I am genuinely impressed with my April and Ashley Roses
Hi folks
You know that I'm willing to complain about roses and/or rose companies that are disappointing. You also know that I grow a TON of roses and keep ordering more! I'm well over 1200 roses by now even with the ones that died over the winter. I've been planting over 300 roses so far this spring with another 50 or so in rose ghetto getting ready for prime time. I ordered roses from about 20 sources, including local vendors, both bare root/grafted and own root.
Out of those roses, I have ordered 43 from April and Ashley. I know, I know, but they had some gorgeous hard to find roses and I was afraid they'd disappear like Ludwig roses did after 1-2 years. I was willing to take the gamble that these would be healthy and true to form roses. This year, April and Ashley has been the only bare root/grafted company that hasn't had a rose fail from canker or other health issues. I usually expect 10-20% failure from bare roots to canker or downy mildew or whatever the "black finger of death or BFD" is, and some companies are notably worse than others (as I've posted in the past). I have presumed that those of us in cold zones get greater BFD because of the longer time the rose is in storage, but there could be other factors.
By far the best in past years have been Palatine and Pickering for strong healthy bare roots that took off running as soon as planted. I've learned to pot up all my bare root roses and watch them carefully until robustly growing on all canes before planting and they have really appreciated it in my success rate improving.
This year all 43 April and Ashley roses burst into growth without the laggy weeks-delayed growth I can see from some other bare root companies. The growth and health and size of the bare roots has been equivalent to Palatine and for me that is a high complement. I potted up 23 of them that arrived at the latest bare root shipping date in mid-February (yep, February) being pretty sure I could tide them over outside in pots under heaps of leaves. All 23 are thriving, including a favorite below that is Velours de Nuits. Out of 100s of roses blooming my husband zeroed in on this one to ask its name and ooh in admiration. It's actually a darker velvet purple in person rather than the hot pink it appears here.
Another pleasant surprise has been the true to advertised color of the "Greyge" roses - that weird grey-beige coffee color that is so fleeting. Koko Loko shows it every now and then but so many others fade immediately to cream or turn orange or pink. I have loved the mustard to greyge colors of Golden Mustard, Cappuccino, and particularly Amnesia below. This was a recent purchase in the sale-priced potted roses and it's already planted, thriving and blooming in a true greyge color that just glows.
I didn't catch pictures of Navy or Notre Dame or Nadia Duran or several of the grey-lavender roses in bloom so far, but they have been stunning. My local rose society came out to view the bulbs in late April when the first shipment of A&A roses were in their pots in the pot ghetto. Most of them were blooming, but the one every single person oohed and aahed over was Notre Dame. It was an indescribably beautiful grey lavender rose that held onto its bloom for 10-12 days in tight form.
All in all, I'm happy to post this in genuine appreciation and have been meaning to do so for some time. The promised discount is way too tempting to pass up so I suspect my A&A tally will be increasing yet again this year.
Cynthia
Comments (17)
2 months ago
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29 days ago- 29 days agolast modified: 29 days ago
@strawchicago z5 As stated on the A&A FAQ page, "most" of their roses are grown on 'Dr. Huey' roots, because the vast majority of what they sell is produced by Francis Roses, the grower A&A acknowledges as their supplier. See: https://www.aprilandashley.com/pages/francis-roses
Specific item pages for some varieties state that the "root stock" is derived from tissue culture (See: https://www.aprilandashley.com/products/pink-miracle) but that could be interpreted to mean that either the entire plant is grown from tissue culture (and is therefore "own-root") or they could be referring to the 'Dr. Huey' understock, and I can find quotes from Tyler Francis in which he states they also use tissue culture to generate their understock. What is interesting about that last part is that it suggests they are working with virus-indexed 'Dr. Huey' (Why would they bother to tissue culture RMV infected 'Dr. Huey'???), which is important information for consumers. - 29 days agolast modified: 29 days ago
29 days ago- 29 days agolast modified: 28 days ago
28 days ago- 28 days agolast modified: 28 days ago
My new Velour de Nuit blooms…in last few August summer days…..
(In actuality, darker wine than these camera photos)
Must check fragrance?? Supposed to be a strong perfume! 
27 days ago- 27 days ago
Paul Barden