That is good to know thank you! What is involved in becoming a rose society member? Do you have to reach a certain level of expertise? Although I have nine coming in a couple of weeks, so maybe I should save that for the next round after I find places for these.

Joey,

I just went to their web site, paid $39 by credit card and became a member. There is a 4 month trial membership for $10 and then they sent the offer to join for $39. Otherwise it is $49 to join. The rose magazine they send was very glamorous with rose photos. I got the trial membership for free by joining the Denver Rose Society which was $20 I think.

The High Country Rose discount can be used each time you buy. There are alot of other vendors that offer a discount also.

https://www.rose.org/benefits

What 9 roses do you have coming?

I have Oranges and Lemons, Jean Kenneally, America, Let Freedom Ring, Sparkle and Shine, Firefighter, Snow Pavement, Jeanne Lajoie, and Hula Hoop.

Thanks! There are so many roses out there that I like to look up what people have researched and decided upon that live near me. Sort of piggybacking on their research.

Climbing America looks fabulous! I had not seen that one before. Did Matt give any hints on how this would perform in your area? Is it still a climber or just a bush?

He didn't say but to be very honest I didn't ask him about America because I was determined to have it even if I have to baby it...my husband's grandmother just gifted me a New Zealand rose bush because I was born in New Zealand...so I wanted to have America too to represent both halves of my kids' genealogy. He did say Firefighter would need some protection, I got that one because I have two sisters who are firefighters. But we get epic quantities of snow here, our total snowfall for the week's storm is about 30 inches, so I decided to be a bit adventurous with zone requirements and see what I could pull off. I have a theory, based on twenty years in the agricultural industry, that a rose that Matt raises at altitude, in a harsher zone, will be cold-hardier than the same variety of rose which spent its early days in California or Florida. So I am testing that theory.

I admire your adventurous planting spirit! I'm still trying to figure out my rose strategy. In the spring I vow to concentrate on more zone 3 or 4 roses. But during the summer I'm generally pretty happy with my (or Matt's) choices. Some I think are going to be great turn out not so great. Some I think are mediocre and I'm not sure I will like them turn out to be favorites.

For the one I bought this morning (Easy on the Eyes) I told my husband the price and said, for that price why not get it. Then I said all that remains is the hole to be dug and the water line places. He laughed and said, you don't even do that, I do. I laughed also because it is true. I agonize so over each one but for me the reality is that it is painless when they are so cheap to try a new one. He's the one that ends up with more work when I buy a rose to 'just try it'.

Supportive husbands are the best :D Mine called me from Home Depot this evening to say that he was looking at the bare root body bags, listed them all off and stayed on the phone while I looked them up on helpmefind, and is bringing me home Love and Sir Thomas Lipton. He already brought me Olympiad last week because he knows I like McGredy roses from growing up near where they were bred. So I have several more to find space for!

I love High Country Roses! I ordered an Ispahan and a Madame Hardy a couple years back, and the plants they sent were healthy and beautiful. Customer service is great too. I think they are offering 20% off orders now.

mmmm12COzone5 - I love Candy Land! It is one of my all time favorite roses! My family got it for me as a birthday present a few years ago. We planted it in almost full shade and in terrible soil. We lost the tag and I thought it was a bush, not a climber! So every year I pruned it back like a bush until one day when I was trying to identify it I found a picture that looked exactly like it and realized it was a climber! It is a very resilient rose, with a lovely scent and beautiful flowers swirled in shades of cream and raspberry. The bees love it too! Here's a zillion pictures of the flowers, it is one of my very favorite roses, if not my favorite:

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, it has the biggest, most beautiful, glossy, light green and disease-resistant leaves I have ever seen!

Thank you for the lovely photos damask! They are positively stunning. Now I am even more excited to add this rose. In fact I want to take out my Fourth of July and put this in my best most prominent place. Both the climbers I tried last year, Lady in Red and Fourth of July, died back to the ground this past winter. Lady in Red grew well through the summer but Fourth of July was a real runt. Candy Land had good reports from Matt in Denver and may just be the ticket to save my prized climbing rose spot from being bare all summer.

That is great to know about Lady in Red, it was on my list to get but if it is going to die all the way back then maybe not.

Lady in Red had great ratings on the Denver Rose Society yearly performance chart so I was pretty disappointed to see all the dead cane. But it is in our NW corner so gets the north winds all winter so maybe that is the difference. We loved the flower performance and it was a vigorous grower so we are keeping it in to enjoy that. We put it in as a HCR band in April.

