I have grown Earth Song in two locations. You managed to domesticate it better than me. My examples are about 4' wide and in September 6 feet high. It is disease resistant - it is very hardy - I spray some - but less now than years ago. I keep the underside clean at the expense of blood on my hands. Earth Song is one of the best roses anyone could grow! I spray less on this one because it has never been diseased and it has been in my garden about 15-years.

Love these updates. ES was the first to bloom this year.

Good to see you're back in the saddle with Earth Song. Hope your new home suits you very well. Are there any other roseroses you are planning to add? God bless you in,all areas of your life.

Moses

Jim,

How is your Earth Song doing?

Moses

Moses, my new Earthsong has been a bit slow to grow here... It came from Heirloom Roses (1 gallon) stripped of all its leaves so it took like 5 weeks or so just to grow leaves back... But it is coming along... Nothing special to report yet...It bloomed 2 blooms so far but they were damaged... Looked like thrip damage but none of my other roses showing that type of damage SO? not sure yet?

Great to hear your Earthsong was first to bloom this year Vaporvac...

Awesome to hear mark_roeder 4B NE Iowa !

Jim,

Looks like you have given it a nice sized circle bed there. Hope it fills it up and blooms like crazy for you. It is a bush with not only beautiful blooms, but it has stand alone beauty in its bush too.

That's just about how the bushes from Heirloom look their first year, as my additional Apricot Candy bushes from them and especially my Grand Amore bushes, also from them, look just about like your Earthsong at this time of the year.

So, hang in there as I am here!

I do not like stripping leaves. It may cover a, 'multitude of sins.' No other grower of own root potted roses does that, that I have gotten roses from. Could mildew, black spot, chewing or sucking insect damage evidence be part of the reason for stripping leaves of actively growing roses? I can see removing gnarly/funky leaves from dormant bushes, but not actively growing ones.

Moses

Thanks Moses,

I guess stripping can be a good practice but it does set the rose back 5-6 weeks for sure...

Hey I posted the wrong pic of Earthsong yesterday...lol.. Heres one I just took..

The third bloom of the season off of Earthsong looks better then the other two... First 2 looked like they had thrip damage or weather related damage...?

Jim, I think your Earth Song is on its way up and forward now. Hope you get sufficient rain to keep it going strong.

What a refreshing flower form it has, with a nice even color, too. HMFR describes it as, "Tyrian red to Tyrian rose," in color. With such a use of historically established colors in the dye trade describing Earth Song's color (ancient dye colors emanating from the fabric trade in ancient Tyre, Lebanon), you know it must have impressed the person who was assigned to describe its color very much.

Keep us posted on Earth Song's progress. One day up the road I'm going to ask you which rose you like better, Earth Song or At Last, but I already pretty much think I know what you will say.

Moses

Moses, Pittsburgh, W. PA., zone 5/6, USA , I'll keep you posted...

Not much of anything exciting to report Moses, Pittsburgh, W. PA., about my newly planted Earthsong...(May 15th 2023 planting..) Heirloom Roses 1 gallon...

Today... 9/11/23...It has not bloomed much nor has it grown much compared to my other young roses...Maybe next year I'll have something more exciting happening...lol

Now I planted a 1 quart baby band own root OSO Easy Double Red from Hirt Gardens one month later than Earthsong (planted June 20th) and its growing and blooming like crazy! Guess it just depends on the rose...lol

Thanks Moses! Yes my other Earthsong was something else...Thats why I'm trying it again... :-) Thanks!

I'm sure it will, Jim. Are you planning any kind of winter protection for it?

Moses

No winter protection Moses! At my old house it hardly had dieback with no winter protection... It should start taking off next year... :-) I was just looking at it today...

That bare spot to the left.. WAS Sunorita Rose... Blooms were ugly and foliage is disease ridden so removed it today...

EARTHSONG...

REMOVED SUNORITA rose

What are you going to replace it with?

Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley ,

I'm going replace Sunorita Rose with Double Easy Orange ...Going give that orange a try...

Fall Earthsong bloom.... I can tell Earthsong will take off next year...

My new Heirloom Roses Earthsong planted May of 2023 here at my new house/location is getting leaves... No dieback over the winter...But I did prune just alittle off...

That's what we want to see, Jim. It's off to a great start. Thanks for showing us how well it is faring. You will enjoy Earthsong for many years to come.

Are you adding any new roses this year?

Moses

Thanks Moses! Hope you are doing well....I am adding a Double Easy Orange from Jackson & Perkins... bare-root (ownroot)...

TODAY... 4-12-24

4-16-24

Received it mid March & planted...

Looks healthy as all get out, Jim. Hope it exceeds your expectations.

Moses

My new Heirloom Roses Earthsong planted May of 2023 ....

