How to Dig Your Way Out of a Rose Rut
Are all the blooms in your rose garden big and voluptuous? Plant a low growing Polyantha with half inch clustered blooms at the base of a bare kneed Hybrid Tea. Try an arching Hybrid Musk. Go to the top white drop down window on the left margin of our website and click on ‘View by Class’. There select a Class with which you are totally unfamiliar and explore a bit. If you live in the deep South pour over the Gallicas that won’t bloom for you. If you live in the North take a look at some Noisettes, far too cold to plant in your area.

Are your roses all shrubs in tidy arrangements? Send a climber up a tree, or let a rambler have its way with something that would look better covered up. Worried about disease resistance? Plant a known “dog for disease” that you have wistfully considered. Let it bloom and watch the leaves fall all over the patio. Sweep them up and watch them grow back again in the fall. Kidding? Well maybe.

Here are just a few varieties that are far from ho hum, though some will be familiar.

Mme. Isaac Pereire
As I was going through three years of photo files I discovered this lovely almost 3D photo of Mme. Isaac Pereire (check spelling) which grows magnificently here and is covered with copious bloom many times a year. The photo captures the magnificent raspberry hue; would that the scent could exude from your computers. This is the rose for carrying about the garden. As voluptuous as the blooms are visually, this is a rose for the nose, a vigorous Bourbon climber.

Golden Moss
The first moss of that hue, Golden Moss is not golden but has the magic of mutability, related to it’s Pernetiana background. Opening soft apricot and, at times, showing silky areas of pure pale yellow as well, it is very fragrant, very feminine, very enchanting. Golden Moss is one of Pedro Dot’s masterpieces. Those of his roses that I grow, Angel Guimera, Catalonia, Federico Casas, Golden Moss, Mme. Gregoire Stachlin, and Si, make me want to know all of the Dot roses.

Awakening belongs to the lineage of the New Dawn climbers. It has all of the New Dawn satiny pale pink charm with all that rose’s good qualities of hardiness, terrific disease resistance, vigor, shade tolerance and frequent, reliable rebloom, but in a fully double form. Other progeny of New Dawn at RVR include some of our best climbers: Bantry Bay (one of the hardiest), Blossomtime, Cadenza , Chuckles (a single flowered rosy Floribunda), Don Juan, Etendard, Etude, White New Dawn, and White Dawn. A few on this list have yet to be posted to the website as they are just coming into production.

Baby Austin we received tucked into a shipment of roses arriving from Paul Barden and we are very grateful to him for sharing it. It is a micro-mini of constant rebloom and copious charm. Perfect for a baby gift. I gave it to a shy little girl who snatched it and ran away with it to ensconce it in her dollhouse kitchen.

Basye’s Purple is one of the most darkly beautiful roses ever from a cross of a rugosa x R. foliolosa. The deep indigo purple and velvet, with a sheen, texture is nearly impossible to describe or capture in a photograph. Combine this with stamens of the same color that are bright yellow at the tips, plum colored canes, and purple thorns. It blooms prolifically in clusters. The tall willowy plants form manageable thickets of suckers and make lovely background plantings.

Comte de Chambord is one of the most fragrant, continuous blooming antique roses. Several authors have suggested that this rose is actually the Hybrid Perpetual, 'Mme. Boll'. 'Mme. Knorr' has also been given as the correct name. Since I am unfamiliar with the other roses, I have no opinion on this debate. Our plant has light green rather coarse leaves and the bloom has a darker center on first opening. The Comte is a good rose for someone just getting started with antique roses. It has some of the best rebloom and fragrance I have seen. It is also relatively trouble free in that it doesn’ require a lot of attention to keep on pumping out the blooms.

Crepuscule is a very good rose, healthy and vigorous, whose slender dark green leaves contrast nicely with the crimson new growth. The canes have a graceful way of cascading, or drooping, making it good for flowing down over a terrace wall. The blooms are a luscious apricot butterscotch and nearly continuous. This plant takes awhile to establish itself and can be a slow grower. Be patient and try not to move it. It will establish a graceful growth habit. Prune very lightly, if at all, otherwise, it sulks. This is not a rose for shade. I have heard that it grows successfully in Zone 6.

If you want enchanting Alba fragrance and bloom form, but lack space for a large arching shrub, Felicite Parmentier is a charming petite Alba. Ours seems stable, after several years in light shade with no direct sun, at about 3.5 feet and as wide. It is covered with copious bloom that lasts and lasts for weeks in the spring. I am charmed by the heavily scented tissue cupped blooms, white at the edges with the palest pink centers.

So there you have it, some temptations for the turning of winter, shovel sharpening time.

Ordering with the Discounts and Specials
During the month of October buy 10 roses and choose 1 of our $12.50 bands as a free gift. At the end of the ordering process, a window will appear for you to tell us which free band you would like. In the same input box, you may let us know if you would like 2 free roses from us that have lost their labels.

If you are a member of the American Rose Society, the Heritage Rose Foundation, or a Heritage Rose Group, you may choose to receive a 10% membership discount on roses that you order in any quantity when you provide us with your membership number and expiration date. This membership discount does not go with any other specials or sales that we offer.

This is your chance to bring lovely Paul Barden roses into your garden and we are very excited to have them available once again!

	Contact us at: info@roguevalleyroses.com Phone and fax: (541) 535-1307

We are open to customers on Wednesday afternoon from 2:00 to 6:00 for pickup of orders previously placed online or over the phone.
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