May flowers. I don't think we have the trellis up for it yet.

July we installed the trellis.

You can see that it was still pretty small in comparison with the trellis size.

August flowers. Lady in Red has plenty of long canes to tie to the trellis and has grown quite a bit.

Oct. flowers right before our first frost. She was still pumping them out.

Oct. whole plant. We expanded to two trellises as it was growing so well.

I thought it was a pretty good repeat bloomer and the blooms seemed to stay around for a long time and looked good for the duration.

That is stunning!!

mmmmm12, after bitter experience I zone up in a Northern exposure. It's basically growing in at least half a zone colder. I wish you well with Candyland if you try it. It was pretty while I had it. Oranges and Lemons does great in Greely, CO so I think you'll be happy with it with substantial snowfall, joey. That can make a huge difference to survival, especially if it remains all winter. I wish my SIL saved her tags because she grow some lovely roses, but hasn't a clue what they are.... they are just red, and pink to her! Her husband remembered O'n'L because it's a catchy name. Good luck with JlaJ. I've lost that cutting two years running, I guess I might as well buy it sometime. Is there anychance you can fold these climbers over towards the ground in the winter if they have bendy canes? Just a thought.

Vapor, thanks for the tip. My cutting bed is all NW exposture. It might be why I'm staring at alot of dead cane every year. :-)

Vapor that is what I did with Champagne Arches this year, just removed the ties holding it along the fence and spread it out. When everything was melting out before this latest storm I found growth buds to the tips. One piece did break off so I stuck it in a band pot with potting soil and if it roots, it roots.

Great minds think alike!!! ;-D

Hi mmmm12COzone5! You're very welcome! I've been itching to share those photos with someone for awhile now : ). It really is a lovely rose. I love all roses but there's just something about the striped ones that I find so beautiful. I hope it does excellent for you, I'm in zone 9b so fortunately I don't have to worry about winter dieback. Your Lady in Red is gorgeous! I love that brilliant red color! I am going to be planting some roses next year to climb along our side fence and it looks like an ideal candidate.

Have a nice day everyone,

damask_rose_5 : )

Well I just had to add one more, I saw Passionate Kisses and that color just grabbed me. Matt says it is doing really well for them there, so...10 is a nice round number, right?!

Your garden is going to be and probably already is spectacular. I had to look back and see what your other nine were:

"I have Oranges and Lemons, Jean Kenneally, America, Let Freedom Ring, Sparkle and Shine, Firefighter, Snow Pavement, Jeanne Lajoie, and Hula Hoop. "

Passionate Kisses is gorgeous also! If it blooms in sprays for you let me know. I love the ones that bloom in sprays. I also really like the name. I ordered some fancy plant tags for my roses and love ones with names that aren't cringe worthy like my Playboy. I love the bush but would prefer a better name.

If it's any consolation, I don't think it was named after the magazine.

What do you think it is named after?

Well, it was called Cheerio in England so you could always use that! : 00 I think it was named after the general term, otherwise I imagine they would have had to pay usage or have a tm next to the name. I could be wrong.

I like Cheerio alot better! I will try switching to that. Thanks for letting me know. I found Cheerio on the helpmefind web site and it says registered name is Playboy so your tip is legit. Thanks!

Edit: Just got done telling my husband the name "Cheerio" in an English accent. It was good fun and works well for us.

For those who haven't seen it this is Cheerio (aka Playboy) in Aug.

These photos were taken after the sun went down in Sept. Cheerio glows with an inner light even when the sun isn't on her.

I don't know if it will get much bigger than this for me since it died back to the ground again this year. It was planted June 2018 and the pictures above were 2019. My recollection is that it pretty much always has flowers.

Hi guys! Hope it’s ok for me to chime in...HCR is my favorite and I do feel like my roses from Matt have tended to do better than my roses ordered larger from other places. I just put in an order too!

Coquette des Blanches
Marchesa Boccella
Queen Nefertiti
Bliss Parfuma
Cream Veranda
Frühlingsgold
Laguna
Morden Ruby
Garden Sun
Sombreuil
Yankee Doodle
Darlow's Enigma

I am in zone 4 bordering zone 3. I keep telling myself to stick to zone 3 or 4 roses, but I just can’t! I would need waaay more space if I lived a few zones warmer! The cold keep the roses small here!! At least there’s room to squeeze a few more in. Wink

Kelly,

Wow, those are some seriously gorgeous romantic themed roses. I had never seen Sombreuil before and it is stunning in the full bush pictures. I have seen Yankee Doodle at the greenhouse and it had HUGE blooms.

