Garden Guy Loves Antique Roses and Perennials

Garden Guy loves to plant hardy perennials and antique roses whenever we can. We believe, if chosen correctly, they can bring you years of beautiful, low-maintenance color in your garden.

We love many roses but the new Earth-Kind Roses are especially remarkable

The Earth-Kind Rose program at Texas A&M University is a recent and very exciting development for gardeners in Texas and throughout the nation. For nearly a century, if you wanted roses in your garden, you were expected to follow a rigid time-consuming program of applying pesticides and fungicides, pruning, and fertilizing on a regular basis. The results of this high-maintenance approach to growing roses were as predictable as they were disappointing to many gardeners, who simply "gave up on roses" and decided to grow something else.
 

The Earth-Kind Roses require practically no maintenance combine the best of organic and traditional gardening and landscaping principles to create a new horticultural system for the 21st Century.

And The Winners Are . . . .
The 11 varieties receiving the Earth-Kind designation are:

1. 'Sea Foam' - a creamy white groundcover shrub rose that has double blooms with a cascading growth habit. This variety blooms April through November on 3 ft. tall by 6 ft. wide bushes.
    

2. 'Marie Daly' - a pink polyantha dwarf shrubby rose that has semi-double fragrant blooms growing on an almost thornless bush. This variety is perfect for growing in containers and proved to be tolerant to spider mites. It blooms April through November on 3 ft. tall by 3 ft. wide bushes.
    

3. 'The Fairy' - a light pink polyantha dwarf shrubby rose that has double blooms on bushes that are 3 ft. tall by 4 ft. wide. The bush blooms from April through November, but does not do well in East Texas due to the severity of Cercospora leaf spot in that area of the state.
    

4. "Caldwell Pink" - a lilac pink carnation-style found rose that grows as a small shrub on bushes 4 ft. tall by 4 ft. wide.
    

5. 'Knock Out' - a cherry red semi-double shrub rose that blooms April through November on bushes that are 4 ft. tall by 4 ft. wide.
    

6. 'Perle d'Or' - a peach polyantha that blooms with fragrant pompom blooms between April and November. This small shrub rose (4 ft. by 4 ft.) out performed Cecile Brunner in the field tests by 40% and seemed to thrive on adversity.
    

7. 'Belinda's Dream' - a medium-size shrub rose that has pink fragrant blooms between April and November. The blooms resemble hybrid teas with petal a count of about 114 on bushes loaded with blue-green foliage. The mature bush size is 5 ft. by 5 ft. This rose was the first one to receive the 'Earthkind' designation.
    

8. 'Else Poulson' - a pink floribunda rose that blooms with semi-double flowers between April and November. It has been described that this bush's growth resembles a cyclamen and is best suited for use in background plantings. The mature bush size is 5 ft by 5 ft.
    

9. 'Katy Road Pink' - a fragrant pink found rose that blooms with double flowers between April and November on mature bushes that are 5 ft. tall and 5 ft. wide.
    

10. 'Mutabilis' - (the 'Butterfly' Rose) - a China rose that has single blooms which change color during their life cycle from yellow to pink to crimson. This rose blooms between April and November on large bushes that are approximately 6 ft by 6 ft.
     

11. 'Climbing Pinkie' - This pink semi-double polyantha rose has very fragrant blooms between April and November. When cultivated as a climbing rose, the canes can reach 10 ft. long. If cultivated as a shrub, the bush size will be 5 ft. tall by 7 ft. wide. This variety blooms once a year in the spring. During the bloom season it is not uncommon for a mature bush to display 800 blooms each day.
    EarthKind~ Practices At The Peaceful Habitations Rose Gardens
     

These roses thrive not because of what WE do or do not do, but simply because of the kinds of roses that they are. Many of our roses are the "Old Garden" varieties that have stood the test of time. Others are "Found" roses that have survived alone in cemeteries, along country roads, in old neighborhoods, and at abandoned home sites. These roses are really tough and they thrive on neglect and abuse that would quickly kill most modern roses.


References:

• Gaye Hammond. "Earthkind" Roses - The Brightest Star on the Horizon

• Dr. Steven George. General Overview Of The EarthKind™ Environmental Landscape Management Program
  Last updated 02/16/2004

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