HELPMEFIND PLANTS COMMERCIAL NON-COMMERCIAL RESOURCES EVENTS PEOPLE RATINGS
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Initial post
30 OCT 10 by
RobC
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I would recommend this variety to anyone wanting to grow "Margaret Merrill". It has similar blush-pink flowers but has much improved disease resistance. Like MM it is a quite floribuna-ish in habit as it produces its beautiful medium-sized flowers both singly but sometimes in large clusters of up to 15 blooms. It aslo has similar nice dark foliage which gives a good background to the whiteish blooms.
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Thank you for sharing your experience with these plants - we need more members to do the same !
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Oh that's whetted my anticipation, thanks for posting, got one ready to plant, looking forward to seeing and smelling what it does
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Just wondering why this supposedly stellar rose has an ARS rating of 6.9 ?? Anyone have problems with this rose?
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Amber Queen is one of those roses that when it is good it is a beautiful rose but it can be trickly so perhaps that is why the low rating. I have had 3 Amber Queens and only one did very well.
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Who knows. I'd bet money that a rose with a certain rating one year could have an entirely different rating the next year.
It's a good all-around rose though. It's not perfect, but it rounds out some good points nicely too. I think one thing people may rate it low for is it's color. It is a love it or hate it color. Also, it grows more upright and thorny than most people prefer in floribundas.
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Jean, the low rating is undoubtedly related to the rose's exhibition record and has nothing to do with garden performance. Exhibitors are the primary source of input for these scores. I never look at ARS ratings anymore. They are meaningless to most of us who don't exhibit.
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I hadn't realized until just this week how much the exhibition performance of a rose effects its ARS rating. I have been doing some long overdue reading about ARS and rose ratings and was stunned to find that exhibition ratings are more important than things like fragrance. For 99.9% of the gardening public who will never exhibit a rose, it creates an ARS rating system that makes little sense. No wonder ARS has lost so much credibility with the public -- it has made itself somewhat irrelevant.
Perhaps there could be a second ARS rating for "garden performance" that leaves out all the exhibition rating numbers, since only a tiny minority of gardeners would care about that. That might create a rating system that would be relevant to gardeners and more accurately describe rose performance in the garden. I know, I look to see of a rose has the ADR. That means suggests something very positive about garden performance, something the ARS ratings and awards do not.
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"it has made itself somewhat irrelevant"
I'm sad to say you're right and I've been saying it for a decade, or more. Emphasis on exhibiting and failure to embrace technology in a timely way, has and will, cost ARS dearly.
I predict it will take new leadership and reworking from the ground up to bring it current with the needs of today's gardening public.
ARS emphasis should be education. Exhibition with an emphasis on garden performance, and less, or no, emphasis on competition would go a long way to setting things right.
People need to be educated about what does well in their individual gardening climate(s), how to use less water, fertilizer and chemical intervention. JMHO
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I agree with you. The leadership of ARS seems to be in the clutches of folks who are fixated on putting on "rose shows" and winning ribbons. Even the names of some of the awards given at ARS shows seem old fashioned and anachronistic -- "King of Show", "Queen of Show", "Court of Honor" -- they sound like something from a beauty pageant. There is nothing wrong with any of this, as long as ARS leadership realizes that exhibiting is of NO relevance to gardeners.
Most gardeners need basic education and advice on which roses are best for their particular needs and situation. After all, roses are just another landscape element. Selecting the right plant(s) is key to having success in the garden, and so is basic gardening know-how. The fact that so many roses highly rated by ARS are tough to grow in the garden leads many a novice gardener to give up on roses. The general notion amongst most beginning gardeners is that roses are "too fussy," require spraying, special fertilizing and pruning, and the perfect soil and exposure, or they'll sulk and die. ARS's annual promotion of exhibition-worthy HT's, but which grow to 6' tall, bristle with prickles, suffer from black spot and have bare knees, almost guarantees novice gardeners will be turned off by roses. Rather than promoting the growing of roses, ARS is effectively doing the opposite.
It's very familiar to me. I was involved with the American Orchid Society and trained to be a judge for five years, so got an up-close and personal view of how plant societies work. AOS must be nearly as large as ARS and just as "out of it." Turning the ship around will take a long, long time.
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#9 of 19 posted
21 APR 09 by
 jedmar
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How anachronistic! Rose shows belong for me to the end of the 19th and early 20th century, when boxes of "perfect" blooms where meticulously prepared and exhibited. Most of these prize winners were not suitable for gardens and disappeared. I checked the website of the World Federation of Rose Societies: Rose shows seem to still exist only in USA, UK and Australia. It must be the british "competing gene".
We still have our dog, cat, rabbit, poultry shows, though!
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Jeff, have you looked into the HMF rating system. We are open to suggestions for new plant rating categories.
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Yes, I have looked at the HMF rating system and have rated many of the roses I have grown, something I wish more visitors to this site would do. It certainly looks like a better rating system than ARS, though obviously less elaborate. I might add a rating category for "heat resistance" since this seems to be such an issue to many US gardeners (though not a problem I have to contend with!). European gardeners might wish to rate "rain resistance" as well. Also, for shrub roses or varieties used as landscape shrubs, whether the plants are "self-cleaning" is important. There is nothing worse than looking at a rose shrub covered with flower mummies. I am not familiar with the evaluation criteria for the ADR, but I suspect that would make a good template for devising any updated rating system on HMF.
