August Home-Garden

National Gardening Association New Roses of 1998
By Karen Dardick

Profuse blooms, striking colors, better plant form, and increased disease resistance are just a few of the characteristics of the new roses for 1998. This country's rose suppliers offer a couple dozen or so new varieties (not including miniatures), so you'll find plenty of colorful, fragrant, and prolific new roses to tempt you, both in garden centers and by mail order. Many more new roses are being introduced in 1998 than can be fully addressed here, so I've narrowed the list to those that are most flowerful, most disease-resistant, and most readily available.

The 1998 All-Americas
Every year, growers enter the best of their best roses in the All-America Rose Selections (AARS) process, two years of nationwide evaluations in 22 designated test gardens. Expert rosarians evaluate plants, identified only by number, for disease resistance, vigor, flower production, beauty, and other desirable traits. For 1998, four became AARS winners: two hybrid teas, one grandiflora, and one shrub rose. Because the scores are based on national averages, local performances may vary, but the 1998 winners should still be standouts across the country.

Five New Hybrid Teas
Gardeners' love for hybrid tea roses hasn't faded, and red is the perennial favorite color. One 1998 AARS winner, `Opening Night', is winning raves for its long-lasting true red flowers on generous cutting stems. Keith Zary, vice president of research for Jackson & Perkins nurseries of Medford, Oregon, bred this rose from the red hybrid teas `Olympiad' and `Ingrid Bergman'. `Opening Night' has a classic flower form. On the downside, it has scant fragrance and a susceptibility to blackspot. Its virtues include a better growth habit with more compact form than either of its parents.

`Sunset Celebration', the other winning hybrid tea, is a fascinating creamy apricot and amber blend that evokes the hues of a lingering sunset. Its flowers have a moderate fruity fragrance. This upright grower with large, perfect blooms was hybridized in the United Kingdom and introduced by Weeks Roses of Upland, California. It also earned the prestigious Gold Medal of The Hague in the Netherlands.

Jackson & Perkins is also offering two new varieties that were among this year's top 10 AARS contenders. `Rose Sachet' and `Fragrant Lace' are the recent results of Zary's effort to breed modern versions of old-fashioned roses, and he promises more in the future.

`Rose Sachet' is an unusual dusky pink hybrid tea. When fully open, its large, very fragrant flowers are "quartered," a flower form of old garden roses. This rose is noteworthy because it has both fragrance and disease resistance, a rare combination in a hybrid tea rose.

`Fragrant Lace' would have been at home in Victorian times, with ruffled pale pink flowers edged in darker pink, and yellow undersides. It's very disease-resistant and has a citrus fragrance.

Another Jackson & Perkins hybrid tea is `Harlequin', a compact grower at 4 feet, except in warmest climates, where it may stretch an extra foot or two. The lavender-pink flowers with distinctive cream undersides are sweetly fragrant. Its resistance to mildew and rust diseases is good, but it can develop blackspot.

Grand-prize Grandifloras
Adventurous gardeners with a love of bright colors should consider the AARS winner `Fame!', a grandiflora with large hot pink flowers, also by Keith Zary for Jackson & Perkins. The vigorous plant is disease-resistant and floriferous. Blooms dazzle the eyes, but not the nose they have little fragrance. Zary is especially pleased with `Fame!' because of the long life of its cut flowers: "With neglect, each bloom can last 10 days; with a little care, for two weeks."

More Newcomers: Fragrant Floribundas
If you want fragrance in a rose, consider `Sheila's Perfume', a floribunda that actually resembles a small hybrid tea. Bred by an amateur British hybridizer who named the delightful rose for his wife, `Sheila's Perfume' has strong overtones of fruit and rose. The flowers are yellow brushed with deep pink, and the plant is an upright grower with glossy, deep green leaves.

`George Burns' and `Gracie Allen' may lure nostalgia fans. The much-loved comedian personally selected his rose, reports Tom Carruth, research director of Weeks Roses and hybridizer of both. "Burns chose the plant because it made him smile and feel good." Its blooms, as bright and cheery as the late comedian, have vibrant yellow, red, pink, and cream stripes and a strong, sweet fragrance. `Gracie Allen' produces white flowers with a few pink petals at the centers.

New David Austin Roses
Striking in appearance, `Jude the Obscure' will likely become best known for its heady fragrance. Deeply cupped flowers blend apricot with cream, peach, and pale yellow colors.

`Pat Austin', first available in the United Kingdom in 1995, is the latest. Named for David Austin's wife, this strongly fragrant rose has an unusual and fiery color combination of bright copper yellow petals with pale copper yellow on the outer sides of the blooms.

