The only English Rose offered at our local nursery this summer (so far) is Molineaux which is, at best, borderline hardy here. If they were going to pick one David Austin, you'd think they would choose one that would survive our Canadian winters.

Some of these choices just amaze me.

Oh I was going to add that we also had about 1/2 the selection as knockouts as well. Some Mr Lincoln, Peace Rose of course. A couple floribundas and HTs . . . and no OGRs at all.

Ya know, maybe people are getting fed up with rose death and will choose anything that works.
My mom is in Markham, and she has purchased several roses that should have been hardy. I winterized them, and they still died. That darned grey clay builders fill they used in her community is a killer. It holds in way too much water and ruins everything - except knockouts. In her area, all homes are new, they tear out farm and forest for massive building projects and just bulldoze all the beautiful soil to heck. So I can see why may of the nurseries would be carrying things that might survive such torture!! The knockouts do look lovely with all the little blue forget me nots!

GGG

girlgroup,

knockouts are not cane hardy roses in the north, they suffer significant die back. Im not going into the debate of the worthiness of knockouts here im sure there are places for them. However how many knockouts do you need? even if you were making a hedge of them thats fine , gives great colour for the season. But if you were making rose gardens instead, I dont think you would want to fill them with just knockouts.

This winter, I went to my local Agway and the man in charge of rose ordering photocopied his entire order list for me. I was then able to plan ahead, and use Ashdown and Uncommon Rose for the ones I really wanted and he didn't have. His potted ones are 18.98, but big and budded and beautiful. I bought a Mary Rose and a Rouge Royale from him.
If they know we are interested, the local folks really do try to help.
Next year, now that I know who he buys from, I might check out what that wholesaler has, and give him my wish list, with the promise to buy them if he gets them in. I love the previously mentioned own root suppliers, but supporting the local guy is also a goal of mine...

Don't you hate that? The big rose place by me has three greenhouses full of roses - the middle and end one are almost all knockouts. But they did have a bunch of Austins, just not the one I was looking for. And why are these places all selling climbers like Don Juan that will die back over the winter?

We have a lot of Don Juan at our nurseries as well, although I bought one at a great sale and planted him last November. I figured he wouldn't make it through the winter, but he's leafing out this Spring and I wouldn't be surprised if he grows a bit. No winter protection persay, but plenty of shelter from the wind in his location.

I was so excited to see a sign saying "English Roses" in our local nursery. Many nurseries don't even have roses, or have one small row . . . the ones that do are dominated by HT/Floribundas and generally only about 5 different types of each of those . . . I walked all the way to the end of the row, and all they had were 6 pots of Molineux, priced about $15 higher than any other rose there. 6????? Why even bother?

Welcome to my world! The local rose selection in the Charlotte, NC is horrible!!! Unless of course I make a road trip to Roses Unmlimited or Ashdown. I did buy a Pope John Paul II rose at my favorite local nursery but that's it. Their plant selection for anything else is great but even their roses are awful. Every other local place else is Knock Out infested.

Carole

It's the same here in PA. Row after row of Knockouts.

I'm thinking just the way digital cameras have made everyone a photographer, Knockouts are going to make everyone a rose gardener. :-)

Susan

Why would anyone limit themselves to what a small local nursery has when you can buy ANYTHING you want online?
Even EBAY has a HUGE selection of OGRs.

Of course I am spoiled living in Sonoma County CA, but I bought my mme Alfred Carrieres on Ebay, and they arrived in great condition and are growing like weeds!

I like to try to support local nurseries, especially if they really try to put good work and effort into what they do. I'd much rather have a small nursery where you can ask a question and get a well-informed answer than a larger place that really doesn't care about you as a customer, has staff taking care of the plants who don't know what they're doing and just has the same old stuff as every other place.

I think the problem is DEMAND. Most of the gardens around here feature shrubs, easy-care flowers and almost none of them even have roses. The ones that do have the standard ones, Peace, Knock Out . . . That is what people grow around here. These are the plants they have heard of . . . the ones their neighbours have. If there were more demand for OGRs, David Austins, more unique perennials etc., I'm sure the nurseries would start to stock them. Canadian Tire was selling DA's "Tamora" and I asked the woman employee in the plant section whether they had any other David Austin Roses and she had never even heard of them (David Austin roses). I asked about Tamora and I actually had to go point it out before she realized it was a rose that they were selling. She certainly knew where to find the Knock Outs though.

Our closest own-root rose supplier is several provinces away or I'd be there as soon as I could (I'm so jealous of forum members who live close enough to these lovely rose nurseries with amazing displays and knowledgeable staff). I can't even order from most of those places online, and there are very few own-root OGR supplies in Canada. Hortico is mostly grafted and almost impossible to get a correct or good order from. Pickering is grafted roses, although a good selection. I ordered from Hortico this year and the cost to ship the roses (1.5 hours driving distance) was enough to buy another Rose and a couple flowers. Shipping is astronomical and I'd rather DEMAND (if possible) a better selection from our local nurseries. Walmart and other big chains are mostly a lost cause, sometimes you find a gem and mostly its just superstore stuff . . . but local nurseries are a different story. I think we need to start creating a demand for different plants!

Sorry, I know this turned into an essay. Its been bugging me for a couple years now, this problem.

Soon to be the same story here in Mich. with the lack of OGRs and the all-so-prevalent Knock Outs. Soon, we're losing Great Lakes Roses (they don't sell online guys, sorry), which has an amazing collection of antiques and other things you don't find at the average nursery, own-root!

There are a couple of places that sell a greater selection of hybrid teas and floribundas and even quite a few Austin roses, but antiques are very, very, very hard to come by (unless you're talking about Zephie or an occassional Gruss an Aachen or that white rugosa that looks like used kleenex -- can't remember the name off-hand).

