Easy Roses

Last year at the end of the growing season I meant to go around the garden with a notebook and rate each rose’s disease-resistance on a scale from 1 to 5. 5 would mean no visible signs of disease, 1 would be total defoliation.

I never got around to it but will attempt it this year a couple of times during the season.

The worst performers were the miniatures. I’ve never been crazy about minis but decided to give some a whirl. Without exception, they had much more blackspot than any other class. Interesting that one of the cleanest plants was ‘Verschuren’, an old hybrid tea with interestingly variegated foliage. Not a trace of blackspot. Many others looked great as well.

I should mention that I live in East Tennessee, which gets an average of 51 inches of rainfall each year. Abundant rain = blackspot because the fungus spores can’t germinate unless leaves remain wet for at least seven hours.

Admittedly, last year was extremely dry. But because my soaker-hose system had some problems last year, I watered with a sprinkler, which is the worst way to water roses because it wets the foliage.

When I have time, I’ll post a list of all the plants I ordered last year. A few were planted in our new 20’ by 30’ cottage garden; most remained in plastic pots all season. This spring’s goal is to dig a massive new rose bed and get them in the ground.