East to Grow Roses

If you subscribe to this blog than you now Dale and I visited with Chris Warner the Oso Easy rose breeder while in England. Getting to his Shropshire home was not easy even with a GPS unit. English addresses are a tad bit strange and the GPS does not like them. Thank goodness for cell phones!

Chris Warner in his rose breeding greenhouse

It was a great pleasure to visit with Chris and the get a better feel for how he breeds and selects his roses. For example - he leaves any diseased seedlings in his greenhouse seed beds so there is plenty of fungal inoculum available to infect and show which seedlings have the greatest disease resistance. We got to see all phases of his testing and selection. It is in the later stages in the process where Chris gets ruthless about culling out any diseased seedlings. Still even at these stages there are old rose plants near by to infect any susceptible roses.

One of Chris's most disease resistant roses in the Oso Easy line is a bright and cheerful red rose with a yellow center called Urban Legend. This rose is so healthy and floriferous it has been awarded the Lord Burleigh Award for Best Disease Resistant Rose, the Chauncey Beadle Award for Best Shrub Rose at the 2018 Biltmore International Rose Trials at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C. and the American Rose Society Award of Excellence. Now I have to be totally honest with you when it come to this rose. When it was time to name this rose, we considered several other names, including Barbed Wire, Brinks and ADT. These names may seen a bit strange, but you have to understand this is a very thorny rose, and because so it is perfect for planting under windows in high crime areas. There is a real need for security plants and the names were our attempt to position this rose for that very purpose. We settled on Urban Legend which speaks to it usefulness in fighting crime but also to its award winning disease resistance and flower power.  

A container shot of this roes sent to us by a customer in Texas

Urban Legend on the left and nock out on the right in out test garden. 

Chris has also made a name for himself with his hybrid Hulthemia Persica rose breeding sold under the series name Ringo Roses. Ringo Yellow is a magically colored rose with yellow, red pink and white in the bloom. His Ringo roses are substantially hardier and more disease resistant than anything else in the catagory. Ringo has proven it self by winning awards at the Hauge Rose Trials, first place at the Lyon Rose Trials and Gold at the Gold Standard Rose trials.      

The original Ringo Rose from Chris Warner

Ringo is sold under the Proven Winners brand in the USA

Ringo® Double Pink (Rosa 'Chewdelight), also a Hague Rose Trial First Class Certificate winner, comes with a fuchsia pink flowers, a dark magenta center and having 15 to 25 petals. It too has been a worldwide hit with rose growers. 

Ringo Double Pink rose flower

Ringo Double Pink did excellent in our container rose trial

It is always a pleasure to spend time taking plants with a plant breeder, but it is even more so with Chris. He has such a depth of knowledge and such great enthusiasm for roses and it is evident in his plant introductions. They are smart and elegant. Beautiful, yet useful. Healthy, yet happy. I cannot wait to return to Shropshire, England!

Off to England

Later this week Dale and I are heading to England. The plan is to visit plant breeders, small specialty growers and hopefully find some new plants for North American gardens. We’ll start the tour with a stop a Wisley Gardens in Surrey. The Royal Horticulture Society conducts plant trials at Wisley so we will have a chance to see a number of plant trials and evaluate cultivars growing in side by side comparisons. It should be fun.

Another stop will take further north in Shropshire, where we’ll visit Chris Warner, the OSO EASY rose Breeder. We have been growing and trialing Chris’s roses for about 7 years but this will be the first time we get to see his breeding program up close and personal. While the rose market is difficult at the moment, we are getting great feedback from both growers and gardeners on the Oso Easy roses. This does not surprise me as Chris is one of the best rose breeders in the world. His plants have superb disease resistance, excellent hardiness, attractive glossy foliage, and unique vivid flower colors. Oso Easy Paprika seems to be the early favorite, but Chris is getting praises for all his roses. Our visit with Chris will give us insight into potential Oso Easy roses.

Do you know any of breeders or interesting nurseries in England that we should visit? If so – please send me an email. Perhaps we can fit in a few more stops.

A Tale of Two Roses

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Just outside my office, growing side by side, are two excellent roses. Both are very free flowering and bless me with a continuous, summer-long display of red flowers. Each rose remains as clean as a whistle without the aid of sprays or chemicals. I suspect you're familiar with one of these roses. Perhaps you even grow it? It was developed Bill Radler and is called Knock Out.

