers have only recently accomplished.
Fragrant Lace is also a new rose that could be at home in Queen Victoria’s time with its ruffled light pink flowers with yellow reverse, edged in darker pink. Also very disease resistant, Fragrant Lace has a fruity, citrus fragrance.
Another J&P; hybrid tea for 1998 is Harlequin, a compact grower at 4 feet (in warmer climates, such as inland Orange County, it can stretch an extra foot or two). The flowers are sweetly fragrant and are lavender pink with a distinctive cream reverse. It’s disease resistant regarding mildew and rust (a fungus that lavender roses usually attract), but it can get black spot.
Of all the rose varieties sold in America, J&P;’s pink Simplicity continues to dominate sales. In previous years, the color palette extended to white, red and yellow. In 1998, gardeners looking for a hedge effect can add Purple Simplicity to their landscapes.
The lavender-raspberry flowers have a mild fragrance, and the plants produce glossy dark-green foliage with strong disease resistance.
Another shrub option from J&P; is Red Delicious, a 3-foot shrub with clear red, old-fashioned blooms. The heavily petaled flowers emit a fresh apple scent.
Fans of climbing roses can cheer because 1998 brings two outstanding new varieties--Cl. Berries ‘n Cream and Cl. Shadow Dancer. Both will grow very well in Orange County.
Berries ‘n Cream is a free-flowering, vigorous climber bearing masses of striped flowers with old rose pink and creamy white. Because it blooms on new and old wood, unlike many climbers that only bloom on old growth, the climber bears flowers even in the first year of planting. Biesiadecki values this rose for its strong long stems for cutting, excellent repeat flowering and mild apple fragrance.
Another workhorse of a climber is Cl. Shadow Dancer, the work of legendary hybridizer Ralph Moore of Visalia, who has won much acclaim with his miniature roses.
Shadow Dancer is a modest grower--8 feet in much of the nation, larger in sunny Orange County. Blooming on new and old wood, the plant produces ruffled clusters of large flowers swirled with two tones of pink. The glossy green foliage is disease resistant.
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Talk and Tips
Gardeners can get help in selecting, caring for and pruning roses when the Orange County Rose Society and the city of Westminster hold a panel discussion and pruning demonstration Jan. 10-11 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Westminster Community Service and Recreation Building, 8200 Westminster Blvd. (310) 596-0017.
