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| Mr. Lincoln is a great rose and inexpensive compared to the latest offerings. |
The rose suppliers know when to send bare root roses to various parts of the country. Many people assume roses are rather delicate, but they defy cold weather and do well in the cold and the rain.
Gardening is like running after a departing train. Catching up is unlikely and hard on the heart.
Every rose has its strengths and weaknesses, so gardeners should purchase them according to their plans.
Red KnockOut roses are great - with certain precautions. They bloom fast, so they need regular pruning. Letting the flowers fade on the KO bush is a disgrace, because they are not self-pruning. Those who believe that also think a "temporary tax" is reality.
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| Pink KnockOut - they grow fast and need aggressive pruning. |
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| Double red KnockOut roses are great, but most people neglect this variety, believing the "self-pruning" boast. |
In fast, KnockOuts are so eager to bloom that they offer a great chance to have a colorful border and a lot of spare blooms to fill in a vase. Aroma - none. Diseases - almost none.
So prune KnockOuts back by 50% in the Spring and several times after that. Keep up the individual pruning.
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| Mr. Lincoln bud - one in a vase is enough. |
Mr. Lincoln is doubtless named for its long legs. One cane left unpruned will easily reach 6 to 8 feet.
A word to the sensitive but uninformed - roses love to be pruned, more than sheep love to be sheared, and gossip to be shared. When in doubt, prune it out. Pruning is done to remove dead wood, to harvest flowers, to shape, and to encourage growth above and below ground.
If pruning and weeding are loathsome chores, tis best to grow all grass, or maybe install astro-turf.
But I digress. Mr. Lincoln delivers a nuclear strike with one large rose at the end of a long cane. Once the five sepals are open, cut the rose and place it in a bud vase. Change the water daily, sprinkle the bud for better results, and perhaps cut the stem back a bit each day. The stem cutting keeps the water flowing up the stem better, and sprinkling waters the flowers to keep them fresh.
That works for all flowers. I kept the Poinsettia bright red and perky for weeks by soaking the vase once a week and showering the plant on top. They loved it, as far as I could tell. Flowers do not show emotion, but their beauty certainly implies some gratitude, if not for the gardener, at least for the Creator.
Stinkin' Lincoln will open up a deep red, overwhelm the room with fragrance, and age with more blue in the color. The change is quite impressive. Purists who never appreciate what they have - but covet their imaginary flowers instead - want Mr. Lincoln to stay red. They will love Veterans Honor for that, and for fragrance. But Veterans Honor will not grow like Jack's Beanstalk on thick canes. But for pure red, fragrant, almost everlasting blooms, Veterans Honor is the best.
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| Veterans Honor will stay redder than Berkeley, last long in the garden and the vase, and provide great fragrance - though nothing like the aroma cloud of Mr. Lincoln. |
A hybrid tea rose is relatively slow to form and bloom, but they are much better than antique roses, which bloom but once a year. Hybrid tea roses can have very large blooms on long stems, often bi-color these days.
For fast blooming and colorful roses, but not quite as perfect in bloom as hybrid teas, floribundas are a good choice. My experience with them (and KnockOuts) is - shorter stems. I simply cut them longer, sometimes including five, even seven blooms on one large multi-branched stem.
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| Easy Does It - floribunda. Color in the garden, color inside. |