`Golden Celebration', a rich yellow with a strong, spicy scent, is hailed as an improved `Graham Thomas', an early Austin variety prized for its vivid yellow color but too vigorous and massive to fit well in many gardens.

`Tradescant' is a deep, velvety red with strong old-rose fragrance. Clair Martin, rose curator at The Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, and leading authority on Austin roses, reports that this is a robust shrub with very good disease resistance. Also, it can be trained as a small climber.

Shrub Roses
Shrub roses continue to be popular, and another of this year's AARS winners, `First Light', is a compact, rounded bush that tucks easily into most landscapes. Each plant offers masses of single flowers with burgundy stamens. The somewhat spicy fragrance is a bonus. Stan and Jeanne Marciel of DeVor Nurseries, Inc., in Freedom, California, hybridized `First Light'.

On a smaller scale, Appleblossom is the third in the Flower Carpet series sold as ground-cover roses. Appleblossom is a sport of Flower Carpet Pink and produces deep pink buds, opening to a soft pastel pink. Appleblossom will be available at local nurseries in the spring.

Of all the rose varieties sold in America, Pink Simplicity from Jackson & Perkins continues to dominate. In previous years, the color palette of the Simplicity line extended to white, red, and yellow. In 1998, gardeners looking for a hedge effect can add Purple Simplicity to their landscapes. The lavender-to-raspberry flowers have a mild fragrance, and the plants produce dark green, glossy foliage with strong disease resistance.

More New Roses
Sam McGredy is a world-renowned hybridizer from New Zealand whose roses have won many international awards. Garden enthusiasts can select from nine new varieties: five hybrid teas, three floribundas, and an exceptional grandiflora. Youngs' American Rose Nursery, a wholesale firm in Freedom, California, has introduced these new roses, which it calls a "Palette of Colors," in the United States. The five hybrid teas are light pink `Carmel Sunset', deep red `Velvet Ruby', orange-red `Painted Desert', and salmon-orange `Candella' and `Cardinal Robe'. Floribundas include magenta-purple `Old Port', coral-orange `Sweet Gesture', and `War Dance', a bright red and white bicolor. `Gold Heart', a mounding grandiflora, is noteworthy for its abundant yellow flowers.

Fans of climbing roses can cheer because 1998 brings two outstanding newcomers: `Berries 'n' Cream' and `Shadow Dancer'. The first is a free-flowering, vigorous climber bearing masses of striped flowers in old-rose pink and creamy white. Because it blooms on new and old wood, unlike many climbers that only bloom on old growth, it bears flowers even the first year. Tom Carruth gave me `Berries 'n' Cream' two years ago to evaluate, and I'm delighted with its long, strong canes, strong repeat bloom, and mild apple fragrance.

`Shadow Dancer' is the work of hybridizer Ralph Moore, who is often called the father of miniature roses. `Shadow Dancer' is not a mini, but a wonderful climber that grows to 8 feet in much of the country and taller in mild climates. The plant blooms on new and old wood, producing ruffled clusters of large flowers swirled with two tones of pink. The glossy green foliage is disease-resistant.

Gardeners in cold climates will love `Autumn Sunset', a shrub that can be trained to climb or grow upright around a pillar. It can reach 12 feet tall. The warm apricot-gold flowers appear on new and old wood from its first year in the garden. This variety is especially resistant to blackspot, and the colors are stronger in cooler weather. Mike Lowe, a prominent rosarian in New Hampshire, discovered this remarkable new rose, a sport (or natural mutation) of `Westerland'.

Goals for Rose Breeders
Hybridizers are always working to produce a "perfect" rose, the holy grail of rosarians. Of course, there is no such thing, and considering how tastes and fashions change, even getting close to "perfect" is a challenge.

Keith Zary seeks to develop hybrid teas with improved overall plant shape: "I want hybrid tea roses to be a little more compact, much more bushy, with stronger disease resistance." Although he's pleased with his efforts so far, he claims, "We're making progress, but we're not there yet."

Like Zary, Tom Carruth is in pursuit of the perfect rose. He seeks to create a rose that, by his definition, is "fragrant, completely disease-resistant, vigorous, quick to repeat, very hardy, and has abundant flowers with excellent form and pleasing color." But he acknowledges that hybridizers have not produced the perfect rose and may never do so: "At one time, the hybrid tea was thought to come close, but tastes change. Besides, if I did create the perfect rose, I'd be out of a job."

Karen Dardick, a frequent contributor to National Gardening, writes and gardens in Los Angeles. Provided by NGA.
Reprinted with permission, HouseNet, Inc.

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