2009 All-America Rose Selections
The All-America Rose Selections (AARS) is a nonprofit organization that promotes the best new rose varieties. AARS award winners have been evaluated around the country in an extensive two-year testing program, which judges everything from disease resistance to flower production to color and fragrance. Three outstanding roses were chosen for 2009. Look for them in nurseries and garden centers this winter and spring.
Pink Promise is a beautiful, long-stemmed, pink hybrid tea with strong fragrance. It makes a great cut flower. The National Breast Cancer Foundation selected this rose to officially represent a continual blooming promise of compassion and awareness. For every Pink Promise plant purchased, a percentage of the sales will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation to help extend women's lives through education and early detection. Pink Promise was introduced on the Bayer Advanced Float in the 2009 Tournament of Roses Parade.
Cinco de Mayo is a free-blooming, versatile floribunda with eye-catching clusters of smoked lavender and rusty red, apple-scented flowers. It’s an excellent landscape rose with disease-resistant, glossy, deep green foliage.
Carefree Spirit is a dependable, easy-to-grow shrub rose bearing an abundance of single, cherry red blooms in huge clusters. As is true with all Carefree roses, it is an excellent disease-resistant, landscape plant with an exceptionally long bloom period.
To get your new roses off to the best possible start, plant in full sun and well-drained soil. To fertilize and protect from insects and disease, use Bayer Advanced™ All-In-One Rose & Flower Care Concentrate just as the plants begin to grow next spring. One application feeds and protects for up to six weeks.
Sally Holmes – A Star In Its Own Good Time
Recently, Bayer Advanced Garden Expert Lance Walheim, gave a talk on roses to Master Gardeners in the Sacramento, Calif., area, entitled A Fresh Look at Roses for the Sacramento Valley. To actually come up with a truly fresh look, he did an unscientific survey of Consulting Rosarians from two local chapters of the American Rose Society. He asked them to list their favorite, easy-to-grow roses. The biggest surprise was the rose that came out on top: Sally Holmes. Lance knew of Sally Holmes but wondered why he didn’t have this rose in his garden? How could he have overlooked such a great rose? It called for a closer look.
Sally Holmes is classified as a shrub rose. It was introduced in 1976, bred by amateur English hybridizer, Robert A. Holmes, and named after his wife. Initially, it wasn’t introduced to United States because the English nursery (Fryer’s Nursery) responsible for bringing it to commerce didn’t think a single white rose would sell here. Instead, starting in Canada, it was passed from rosarian to rosarian, until it made it to the States where Weeks Roses began custom growing it for the old Stocking’s Rose Nursery in San Jose, Calif. From there Sally Holmes rose in popularity on its own good merits.
Resulting from a cross of the floribunda Ivory Fashion and the hybrid musk Ballerina, there are at least two remarkable things about Sally Holmes. The first is the bloom. The single, creamy white flower, often touched with pink, are born in huge clusters usually compared to the bloom of hydrangeas. The fragrance is most often described as light but some find it stronger. The plant is incredibly generous, blooming almost continuously from spring to fall. The other remarkable thing about Sally Holmes is its vigor. Although classified as a shrub, in mild winter climates of the West and South it performs like a climber, easily reaching 12 feet tall or higher. Tom Carruth, of Weeks Roses, has a Sally Holmes in his yard in Altadena, Calif., that extends 37 feet along a fence. Left on its own, it makes a 6 by 6 foot mound. Obviously, this is not a rose for small gardens.
So, just how good is Sally Holmes? Since its introduction it has won many awards including the Royal National Rose Society Trial Ground Certificate in 1975, the Belfast Certificate Of Merit in 1979, the Baden Baden Gold Medal in 1980, the Glasgow Fragrance Award in 1993 and the Portland Gold Medal in 1993. A quick check of recommended rose lists finds it recommended everywhere from San Diego to Spokane and back east to North Carolina. It’s a great cut flower and a frequent winner in Rose Society exhibitions. Last but not least, the American Rose Society gives it a rating of 8.9, placing it in the top 1 percent of its recommended roses.
In mild winter climates, Sally Holmes is best grown with support, such as a pillar, trellis or fence. Elsewhere, it can be grown as a sprawling shrub. Sally Holmes blooms on new growth so it can be pruned heavily to control its size. Like most roses, it grows best in full sun but it is often mentioned on lists of roses that withstand partial shade. Although generally disease resistant, protect Sally Holmes and all your roses from insects (including Japanese Beetles) and disease with Bayer Advanced™ All-In-One Rose & Flower Care Concentrate. One application feeds and protects from insects and disease for up to six weeks. For more information, go to BayerAdvanced.com.
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