Whoever said the problem is demand is right, I think. People grow what they think will work, and roses can be intimidating because of the reputation that hybrid teas (and some other factors) have given them as being hard to grow, fussy and demanding.

That's where rosarians come in. It's our job to educate the neighbors and friends that there ARE options besides the Knock Out and the Flower Carpet (and GGG, please let your mom know: She can amend her soil! Or even just the planting hole! There are so many more options than just that one rose!) We actually had the Knock Out guy come to talk at our rose society convention... he expected us to all be thrilled that here was a rose that survived not being fed, not being watered and not having anything done to it at all for a year. Not quite his target audience, turns out.

But that gets to my next point (and since others have ranted, so will I): Rose societies can do some educating and can help people feel good and competent about growing roses, too, if more of them decide to get out in the community, become accessible, and focus more on educating and the joy of growing roses instead of on endless presentations about how you can use your Q-tips and baby nail clippers to groom the perfect rose to win Queen at the rose show or what's not worth the garden space because its flowers only won Duchess. I've never known any non-rose grower or wanna-be grower inspired to start growing roses and feel like they actually could grow them successfully by looking at the perfectly groomed specimens set up for competition...

Silverkelt, which nursery is this?

I know what you mean, I don't even bother any more. I wish the nurseries would at least contact the local rose society to get advice on what roses are hardy and perform well. None of the staff at any of my local nurseries are knowledgeable about roses (although they claim to be),and they seem to get all their advice about what to order from their wholesalers. I also noticed a proliferation of Knockouts this year.

To add to that, I usually have poor luck with any container roses bought locally. The rootballs that they pot up seem closer to 1 1/2 grade rather than 1, and it has taken most of them twice as long to reach the growth of mailorder roses planted at the same time. You'd think it'd be the opposite, as they're getting a head start in the container.

Mailorder for me all the way!

And that movie that came out a few years ago, American Beauty (I think that was the name) sure didn't help rosarians' image, either!

Hi veilchen,

It was ossipee trail gardens in gorham maine. What is weird is they are usually top notch. Thier past openings had gorgeous full plants etc... this year they really seemed way behind . Thier tomatoe plants were barely setting true leaves, mine at home were far superiour, last year they had a whole greenhouse dedicated to clematis, all in bloom it was quite a sight to behold, didnt even appear they ordered any this year. The one saving grace is they finally upgraded thier daylilies, I got a startle this year to plant. But they had a much better selection of plants in years past. Oh well, my little girl got to ride a pony still! She really liked that.

Silverkelt

Knockouts are popular for good reasons that every one here is familiar with. If they ever figure out how to make them fragrant without messing up disease resistance and blooming, you may never see another type of rose in local nurseries.

I just moved up from Florida (where all you see are Knockouts and HTs) and was looking forward to all the roses I could get locally. Ha! I did see some English roses and a few floribundas, but overall I'm incredibly disappointed. Acres.....ACRES!....of every color of Knockout (don't they have yellow ones now?). I have nothing against them. I planted some at my old house and loved them. But some variety would be really nice.

Mail order is OK and I'm thankful, but I love to see and touch and smell the roses I've read about online.

I don't even bother with our local nursery anymore. Should just have a look maybe they've changed.

But with my preference for Kordes and Tantau I just order from Pickering and Hortico.

And then with the craze for Austins probably if I did go to my local no doubt if they had anything interesting it would be an Austin.

Mail Order is the best bet for getting what you want, but in return you pay huge shipping charges and you don't get to see/smell/touch the roses you are about to buy. You have to trust photos and descriptions.

Even if we had one nursery around here that specialized in heirlooms, that could include flowers, roses, veggies (tomatoes) and everything "heirloom" . . . it would be wonderful. I hope someone comes up with that idea around me :)

I could say the same for the tomato selection around here. Even the seed racks have the same boring old stuff. I end up ordering seed online if I want anything that is heirloom and not Mr. Joe Average round and red.
Our local plant center, who is the retail middleman, charges $16.99 for hybrid teas etc and $25 for Austins!!! No wonder I don't shop there. And the place two miles down the road is no better. Fortunately we have a place that grows own root roses about half an hour away and they have a nice selection of old roses and Austins for nearly half the price.

Around here there is nothing but Canadian Explorers. They also sell Harison's Yellow, which is pretty much almost native here.
I did find a Romantica at Walmart.
Other than that, they sell hybrid teas. I don't buy locally because I can't tell if they're grafted in those pots.
I once bought a rosa foetida bicolor, (grafted) which was not orange. It was yellow and pretty soon got rose rosette disease and we threw it out.

I spend so much every spring ordering from a multitude of
mailorder companies that I have no business checking out local nurseries....but I do anyways! It is hard to resist
checking out the rose selection when I go there to get alfalfa meal and before I know it, another rose finds itself seat-belted into the back seat of my car. My total
new rose total for this Spring is up to 66....and its still early.

I have lucked out and found a few good finds here & there
as I travel around. I have found Distant Drums, Champlain,
Topaz Jewel, Morden Sunrise, Morden Fireglow, John Cabot,
William Baffin, and a few others that actually do well here
in NH. Of course I had to wade through dozens of pots of
Knockouts to find them. I just shake my head looking at all the pots of hybrid teas that will likely die this winter. I grow some HT myself, but I know the effort it takes to winter them over and many people don't. I have
my best luck at Agway (in different locations).

Celeste

My cousin just bought a hybrid tea and and she lives up in Prince George. (Zone 3) I told her to pile leaves high over it after the first hard frost but refrained from asking whether she was going to build it its own cabin this winter. Didn't have the heart.