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| I got Hot Cocoa for $5 each, but now the suppliers are out of stock. |
A member sent me a write-up on Hot Cocoa, "a striking and disease resistant" floribunda rose. That sounded familiar. I looked it up - no longer in stock anywhere. Then I remembered that oddly named rose I got for $5 from Gurney's, when they sell the extra roses from Week's Roses. I ordered 10 of them twice for a total of 20 roses for $100.
Those roses are the ones around the maple tree, because Mrs. Ichabod wanted them there. I flailed at maple roots for hours to get the first 10 in. This year we transplanted the other 10, and everyone is deliriously happy about the results.
Hot Cocoa Floribunda Rose
An All-American Rose Selections Award winner with Chocolate-Brown Tones and Hints of Smoke, Red and Purple Perks Up Any Display!
Plant Patent #15,155. Cultivar name: 'WEKpaltlez'.
There's no other Rose with colors that will warm you heart like Hot Cocoa ™ does! Flowers growing to 3½ inches wide with seemingly endless petals and ruffled edges complemented by a sweet aroma, made it an All-American Rose Selections Award winner!
The long, pointed buds are equally spectacular with a rich rust color distributed freely through the bright green shrub. Blooms arise from late spring until fall as the deep color, which could be considered brick-red, forms a dynamic contrast with the shrubs, but in a reverse of the standard light-dark roles.
Vigorous and resistant to disease, Hot Cocoa ™ grows up to 4 feet high and 4½ feet wide and is extremely resistant to cold weather. For best results, space shrubs 3 feet apart in moist, enriched soil and full sun!
Hot Cocoa's ™ unique colors give it great versatility, whether as a showpiece in your Rose Garden or perennial bed or for spectacular borders. It's tough to resist clipping a few throughout the season because they also make great cut flowers in vases or other displays.
There is no way to do justice to these sweetly fragrant, freely borne blossoms! Very vigorous and resistant to disease, Hot Cocoa™ would be a super garden presence even if its blooms weren't so spectacular. As it is, though, this is an entirely new color breakthrough that you won't want to miss enjoying in your own border, Rose garden, or perennial bed. The flowers are exquisite in the garden and vase. And if you're ready to start exhibiting your Roses, why not begin with a flourish with this showstopper?
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| Europeana Floribunda Rose - From 20 feet away, you will say, "What rose is that?!" |
The photo does not do justice to my $5 Europeana roses from Gurney's/Weeks. They seem edged in black, very dramatic, and the red is a deep, haunting color. I always wanted this rose, which was considered the best of all roses about 20 years ago. Now I have two for a total of $10.
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| Paradise from above - many of us are drawn to bi-color roses. |
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| Paradise from the side - shows off the color differences. |
I was browsing the maple tree garden and said, "What sorcery is this?" I saw this luminous orange to yellow rose. It was another $5 rose, and I have two bushes bursting with blooms.
Last year these roses were getting on their feet and just starting to bloom. The teen years are the most difficult - the struggles in growing up and putting down their roots. That is why leaving roses alone in the mulch, with red wigglers at work, is the best approach to growing roses. The root growth and fungal connections cannot be rushed, so they should not be broken up with tramping through the garden or rototilling.
I gave our helper the Fireworks rose, because the long canes were going to be a problem where I put them. I also thought the robust nature of that rose would be fun for his family, and it already is, before blooming. Mulched and placed where the earthworms have been scattered, two Fireworks are thriving.
Source
I bought these roses - and more - last year from Gurney's email offers. I find their website is the handiest for finding plants and seeds, and knowing how to deploy them. Twice they emailed offers for five roses for $25. Each time I bought two offers. We enjoy having the variety and the surprises from these economy roses, which are really premium flowers.
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| Cinco de Mayo is another one from last year. |
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| Cardinal notecards are available from Norma Boeckler. |
I wondered and then confirmed. Cardinals have always been everyone's favorite. Grandson Alex was thrilled to see the male eating a short distance away, from the feeder outside our bedroom window.
Sassy sat down to cool off outside, so I decided to sit and wait. Neither one of us moved for a time. A male cardinal left the crepe myrtle bush. Later a female cardinal left from the same place. I wondered if they would return and confirm their love nest. I called Sassy up from the yard to set near me. Immediately the female returned to the bush.
I quietly walked down and peered into the bush from every angle. I have been watching it since it was bare of leaves and needing some trimming. Partway through my circumambulation, I spotted the nest inside, a clump of dry leaves. No wonder string left on that bush disappeared so fast. I thought I was helping robins, but perhaps the cardinals snagged the string.
Soon after I left a cup of sunflower seeds at the base of the bush. The parents will have a daily supply to keep their energy up.
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| Here is another delightful painting of cardinals from Norma Boeckler. |