Roses are always popular and most are now in flower. Now is a great time of year to be planting roses. New stocks have been filling stores and there are some wonderful varieties available.
I personally love roses; they are such an impressive plant. There are few plants that can
Gardening: Good time for the roses
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Purple rose.
Roses today come in virtually every colour of the spectrum. Most rose's co-ordinate well together but a combination of too many brilliant colours may create a discordant effect. When planting, using white roses or those with soft pastel tones between your groups of strong coloured roses will prevent a clash of colour.
A particular favourite is 'Absolutely Fabulous'. This rose displays good vigour and excellent health with good resistance to black spot. Its flowers are truly stunning with butter gold blooms, and a delicious strong fragrance.
Rose 'Purpleicious' is a recently released rose that has become very popular and is a good performer in the garden. This beauty is a deep purple with a delicious fragrance. It has a flat old fashioned flower form and grows approximately 80cm.
A new release this year is Rose 'Scent By An Angel'. It features blooms with a heavy perfume that are deep magenta pink in colour that pale to a soft pink. It is a floribunda type rose produces masses of flowers in clusters for months through out summer.
A favourite climbing rose of mine is 'Dublin Bay'. This was selected by well known international rose breeder Sam McGredy and named after the bays of Ireland. It is such a good performer it is rated as the number one climbing rose by the NZ rose society frequently with nearly double the votes of the next best rose.
Its blooms are a very brilliant semi double with bright red blooms. It can grow up to 2-3 metres across but while it is a good grower, it is not so vigorous that it can't be contained and kept smaller when needed. It performs well grown up a trellis, pillar, wall or pergola.
Dublin Bay looks particularly good when under planted with lavender or catmint, where the blue flowers of these plants provide a complementary colour to both the rose blooms and the deep green leaves.
This highly rated rose, 'Dublin Bay' is adaptable to many garden situations. It can be grown successfully in a decent sized patio planter or half wine barrel. It is a strong and healthy grower with dark green healthy foliage and generally good disease resistance.
Have a great week.
Gareth Carter is General Manager of Springvale Garden Centre