What are some of your favorites and where do you grow them?

I don’t know why my list got all squish together! Anyway, I plant them Anywhere I can find a spot!! I love blossom time and nahema but they are not really good for my climate, although I do grow them. (Prob only get a handful of blooms). Also several Austin’s but usually need to replant every 4-5 years. Some of my favorite that do well for me are
quietness- very hardy, beautiful and actually gets to be an actual rose size (2-3 feet?)

Quadra- climber 4 years old from high country might be 3-4 feet. Planted on my property line so gets no protection from wind/freezing snow.

Ambridge also fro HCR. 3 feet, prob my best, most vigorous Austin.

Some of the newer Kordes have made me pretty happy-disease resistance has been really good. We get very cold winters but also very hot, humid summers and black spot gets BAD.
Summer memories, Madame anissette, honeymoon, earth angel have been good so far. Have put in quite a few old garden roses, hybrid perpetual s and bourbons but they are still pretty new/ little. The rugosas do well here but they just don’t excite me the same way that the many petal, ball shaped blooms do...

Kelly that looks like an amazing list! I am looking forward to hearing how Bliss Parfuma does for you, I have been eyeing it but it keeps getting beat out by others I want to try. If it does well for you that will bump it up my list.

Kelly, I was wondering where you were in terms of what area that was zone 4 bordering zone 3. I'm in the Denver Colorado area so trying to figure out what does well in my climate as I am a newish rose grower. Especially trying to find a climber that will get to some size as I took one out that was a once bloomer (probably Dr. Huey) that was gorgeous and big because I wanted something that bloomed all season.

You think that was Dr. Huey? I was thinking more the original Blaze. I could be misremembering, though.

Vapor, it could have been. I had posted the blooms and I think folks thought Dr. Huey. I'll repost them here and you can see what you think.

I just looked at them both on helpmefind and they look very similar. Whatever it was it is very persistent. We keep getting new growth from it that looks healthy, robust and rapid. My husband just dug out two beautiful new clumps coming up near Fourth of July. They came up and surpassed Forth of July in a matter of days.

These are the old pictures from May 2017.

What do you think? It was definitely a once bloomer. Never a bloom outside of it's main flush which was gorgeous.

This was it in June. The above photos were from the year before in May. It never had cane die back during the winter. I only trimmed on it to keep it out of the walkway.

I remember my husband asking me, "Are you sure you won't regret this?' before cutting it down. I had visions of beautiful blooms all summer long dancing in my head. Now I've got a practically dead climber (Fourth of July) with little green shoot around it's base sitting in that spot.

I could just let the old rose regrow but now that I've started I don't want to give up on getting a season long bloomer in that spot. Just have to find one that will thrive and not die back every year.

I could probably get Blaze Improved as a lady at our garden center recommended that because she grows it at her house but I don't want a straight red rose in that location. It clashes too much with some of my other plants. Pink would be great. Both my husband and I loved Fourth of July's blooms but it it won't grow canes that don't die back then it isn't the right choice.

I wonder if Candy Land would be able to thrive there.

I am in tropical Minnesota. The Canadian explorers are good for here. I have John Davis (lt pink)that is putting on some size, but it really doesn’t bloom much after the initial flush. I put in a cherry frost last year which seems to have quite a bit of surviving green cane and is not in the best spot. I’ll update when things start growing. Quadra climbs, and in warmer climates, I have heard is a monster. Love those full, red blooms. There are some singles that I have been wanting to try-Dortmund and golden showers...
Alchemist has never bloomed for me in the 4 years I have had them. I put in another one in a bit more sun but I’m thinking not a true zone 4. Rhode Island Red keeps coming back but I got as bands and have stayed about the same size. Dixie land Linda did ok for me for a few years until we had a really harsh winter. Definitely not a climber for me. I got lady in red last year and have to check tags, but if it’s the one I’m thinking, not sure it made it through the winter (pretty mild this year). Love song has been coming back and blooming surprisingly well for me considering it is a zone 6? Rose. dames de chenonceau is another one that I grow that has done ok. I’m sure I will have more favorites when they start blooming. Varagata is getting some size and I’m hoping to see some bloomed this year. I grow Charlotte-yellow, Figi and pink Traviata planted by each other so I never remember which is which, but here is one of them, and the last one is healthcliff. Beautiful blooms but very few.

mmmm I am betting on Dr Huey too, my mother in law has one in her yard not quite that big from a rose that was white but the scion died off. The blooms are an exact match for hers.