Todays photo May 1, 2024

Looking good, Jim! How many times have you had to mow your lawn so far this year?

This year looks very promising for me, Jim. After 4 years of 'hit or miss' mostly miss, in the garden, I feel well enough to tackle my garden chores, just slowly.

I put in a True Passion ( from Ping Lim's True Bloom Series), last year and it grew unbelievably. Just about continuously, till fall and almost tripled its original size. If you like what I call Luminescent Tomato Red blooms this rose is for you. It's not an exhibition hybrid tea, definitely floribunda with multiple buds per stem, but black spot immune and winter hardy to its tips. It got nearly 6' tall by fall last year, not real full yet, but very respectable growth. It really is a low maintenance bush. I highly recommend it. So if you're looking for a replacement for Sunorita, but with a much deeper orange/Orange red colored bloom it could work. Just give True Passion lots of room, it needs it.

Moses

Mowed grass 4 times alreads Moses....

Thanks for the info on Ping Lim's True Bloom Series Moses...

I planted True Sincerity last year and so far it has been super healthy. It is just starting to bloom and it’s prettier than I remember it being last year!

Markay MD-Zone 7A (8A on new map) , thank you for sharing the True Sincerity rose....

That is a beauty Markay, but do you like how the blooms look as they age? Why I ask is that in the photos I have seen of 'mature' blooms, it made me pass on it, but in real life a rose can look entirely different. I do 't like roses that color up 'photoreactively?', like Double Delight does when its red edges go pink. They look sick to me...ah, it's probably a nit-picking observation. I live with the bizarre color changes Tinkerbelle goes through as it ages because otherwise, it's a tough rose.

Moses

Moses, last year I was impressed with it’s health and vigor, but not the flowers. I was thinking it was a mistake. This first bloom of the season is pretty enough yo buy it another season. If it stays pretty through the season, It'll be a keeper, but I shovel pruned the incredibly healthy Pinkerbelle last year because her blooms just didn’t appeal at all.

Earthsong: 5-15-24

I tell it like it is good or bad...Well Earthsong leaves started to lighten in color with lots of leafdrop within the past week... We have been getting alot of rain and very hard downpours BUT all my other roses and plants are fine...Also some high temps mixed into the batch...

Acts like poor drainage BUT I made sure Earthsong had very good drainage when I planted it so, I'm not sure exactly what's going on yet...

I found some blackish unproductive canes/stems so pruned those out...

So will ponder on it... This Earthsong is not growing anything like my Earthsong at my old house did...

I will figure it out... I will see how it does the rest of this year...If its still floundering I will dig it up and check things out at the root zone and double check and make sure drainage is good then replant... Last resort kinda thing..

Sorry for the turns of events! Jim, man I advise you to hold off digging it just now. Let it be and see if it recovers and adjusts.

Mister Moses

Moses, mushy canes on Earthsong so leaves are falling off...

Soil drainage is good...

Probably a wet canker type issue... I cut all the bad stuff out today and will just let it go and see if ES out grows it or not...We had a wet winter now a very wet Spring...

Hard to "like" that.

ES had 6 buds but for its health reasons I cut 4 of them off and will let two buds bloom...Plant is stessed enough...I am trying a few things to hopefully nurse Earthsong back to good health...

I'm having my soil tested in that area for starts... Need to know PH of soil etc etc.....I noticed some iron deficiency and other deficiency so correcting that but going slow until i get my soil test back....

What minor things I have done so far has greened the leaves up some... So happy with that...waiting for soil test results before I proceed any further...

Poor Earthsong is under sawfly Larvae attack,( I picked Larvae off bush), canker issues, (cut that out), fungal diseases etc etc..

Seems everything wants a piece of poor weak ES...

I have enjoyed your updates on Earth Song, one of my favorite roses bushes.

It's too bad you have had such bad luck at the new location. Ordinarily, this is an easy rose to grow. I often recommend it for beginners. I know you are skilled, and will either figure it out, or perhaps take a cutting from a health part of the plant, and reroot it.

Here is my version. It is about 16-18 years old. The only problems I have with it I can live with. They are: (a) it has overgrown it's spot and collides with two other rose bushes, and (b) it is a deer magnet. Deer especially enjoy eating the closed flower buds off the top of the bush..

mark_roeder 4B NE Iowa , your Earthsong looks great!. I'll give it my best shot with mine... :-)

Thanks for the support!

If you like Earthsong, you may also like Aunt Honey. I grow it as a grandiflora. It never stops. It's basic pink, but that's okay. The garden always needs color and its there to produce.

Rose Bush: Earth Song

Lens: Sigma 30mm 1.4 EX DC Camera: K-3 Photo Location: Manchester, Iowa ISO: 1600 Shutter Speed: 1/640s Aperture: F16

Jim,

Here is a better shot, and historical reference.

