Way to grow Diymadness!

Don't you just love getting inspired and redoing an area of the yard? Sounds like it will look great.

When I first started growing hardy roses, I used to mulch them with peat moss. Then, I realized that even the parts not mulched survived winter, as long as it was covered with snow. To me the blossoms on Winnipeg Parks resemble a hybrid tea rose when they are just beginning to open.

I think we've all purchased a few "parking lot" plants here and there. I only buy a plant if it shows signs of life. Don't laugh, alot of these stores seem to put dried out bareroot roses on clearance in July. Or potted shrubs with no leaves.
I've bought a few clearance roses through the years including Jens Munk and Lambert Close and some Morden one I forget the name of.

My best buy was a pyramid cedar in a one-gallon pot for $2. It was one of the last clearance shrubs left in August, bone dry and I felt sorry for it. Three years later it's four feet high and nicely shaped. All I did was plant it and water it regularly (and cover for the first two winters), but it gives me a sense of gardening accomplishment to think that I saved it and gave it a home.

Glen

Yippee - I can join your excitement because my newly planted $5.00 bargain roses seem to be doing well also. 2 are free of snowcover and appear to have green stems - Lambert Closse and JP Connell. The Prairie Joy won't be out of snow cover for a while longer but the mystery plant [Winnipeg Parks or Quadra] should see the light of day real soon. I'm so excited too. I want to include some more lupins, minature delphinium, globe flower a few ground cover plants and a couple of annuals to fill it in, oh yes and an asparagus plant for texture and intrigue - don't you love springtime

Fern

Yeah -- I'm happy about the roses. But I think one of my resolutions this year is to be more careful about dragging home "parking lot plants." I'm going to bite the bullet and try to buy the more-expensive garden centre plants. I've been reflecting on my plant purchases, and many of my bargain purchases have not done that well. Either they were not appropriate to the zone, or they were unhealthy, or really tiny, or just spindly. Whereas my garden centre splurges have generally flourished. I guess buying cheap plants is just a gamble -- if they die, at least they didn't cost much. That said, I have had a few successes with parking lot plants -- a beautiful birch that I bought for next to nothing one fall, a lovely Miss Kim lilac fro Superstore. . . And I did buy an expensive Amur Maple from a garden centre specializing in trees and it didn't make it. Hmmmmm. I think I'm talking myself out of my resolution. Who am I kidding? I probably still won't be able to resist those $5 roses.

My $5.00 roses were from one of the Garden Centres - I think that my plan this year will be to buy a few perennials that are "must have" at the beginning of the season but then plant annuals to fill in between the roses. I'll get an idea of what things look like and in the fall I will "stretch" my gardening dollar and buy end of season perennials that will suit my space. Hmmm that is the plan - problem is I love to plan but rarely stick with the plan

Fern

Way to go on the roses! I am a sucker for rescuing some poor 1 leafed plant or shrub near the end of the season. I have done so well that I now deliberately make the rounds at the end. Got some nice Dwarf Bleeding heart and a few other things last fall at Walmart. I had quite a time watching a lady go through the bags and literally take each root or bulb out of the particular kind of plant she wanted and set the good ones aside. Good on her as the rest would not have grown and should have been thrown out. She spent along time, probably 20 min to 30.

Clayton

I ordered Hope for Humanity and Winnipeg Parks this year from Holes. My Cuthburt Grant was a new purchase last summer, so I'm hoping it will live through winter. I have it about 4 feet above the ground in a raised bed. It's pretty close to the concrete outside wall blocks, so might not be enough protection from the cold air. Hope it makes it!!

Carol

I have most of the Parkland and Explorer roses. They have proven themselves very hardy here in Central Saskatchewan. So I wouldn't worry too much about them making the winter. Although I have only planted my roses in the Spring.
My oldest rose John Cabot was planted in 1990 so this year it will be on it's 18th summer. It was a birthday present from my mother. How many other presents do you get that many years of enjoyment from.
I've read somewhere that some of the Pavement roses survive our winters even in pots. I don't think that I really want to test that though.

Shelley

In pots!!! That would be something!!

We got a light skiff of snow this morning! C'mon S P R I N G !!!

Carol

You'll love this story, Carol. The others here have heard it.

My son's ex bought two Walmart bodybag roses the summer before last. She never got around to planting them and they stayed in their bodybags all winter. When my son was doing some yard clean up last spring, he brought them to me because he thought they looked like they were alive. They were, so planted them in containers and they grew really well. I planted them into the ground late last summer, so we'll see how they fared in this more normal winter. They're White Kosters, rated zone 4.

I have to admit that our winter was more like zone 5 last year and that would have definitely contributed to their "hardiness". And i hope that they've survived, because they were free to me - a REAL bargain! LOL

This is what I Found in my walk around today. I believe it is The Hunter. I covered him back up because they are forecasting lows of -18*C next week.

{{gwi:737241}}

Last year all 4 of my Frontenac had green leaves on after the snow melted. True hardy roses.

Shelley

Holy cow, Shelley!! None of my roses have ever done that! Roses must really like your yard.;^)

Wow!!...I could never grow roses in winter time!
You must have a ton of snow cover!....excellent!
Konrad

Marcia - That's amazing!! Zone 4 roses made it through the winter in a rose bag??!!! Wow!!

Shelly - Sheesh talk about PRAIRIE TOUGH!!

Carol

a couple of year ago I went to Canadian tire and loaded up a shopping cart full of 1 gallon phlox, bleeding hearts, cornflowers and peonies, about 25 plants in all. I asked to speak to the store mgr and when he came out I told him I would take all his sick and wounded off his hands for $5.00. He thought I meant $5.00 each but I said $5.00 for everything. So just to make it his last word, he said $10.00, DEAL! So I took them home, soaked them thorougly and waited. In about a week, they all started with new growth and all but one survived. They really did well last year and this year should even be better. Sometimes I feel like a "lurker" but you can sure save a lot of money!

Good job, Stanly! I'll have to remember that when Walmart has their sickly plants out on the asphalt!

The rose with the green leaves is Topaz not The Hunter. Although The Hunter is green to the tips. I'm happy that they are both doing fine.

Shelley