But this is the story of the other rose. Its name is Candy Oh! Vivid Red and most likely you’ve never heard of it before. It was not developed by Bill Radler, however, it would not exist but for this well known rose breeder of the North.

At ripe old age of 13 David Zlesak read an article in the Milwaukee Journal that changed the course of his life. The article was about Bill Radler and how he hybridized new roses. Fascinated by the article and the idea of creating new plants, Zlesak wrote to Radler. To his surprise, Radler wrote back and this letter was the spark and inspiration that started David Zlesak on his plant breeding career and ultimately resulted in the rose Candy Oh! Vivid Red.

While working towards his PhD in plant breeding, David worked on numerous crops including small fruit, potatoes, Easter lilies and various perennial plant species. His first big breeding breakthrough came in 2006 when Proven Winners introduced Tuscan Sun Heliopsis a remarkable dwarf, continuous flowering perennial. Yet even though David found success in breeding other crops, his passion for roses never ceased - nor did his rose breeding. While other students were going to fraternity parties, David was up in his dorm room growing on thousands of rose seedlings under florescent lights. Out of these seedlings he selected the healthiest 1,500 plants and grew them out in garden plots he rented from friends and neighbors. Out of these, he selected the 50 healthiest, most floriferous plants. His selection process was further aided by the harsh Minnesota winters and the ubiquitous rose disease – black spot. Only the hardiest, most disease resistance roses remained.

Out of the thousands of seedlings that started out in his dorm room, David found that one seedling, a polyantha hybrid that stood out from all the others. It was vigorous, healthy and very floriferous. The vivid red flower color was so intense that it seemed almost to smolder in the summer sun. In 2008 David Zlesak introduced his first commercial rose selection - Candy Oh! Vivid Red.

That is the tale of two roses, and how Bill Radler had a hand in the development of both plants.

An Eye for Award Winning Plants

As I’ve said previously, one of the most satisfying aspects of hunting for and introducing new plants is getting affirmation that you’ve introduced a good plant. When growers and gardeners respond positively then I know my eye for a good plant is still working and on the right track. On that front, this last week has been a good one.

Just today I received a report from the Royal Horticulture Society at Wisley (England). They’ve been conducting an all European Buddleia trial that includes all cultivars available in the trade. That’s 107 different Buddleia cultivars in all, so the competition is very intense. In public voting this year, between July 31st to August 20th, , the top vote getters, by a decisive margin, were Buddleia x ‘Miss Ruby’ and Lo & Behold™ ‘Blue Chip’ respectively. The trial coordinator commented that the votes for Lo & Behold™ ‘Blue Chip’ would most likely have been even higher had the voting continued longer. That is because Lo & Behold™ ‘Blue Chip’ continued to flower well beyond all other cultivars. This is great news and is a good indication that each plant is in the running for the prestigious RHS award of Garden Merit. Dr. Denny Werner should be pleased that his plants took the top two spots. I expect that his breeding will garner ever more accolades in the future, as his Buddleia breeding is the best in the world.

I also got word that one of our new Oso Easy™ Roses won an award. The Rose Hills International Rose Trial awarded a Gold Medal to Oso Easy™ ‘Paprika’ as the Best New Ground Cover rose for 2008. Congratulations to Chris Warner and his outstanding breeding of disease resistant roses. Awards are nothing new to Chris. He has won over 100 international awards including two President’s Trophies and three Gold Stars.

Roses and Roller Coasters

Some people love roller coasters. My kids love the coasters, but for me I get enough thrills introducing new plants. Introducing new plants can be fun and exciting, but it’s also scary as hell. Sure it’s really fun to be the first person to see a new plant with great garden potential. And it’s especially exciting the first time you see that new plant in someone’s garden or landscape. But introducing a new plant is also very scary. First off everyone is a plant critic. As horticulturists we are trained to find fault with every plant. And to be sure every plant has its weak points. No plant is going to do well in every state in the union, in every soil type and withstand all the abuse that gardeners dish out. So I introduce plants and brace myself for the criticism. No matter how good the plant it always comes.

