|
|
HelpMeFind's future is in your hands - Please do not take this unique resource for granted.
Your support of HelpMeFind is urgently needed. HelpMeFind, like all websites, needs funding to survive. We have set a premium-membership yearly subscription amount as low as possible to make user-community funding viable.
We are grateful to the many members who have signed up so far, but the number of premium-membership members remains too small for us to sustain the current support and development level. If you value HelpMeFind and want to see it continue we need your support too.
Yearly membership is only $2.00 per month and adds a host of additional features, and numerous planned enhancements, to take full advantage of the power and convenience of HelpMeFind. Click here to start your premium membership..
We of course also welcome donations of any amount. Click here to make a donation. Donations of $24 or more receive a thank-you gift of a 1-year premium membership.
As far as we have come, we feel HelpMeFind is still in its infancy. With your support we have so much more to accomplish.
Photo courtesy of Le_Not
Rose, peony and clematis
Listing last updated on Wed Apr 2025
Iowa United States
USDA Zone: 5b (-15 to -10 F / -26.1 - 23.4 C)
Iowa is not known as a terribly rose-friendly climate: we have hot, humid summers with regular drought, and bitterly cold winters (often without consistent snow cover). My garden is thus an experiment: mostly I just want to know whether one can grow beautiful roses here without resorting to extreme winter-protection measures. The most I do is a few shovelfuls of mulch around the base of the less-hardy plants, and some wire caging to deter rabbits. (Here I should mention that not all of my listed roses are overwintered in-ground. I keep 'Abraham Darby', 'Dee-lish', 'Deuil de Dr Reynaud', "Miriam Wilkins", 'Peace', and 'Poseidon' in pots, and overwinter them in an unheated garage.)
All but one of my roses are own-root, mostly because I don't want to deal with the bother of rootstock suckers. I find myself drawn particularly to nineteenth-century roses, which I think best balance the charms of old roses with repeat-flowering.
The soil here is a clay-loam that's fairly alkaline (7.5); I've worked plenty of compost into it, more to improve drainage than anything else. I have a mix of sun, partial shade, and dappled shade, due to two ancient and venerable black walnut trees on the lot. Though some people claim that roses are sensitive to juglone, the chemical produced by these trees, I have several roses directly under them, and have noticed no ill effects. I consider myself fortunate that I have an east-facing backyard, so many of my roses are protected from the hottest afternoon sun.
I entreat other rose-growers with experience in such conditions to share any advice they may have. I only started this endeavor in 2019, so I have much to learn.
|
