I think I need more roses!!! LOL!!!

I picked out Don Juan from the ARE valentines day sale. I'm kind of worried now, because I've read a lot of comments about it not growing well above zone 7. I guess we both can test it, and hope for a nicer winter next time.

You will love your Pink DJ, I have both and the pink is my favorite. In my opinion it smells better than the red and its flower form is much prettier, to me anyways. I'm sure you will love both!

I love DJ! I've never seen pink DJ.

Sara Ann,

A gardener, not a dedicated rose gardener, in my area has some massive Red Don Juans which get little care other than a spring pruning. To the best of my knowledge after that, they are not sprayed, fertilized, or winter protected at all, and neither regularly dead headed. They are impressive monsters.

I purchased a Pink Don Juan from Chamblee's last spring, and it's performance last year was impressive. The flower output for such a young rose bush, yet alone for a young climber surprised me. Its survival over this past brutal winter was hard to believe, practically tip hardy to its 4' canes, and without any protection, growing along a very exposed fence, not a protected location.

So far, so very good!

I have high hopes for my Pink Don Juan, and hope yours exceeds your expectations, too.

For your Don Juans from Chamblees to be in bloom as they are at such a young age does not surprise me. My Pink one did not bloom at all like a typical young climber...more like a young hybrid tea, bloom after bloom until fall.

Moses

Wow they look really good !! I have a small order from them I need to pursue . They never contacted me with my shipping cost and I have been planting so many others .. but pink Don Juan was on it ! I better get on it . Chamblees is always a favorite of mine .. and they always seem to have blooms on them !

Moses I'm glad to hear yours is highly recommended as well . My baby roses from you are doing well ! I did lose one .. out of nowhere it started turning black but I'm impressed with the other two . I hope to share photos of blooms with you !

Moses You don't know how happy you just made me. I've been kicking myself for ordering Don, and thought I should have maybe tried to cancel it. I wonder if the ones giving people problems might be grafted. Is the one in your area grafted or own root? (if you know)

Witchy,

I really don't know for sure. My hunch is that they are grafted. They are older for sure. I would estimate their current age at 30+ yrs. old. My guess is that they were planted in the mid-1980's during the waning years of the grafted hybrid tea era. Don Juan was a popular rose then, already in commerce for over 20 years at the time I believe the ones I have seen were planted.

Red Don Juan is about 60 yrs. old now. Pink Don Juan is a sport that is been around for about 20 years now.

Moses

Sara-Ann -- hate to be the downer, but not sure DJ would be hardy enough for you or hardy enough to gain sufficient size to show its stuff. I tried it in my officially 6b/7a garden. It suffered terrible winter kill, and then died. I was four or five years ago and I had little idea of what I was doing. So perhaps it is something with me or the DJ I had. Good luck. It is a gorgeous rose.

Consistent with this an established 'Don Juan' near me here in western USDA 8 was hammered by the 1990 winter - because it got below, say 10 degrees F. (Many other kinds of roses also seem to have a cutoff at about that point, with single digit temperatures often resulting in dying back to the root crown).

Mine showed up. It doesn't look nearly as nice. Should I be worried?

Witchygirrl, once it leafs out again it should be fine. I just got my order from Chamblees and most of them have their leaves but a few have them off for some reason or another. The same applies to my order from ARE, and it never seems to slow the roses down one way or another. The canes look fine and while there aren't a ton of them it looks plenty healthy.

I have to echo the concerns about Don Juan in zone 6, though it's reassuring that Moses has some examples of it doing well. Don Juan has never even come close to surviving my winters at all in zone 5. Sara-Ann and Witchygirrl are both in zone 6 so it's liable to survive with being in a protected sunny spot, but I wouldn't expect it to climb. Odds are you'd lose the canes down to the ground, and as others in warmer zones have said it might succumb to a particularly hard winter. Still, you never know till you try and we look forward to seeing pictures of "neener-neener, it survived and looks FABULOUS" from both of you.

Cynthia

Thanks Cynthia. I have noticed I get a nekkid few sometimes. I figured it was a black spot leaf they didn't want incubating inside a box. I bet black spot probably loves a dark cardboard cubby. lol Sorry for the rose nudes. Avert your eyes!

Thank you all! I’ll just have to take my chances. I’ve had Dublin Bay for over ten years and it is hardy here, it has the same zone recommendations as Don Juan. DB is also own root.

Black spot wouldn't have time to do anything during a shipping interval. Also I don't remember it on the plant near here, which is/was in an ordinary under-planted yard - and not a rose hobbyist garden where spraying would have been expected.

Something being hardy for 10 years doesn't mean anything in regard to long term survival unless a killer winter happened during that same exact time interval, had no effect. Otherwise maybe next year a killer winter comes and it dies off. In which case a plant wasn't really hardy, in any practical sense.

I love Don Juan. Its one of my only red roses that actually stay red here in the summer heat instead of going magenta. Miracle On the Hudson is the other one that stays red.

~Sjn

Witchy, I'll ask my friend that grows DJ. We had a cold winter to the limits of our zone which cut back many of my roses. His was from Chamblees and has been slow to start, but the deer and his general neglect in care and planting probably hasn't helped.

Thanks Vapor. If this winter didn't kill it, I won't even worry about it. This was the winter of extreme yo-yo as far as I'm concerned. February had an identity crisis, and thought it was May.