But there is nothing better than hearing and seeing the good reviews. A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to a local mail order nursery called Garden Crossings. They’re a small grower that has a unique view of the market. A few years back they decided to grow and sell the complete line of Proven Winners plants, including the Proven Winners ColorChoice shrubs. During our visit it was exciting to see the 2 ¼ inch liners he brought in just a few months earlier and potted up into two gallon containers. It was especially exciting to see his crop of Oso Easy Roses. They were superb! Each plant was like a soldier, full and robust, and all budded up and ready to flower. The leaves were glossy and clean.

Oso Easy paprika

When I selected the Oso Easy Roses I knew they were extremely good plants. I work with five different rose breeders and in our trials we do not spray any of their selections. In our hot, humid production environment it’s the perfect conditions for disease. Not many roses cut the mustard and as a result only few varieties (out of hundreds) remained clean during our trials. So far only four varieties have made it into the Oso Easy line.

But, regardless of how well the plant perform in our trials, I always worry about how people will perceive our plants. How will perform in nurseries and in the garden. So it was a good day when I saw the Oso Easy roses looking so darn good, especially compared to the most popular roses on the market. Cleary they were stand-out plants. It came as a great relief because several people had told me I was crazy to introduce new roses. The rose market is being dominated by just a few new selections and no one is asking for new roses. But if you’re in the business of introducing new plants, and if you believe you have something special, you have to stand firm. You have to stick your neck out. Lots of people are going to take swipes and some will call you crazy, so you need to have thick skin. It can be a roller coaster ride of emotions, but in the end there’s a real satisfaction in weathering the storm. This week the roses in our display house came into full bloom. I brought some three gallon Oso Easy roses into the office. Everyone, including the people in bookkeeping, went crazy over the plants. More confirmation.

But for me the roller coaster ride never ends. Each year there are more introductions, more worries, more criticism and more reviews. But that’s ok. It's not the horticulturists that decide the fate of a new plant, it's the consumer. And I can live with that.

California Pack Trials - A Pleasant Surprise

I just got back from the California Pack Trials and have the sunburn to prove it. This was my first visit to the Pack Trials and it proved to be a very interesting experience. If you are not familiar with Pack Trials, it is a week long event where some forty different breeders and growers showcase their new plant introductions. Attendees travel the coast of California making stops at greenhouses and display gardens to get the inside scoop on what’s new for the coming year. In the past, the Pack Trials were almost entirely dedicated to seed grown annuals and growers would come out and evaluate how the new annuals presented themselves in trays or cell “packs.” Times have changed and very few if any plants are seed grown and the plants are no longer displayed in trays.

For me Pack Trials was an opportunity to gage people’s reaction to new introductions. What is it that really gets people talking? I have never had much belief in focus groups when it relates to plants. I much prefer to go to a garden center and play detective. What are people putting in their carts? What are the plants that draw the attention of people in the store? The same is true for pack trials. It was interesting to see which plants got people excited.

At the Proven Winners display located at EuroAmerican Propagators, just north of San Diego, I was amazed at the reaction that people had towards the new line of OSO EASY roses – (Oso Easy ‘Peach Cream,’ Oso Easy ‘Fragrant Spreader,’ and Oso Easy ‘Paprika’) Prior to this, I had been repeatedly told that it was the absolutely worst time to introduce roses. Keep in mind that only one week ago, the leading name in roses - Jackson and Perkins was sold. The mighty have fallen, because the rose industry is in a fast, deep downward spiral. No one wants tea roses or grandifloras any more. Gardeners refuse to spray roses. For better or worse, growers and retailers have become fixated on ‘Knockout’ roses, just as they had done twenty years ago with ‘Stella d’Ora’ daylily. The herd mentality of the nursery industry is alive and well, so it was a pleasant surprise to watch the reaction of growers and retailers when presented a new line of roses. There was genuine excitement in eyes of everyone as they first caught a glimpse of the Oso Easy Line - And why not? These are great roses.

I know how good these roses are because I have been evaluating them for the last five years. I get test roses from five different rose breeders and I have tested countless selections - but only these three plants have made the grade. Our nursery grows many roses, and most all of them are a grower’s nightmare. For roses to go through the high heat and humidity of our propagation and production system and to stay clean is nearly impossible. Unlike the All American Rose testing process, we do not spray our test roses; not in the ground and not in production. Undoubtedly these are darn good roses. But to see buyers, growers and retailers get excited was confirmation that these roses have a bright future despite the bleak state of the rose industry. It was a pleasant surprise.