"Earth Song" was hybridized by Dr. Griffith Buck at Iowa State University. Dr. Buck put his hybrid roses in a field. If they didn't survive the winter, they were tossed. For reasons apparent from the below photo, Earth Song was not tossed; it was marketed. I suggest Earth Song to beginning growers for its beauty, robustness, hardiness, ease of growing, and disease resistance.

From a speech Buck made in 1985, he explained, "While I didn't start to develop roses that were disease resistant, I had inherently selected for disease resistance by the manner in which I made the selections in the field. My normal procedure was to grow the seedlings in the greenhouse one year until they got big enough, and plant them out the second spring. The only attention they would get would be water and cultivation. I didn't spray for disease. If they couldn't hold on to their foliage, they wouldn't properly mature, and therefore they wouldn't overwinter well. In a sense I was selecting for those that could hold onto their foliage in spite of becoming infected with foliage diseases."

People walking by my rose beds ask how I cover my roses in the winter. I lose very few to winter kill. I answer, "I don't cover them." They look at me dubiously. I explain keeping roses disease-free during the growing season is the best winter cover because a healthy rose is likely to survive our severe winters. (The second-best winter cover involves the directional use of my snowblower.).

Bush shot of "Earth Song":

Mister Moses, here are a couple pictures of a True Serenity bloom taken several days apart to show how the color changes. The color is variable. Sometimes the colors are much softer, but it leans BOLD… some might find it gaudy.

Full bush pic.

You can see how many buds it sets… and this is only a second year Home Depot clearance rose. It had a pretty quick repeat last year. I’ll let you know how it does this year.

Thanks for that information and new photo of Earthsong mark_roeder 4B NE Iowa ....:-)

Very interesting background story !

Markay MD-Zone 7A (8A on new map) , very interesting rose....thanks so much for sharing your photos! And thank you in advance for any future updates...

Kitty NY, in another post mentioned my Earthsong might of recieved frost damage then it showed up later...We did have some terrible late frosts...SO...very possible...Thanks KittyNY!

OK Earthsong started getting covered in fungal disease on every leaf.. Nice Greened up leaves were quickly starting to spot, turn yellow and fall off bush... What a mess! I did not want this to spread to my other roses...SO!

I have grown Earthsong before at my old house and was quite pleased with it...Thats why I'm trying to grow it here at my new location...

But here at my new location I'm a bit baffled to say the least at its poor performance so far..

Anyhow I had to strip Earthsong today of every leaf as they were all getting engulfed in fungal disease....

I'm going let Earthsong grow back leaves and mature more but if it continues in the future to show this poor of disease resistance I will have no choice but to remove it...

To say the least... I'm baffled...Because I know this is a good rose...

I think I got all the canker cut out...

Jim: I am baffled. Earth Song is possibly the most disease resistant rose I grow. I frequently skip over it with spray.

May I suggest time. If it doesn't have rose mosaic virus --- Let it grow back. Let it bloom. Take a cutting from a healthy part of the rose bush. Try to root it. Pot the rooted cutting, and try growing it. Something unusual is going on. Earth Song almost always better than what you are experiencing.

I put Earthsong in a container for now... Every leaf was full of fungal disease...So will see how it does in the container...If it grows I may then try to take a cutting if possible...Thank you for the suggestion mark_roeder 4B NE Iowa...

As you can see the soil where Earthsong was planted is easy to dig and free draining soil just like all my other roses are planted in...So?

I planted a Ping Lim True Serenity rose in the ground where Earthsong was planted before to see how that rose performs in that spot...Only time will tell...

But good news is Earthsong is growing its leaves back and in no time will have a nice root system etc.... :-)

7/28/24

How quickly it has rebound, and with several buds to show its determination. Keep going, Earth Song, Jim is expecting great things from you!

Moses

Having placed Earthsong in a large container 2 months ago because it was not growing much in the ground I still have not seen much growth that I I would of expected out of this rose...Sawfly larvae keep attacking ES and all the picking and blasts of water are not helping I go out next day and there they are again...lol..Its like there being air dropped in by planes...lol

Anyhow, the good news is its been blooming alot better in the pot... :-) At first all the blooms were a ligher pink which I did not like SO I added two tablespoons of Alaska Fish 5-1-1 fertilizer AND one small but heaping scoop of Miracle Gro Bloom Boost (10-52-10) into 1 gallon of water and that darkened the blooms up nicely! :-)

Love that deep pink color !! I'm glad that your Earthsong bounces back.

Jim, good move with the fish fertilizer. My neighbor across the back has used it with remarkable success on his vegetables. Nice to see Earthsong making such good progress. Hope it doesn't skip a beat next spring.

Moses