Kelly your garden is stunning!

Now that I see it again I would say Dr. Huey. And what a specimen. You have the perfect climate to grow it and not have black spot. I guess this was why it was such a big deal in its day. Kelly, I'm glad to see you growing Heathcliff. I think you and I are the only two on this forum growing it that I've noticed. Amazing that it is a hardy for you there in Minnesota.

Kelly, I meant to tell you that Nahema made it! It survived this past winter planted out with all tips Hardy. Of course we didn't get into negative Fahrenheit this year so we'll see in another year. But I'm happy for it.

Mmm that is beautiful!! I would guess Huey as well, especially if it’s only a once bloomer. You have a beautiful place. My pics are from the previous season. Everything is barely waking up here.

Nahema is really pretty! Is it a climber for either of you?

Dortmund is really beautiful and I asked Matt about it once when I was admiring his mother (cutting) plant. He said it was the best it had ever looked which sort of implied it normally didn't have so many flowers so I ended up not getting it. Then last year I saw a hugh gorgeous one at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens that was loaded with flowers so it definately does well out there.

These 3 pictures are from the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. Does anyone think I could get Dortmund to this size in Denver? It is a zone 4 so maybe I should try.

Thanks for the report on Lady in Red. I had such high hopes for it and was surprised it died down to the ground. If yours didn't make it then I'm not the only one.

All my pictures are previous years also. In the very short time I've been growing roses I learned not to prune before May so as not to encourage new growth as it will just freeze.

I think so far it appears all mine survived this last winter due to a bit of green cane at the base. Robusta is the only rose I've added that has turned into a good sized bush and is green to the tips. Pretty Lady rose is next for reliable green cane but not showing new growth on them yet, except at the base. Winnipeg Parks appears to be putting out alot of new leaves. She was put in July 2019 so is just an itty bitty thing. I have high hopes for her.

I am very surprised that my Bucks had serious cane death to the ground (Amiga Mia and Calico Gal). Even my Fairy which is a 20+ year old plant had alot of cane die off so I think I will prune it to the ground to get it rejuvinated this year. The last couple of years it seems to have struggled and been losing size year over year.

Glad to hear your Love Song does well! I put one in July 2018 but it only had two blooms last year. It is in a sheltered spot because everyone said it wouldn't live. But it is too shady and probably needs to be moved to the sun. However then it will be exposed to the harsh winters. My husband wants to give it another year because he is the one who would have to move it. So not sure what will happen with it this next year. What sort of environment do you have yours in? Any photos of the full bush?

I got my order today!! They all look beautiful and healthy, and there is even a bud each on America and Hula Hoop! I moved them into gallon pots and can't wait to see how they do. The UPS driver was so nice, all our mail goes to the post office but he recognized my name and saw the Live Plants sticker on the box and brought it to my door so that it didn't have to sit in the post office for any longer than necessary. He got cookies!

damask,

My Candy Land just got it's first bloom! I love it! Thank you again for posting those pictures. I don't think it had a bud when I bought it so this shows it is settling in nicely. Also more greenery than it started with.

This was it on May 14th, only about 3 weeks ago, when I got it.

CandyLand was starting to crawl along the ground and the flowers were facing the wrong way. She looked like this (view from the back):

We moved the trellis closer and pinned her up.

Much prettier!

I think her flowers add a bit of cheer to the garden due to how festive they look.

That's gorgeous!! Such beautiful healthy foliage too!

Here is America this morning, I am loving the enormous and very fragrant blooms for such a young plant, and it is growing really fast too!

@mmmm12COzone5 - Your Candy Land is so beautiful! I'm so happy you like it! I love the sign you made for it too.

@joeywyomingzone4 - America is such a gorgeous rose! I love that color!

damask_rose : )

Joey,

Do you have a whole plant picture? Your America is one I'm monitoring as a potential addition.

It is kind of growing up through the tomatoes right now but here's a picture. I just measured the canes and they are slightly longer than my 18 inch ruler, when it arrived in May it was one of the smaller bands in the box so I am really impressed with the amount of growth while still putting out amazing blooms.

.