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How do you rate your roses?

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED AUG 5, 2020

Frida Kahlo, a floribunda from Weeks Roses and named
for the famed artist, is among the roses that needs rating
in Roses in Review. (Photo courtesy Weeks Roses)

Annual 'Roses in Review' survey grades new introductions

For almost a century, gardeners across the nation have been rating their roses. It’s one of America’s oldest exercises in citizen science and an important tool for helping others select roses for their own gardens.

It’s the American Rose Society’s 95th annual Roses in Review survey. And you’re invited to participate.

“We need your evaluations, whether you grow one of the varieties on the survey or dozens of them,” said Don Swanson, the national coordinator for Roses in Review. “We welcome evaluations from you whether you are a new rose grower, a ‘garden’ rose grower or a seasonal veteran grower; whether you grow roses for your landscape and garden or if you also grow them to exhibit and arrange. We are happy to get reports from non-ARS members as well.”

ARS members do most of the ratings (and new members are always welcome), but the review is open to anyone who grows roses – as long as those roses are on this year’s survey. The results are compiled in the annual ARS handbook.

Not all roses are re-evaluated every year; there’s just too many. According to the ARS, there are more than 37,000 registered roses listed in the society’s encyclopedic “Modern Roses.”

Instead, the annual survey sticks to newly introduced roses, commercially available in the past one to four years. That group still includes about 200 varieties. Rating those new introductions is important; high scores will keep them on the market for years to come. A bad grade? That rose could soon be history.

This bouquet features Violet's Pride, a salute to "Downton Abbey."
The mauve floribunda is one of dozens of new roses,
up for review. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

How do you rate roses? Through observation, gardeners evaluate each bush’s characteristics such as height, winter hardiness and disease resistance. They consider its pluses such as fragrance, color and form. And its minuses (such as a susceptibility to powdery mildew).

After thoughtful consideration, they give that rose a number grade on a 1 to 10 scale, 10 being best.

In the rose garden, there are almost no 10s. As the directions remind graders, “10 (equals) Outstanding, one of the best roses ever. These scores should be seldom used.”

Instead, most roses fall between “7” and “8,” which makes sense. Each variety had to have a lot of positive features to make it to the market in the first place; but a “6” is below average.

By comparison, Mister Lincoln (an all-time favorite hybrid tea) is rated 8.3.

Filled with the ratings of new roses as well as thousands of popular varieties, the ARS handbooks are available for purchase from the national website as well as local rose societies.

For more details or to participate in Roses in Review, go to: www.rose.org .

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GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

gardening Sacramento American Rose Society roses rose ratings spring flowers summer flowers flowers

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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