PREPARE FOR A BEDAZZLING LINEUP OF NEW ROSES FOR 2021
It’s time to review your options for bare-root season ahead
Throughout the year, our minds whirl with thoughts of roses we desire — and know we deserve. Ready yourself for more temptations: Bare-root season is just around the corner, and here is a peek at next year’s new roses.
Some of us opt to buy older tried and true roses, but many of us will want to be the first in the neighborhood to grow the beauties of 2021. They are definitely hard to resist.
Hybrid teas
“Enchanted Peace” is a Meilland rose introduced by Star Roses. Its bicolored yellowy-orange and pink blooms have a moderate to strong fragrance. This is a medium bush with dark-green, glossy foliage that is disease-resistant. “Painted Porcelain,” introduced by Weeks Roses and hybridized by Christian Bédard, is a hybrid tea rose in pink with cream reverse, with glossy, disease-resistant foliage. The bush is medium-tall, and the blooms have a mild fruity and tea fragrance. “Perfume Factory” is a Tom Carruth hybrid tea introduced by Weeks Roses. The classic, spiraled lavender-pink blooms have a strong fruity and spice fragrance. The bush is medium-tall, and its glossy, green foliage has good disease resistance.
Grandifloras
“Fun in the Sun,” introduced by Weeks Roses and hybridized by Christian Bédard, has old-fashioned gold suffused with pink
blooms that have a strong fruity and spice fragrance. The bush is of medium height and has very good disease resistance. “Sitting Pretty” is hybridized by William Radler (hybridizer of the Knock Out roses) and is introduced by Star Roses. It has large, glowing pink blooms with a medium damask scent. The bush is of medium height and has good disease resistance.
Floribundas
“Sunset Horizon,” hybridized by Christian Bédard for Weeks Roses, has semi-double blooms that start out bright yellow but fade to a very attractive deep cherry-red. It is a bushy plant with excellent disease resistance. Another Christian Bédard f loribunda, also introduced by Weeks Roses, is “Silver Lining.” It has classical, large spiraled silver-lavender blooms on medium stems and has good disease resistance.
Shrub roses
Looking for an unusual bloom with unique coloring? The rose named “Ringo All-Star” has a melon-orange and salmon-pink bloom with a distinct cherry-red eye, and showy yellow stamens. This rose is compact and diseaseresistant. It is hybridized by Christopher Warner and introduced by Proven Winners.
“Pink Snowf lakes” has small, single-petaled pink blooms that f lower in clusters on a low, bushy and spreading bush. This Christian Bédard rose has very good disease resistance.
The House of Meilland is the hybridizer of the very first miniature Knock Out Rose. The “Petite Knock Out Rose” has nonfading fire-engine-red blooms. It is easy care and diseaseresistant and can be grown in a container or planted in a mass planting for a dramatic pop of color.
“Golden Opportunity,” hybridized by Tom Carruth and introduced by Weeks Roses, is a tall climber with deep, glossy green foliage with very good disease resistance.
Its gold formal double blooms have a moderate fruity and tea fragrance.
Groundcover introduced by Weeks Roses, Tom Carruth’s “Playful Happy Trails” blooms in clusters of small single-petaled red blooms that have a large yellow eye zone. The trailing and spreading bush is a very disease-resistant rose.
Look out also for these Roses of Excellence
American Garden Rose Selections 2021 winners: American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS) was established to recognize and recommend the best garden-worthy rose varieties for the various regions of the United States. Roses are tested for two years in six geographical regions to provide objective and reliable information to rose gardeners.
Characteristics considered are disease resistance, easy-care, bloom abundance and form, fragrance, rebloom habit, aging quality of blooms, hardiness in cold and heat, vigor and foliage and plant habit.
For the Southwest region, the 2021 AGRS winners were: “Sweet Spirit,” a vigorous grandif lora, bred by Meilland Roses, that blooms in a profusion of rich violet-red full and fragrant blooms and is impervious to black spot; “Brindabella Purple Prince,” a shrub rose, hybridized by Sylvia and John Gray, with highcentered dark red-purple blooms with a very strong
rose fragrance; “Top Gun,” a Tom Carruth top-ranked shrub rose with excellent f lowering and resistance to all the major rose diseases; and “Tropica,” a diseaseresistant rose with coralred high-centered blooms bred by Ping Lim.
American Rose Society’s Members Choice Award for 2020: Each year, the American Rose Society honors the rose that receives the highest national garden rating in its national members’ survey titled Roses In Review.
David Austin is reputed to have thought that “Olivia Rose Austin,” named after his granddaughter, was the best rose he ever introduced.
Many American rosarians agree with him, and “Olivia Rose Austin,” with its lovely baby-pink cupped rosette blooms, received the
ARS 2020 Members Choice Award, Fragrance Award, and the James Alexander Gamble fragrance award for 2020. This rose is a definite winner!
The American Rose Society’s David Fuerstenberg Prize for 2021: “Ring of Fire” is a very noteworthy, glowing orange hybrid tea rose hybridized by Chris Greenwood.
The dazzling exhibitionquality blooms have longevity on the bush and in the vase, and this vibrant rose brings a big splash of color into the garden.
Feeling tempted? Clear some space in your garden now. Next month, you’ll be glad you did.