I picked the wrong year to completely renovate my rose garden, but who could know, back in May when I planted, that we would have record setting heat on top of a drought? Oh well. It’s always something in the garden. At least it wasn’t a plague of locusts.
But if you wonder why, in some of my photos, the garden is completely overgrown and weedy, it’s because of those two conditions. Getting the weeds out of my heavy clay requires so much disruption to the soil that I have just decided not to do it this year. Once the rains come back, I will take care of it.
And I will talk about some “blessings ” of this approach in a later post.
But one of my new favorite roses is the apricot colored one you see in the above photo. It was sent to me to trial so it is most likely not widely available this year. Look for it next spring. In fact, an internet search showed that it was only available from one retailer this year. Expect much wider distribution next year, particularly if my experience is typical.
The rose is called At Last (At Last™ Rosa x ‘HORCOGJIL’ USPPAF, Can PBRAF). It is a floribunda rose, from Proven Winners. It will grow to be 3′ tall and wide. And best of all, unlike some many of the easy care roses, it has a fragrance!
Because this rose bed is newly planted, it got some supplemental water, but not nearly as much as it should have. Nevertheless, all of the new roses that I planted have thrived.
I expect it to do just fine over the winter. Even my finicky David Austins survived in this spot without extra protection. And should this garden have a tussle with the snowplow as it has in the past, At Last is an “own root” rose! In my climate that’s really something wonderful!
