What can I say? I am powerless and without self-control when I see the words "half off". I feel a little giddy, too, though some might say looney, but what the heck. The roses I ordered are all David Austin English Roses, and since mine is a no-spray garden, this will be quite a test. The scuttlebutt I have heard has not been great as to their disease resistance, but these four claim otherwise.
In case you're curious about who is having such a sale, I'll tell you.
Heirloom Roses is who is having this 50% off sale through July 17th. (Just as a disclaimer I am only a customer of Heirloom Roses - not a shareholder.) The roses I ordered are 'Mary Rose', 'Graham Thomas', 'St Swithun' and 'Hyde Hall', none of which I can get from my nearby favorite rose nursery.
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| 'Graham Thomas' (1983) - a tall shrub or 10' climber in warmer climates with a long growing season like mine. I have seen GH growing in Florida, and it stole my heart with it's beautiful yellow color which I don't remember being quite as gold as this photo. I'm hoping it will be healthy. If not, I may take up spraying it. |
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| 'Hyde Hall' (2004) - this will be a good-sized shrub, probably kept at 5-6' x 5'. The description says it's shade-tolerant, and that's why I chose it after determining as well as possible that it has good disease resistance by looking it up on Helpmefind/roses. |
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| 'Mary Rose' (1983) - supposed to be a 4'x4' shrub but I won't be surprised if it's bigger. I have read that this is a very good rose in Florida. I will keep you posted about it. |
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| 'St Swithun' (1993) - a small climber (8') or large shrub. This rose is also described as shade-tolerant and hopefully healthy. |
In case some of you haven't ordered roses by mail you might be interested in exactly what I'm getting. They're called bands. A band pot is 6" tall by 3" wide/square. The plant itself is about 6-8" or 8-10" tall depending on the type of rose - Hybrid Teas and climbers are taller than Shrub roses, according to the website. So these are baby roses, and they're growing on their own roots not on another rootstock like Fortuniana. As I've mentioned before, my garden beds are greatly amended with organic matter which hopefully will greatly reduce/eliminate the need for the Fortuniana rootstock as a defense against nematodes. If you want to read all about own-root roses,
HERE's a very good description.
Keeping my fingers crossed that in a few days I'll receive an email that they still have these roses in stock and will be shipping them out right away. And naturally, before I pulled the trigger I calculated where they would go in the garden.
Sometimes digging holes is a happy event.