Though I very much like the existing HMF rating system, I am often dismayed at its use by those using it. Some folks seem to rate the individual criteria based on whether they "like" the rose or not. For example, Abraham Darby, which I believe has more "favorite" votes than any other rose, is rated "excellent" in all categories, including disease resistance. I am very fond of Abraham Darby, but there is no way it has excellent disease resistance. I think enthusiasm gets the better of many people rating their favorite roses, or the ones they don't like, and skews the category ratings. I guess all I'm saying is that bias will always be a problem in any kind of rating or judging system. I know I try to be objective when rating roses on HMF, but I'm sure I'm not, and suspect no one else is either.
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#10 of 19 posted
22 JAN 10 by
maele
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Wow Jeff, you hit the nail on the head exactly... in inland southern california, "can the rose take the heat or not" is my number one priority. Countless roses have been evicted from my yard becuase they fry in the sun, and only flower well in the spring. If I wanted once bloomers I would buy them wouldn't I? (And they would put on a better show than these floribunda/HT/etc. wimps). I also agree that self-cleaning is a very important category as well, as it is always nice to see clean shrubs that give you no guilt for neglecting them once in a while.
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i a surprised to hear so many unsatisfied voices about ars, because i have always looked across the ocean with envy, when it comes to roses. adr in germany goes a very different way and i am very unsatisfied about that as well. to get a good adr-rating it is just important, that the foliage is healthy, the flowers perform well in bad weater and the plant is in continous bloom. you can imagine, that it is not the most subtle or interesting varieties, who get the best ratings; in fact i think, two third of them are single or semi-double(not that i dont´t like single roses, but, of cause they are the easier ones under wet conditions). to me, they all lack very much in charm. they are roses for people, who say: i want this bed to be filled with red (or white, etc.) flowers the whole season, but in fact it wouldn´t make a difference, it it were roses, dahlias or chrysenthemums grown there.
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I think your remarks about the ADR are probably quite fair, though I don't agree that rose and dahlias are in any way interchangeable. I think my frustration with ARS ratings is they place so little emphasis on the garden performance of rose varieties. Yes, just about everyone loves to see a beautiful rose, or several of them, in a vase. But a gardener's experience with roses is far more than that. Roses that require repeated spraying to keep the foliage looking half-way decent are not good garden plants, no matter what the flowers look like. And in California, at least, more and more chemical sprays that rose gardeners used to rely on have been taken off the market. That means, effectively, that roses are going to have to fend for themselves most of the time, without the assistance of sprays.
I'm sorry if the ADR seems to reward less interesting flowers, but it does seem to reward plants that have a chance of performing well in a garden. A high ARS rating means almost nothing about garden performance and leads too many gardeners with a broken heart -- a sickly plant with the occasional exquisite flower. With any luck, breeders will get the message that roses must have it all -- beautiful blooms, delightful fragrance, quick repeat bloom in a wide variety of climates, vigor and real disease resistance. It's a lot to ask, but ARS' rating system will not lead us there. The ADR might.
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#19 of 19 posted
10 NOV 10 by
RobC
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I think you may be thinking about something like the Gold Standard rose award that we have in the UK (http://www.rosesuk.com/rose_trials/). Unlike the ARS it is given for garden worthiness and unlike the ADR it is not just given to slightly boring but super healthy single-flowered ground cover varieties (okay a bit unfair on the ADR I know). Most of the awards are for British/European bred varieties but there are a few US ones there too.
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#14 of 19 posted
24 JAN 10 by
CarolynB
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"Jeff, have you looked into the HMF rating system." I wasn't aware of this before, and I just took a look at the Ratings section. I see that HMF lists various categories, such as bloom color or disease resistance, then lists under those categories the roses which members have voted "excellent" in that category. I don't see any detail as to what makes them excellent. This categories list is a definite step in the right direction, but it would be helpful to have some detail regarding what prompts the "excellent" rating, because not everyone considers the same factors equally important. Or, another helpful thing might be some sort of number rating for each category, for each rose. The numbers could have specific designated meanings, like 4=excellent, 3=good, 2=fair, 1=poor -- or something similar. The number showing for each category & rose could be an average of all the members' ratings for that, to date. The categories and their numbers could appear on each individual rose page. Of course, this wouldn't factor in how different climates affect the votes. Maybe there's a way to address that, too, in the rating system?
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I appreciate your comments about the HMF rating system. As it is, the ratings highly subjective and without specific criteria for each level. It is probably unrealistic to expect much more than a subjective rating here -- participants here are basing their ratings, presumably, on garden experience of specific varieties. One person's "excellent" might well be another person's "good" rating. Of course, the more ratings the clearer a consensus, although some roses get high ratings because they are sentimental favorites, not because they deserve them on their real merits (look at Peace/Mme A Meilland, for example).
This is why the comments section is so important. If everyone who rated a rose would take just a moment to comment on their experience of growing it, it would make the ratings more valuable. Some individual comments mean more to me than dozens of ratings. A comment from a member (whom I can contact by private message) who grows a rose in a climate similar to mine and describes their experience in some detail is invaluable.
In the end, I appreciate the HMF rating system, understand its limitations and wish more people would use the comments section for each rose to remark on their experience with it.
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#16 of 19 posted
25 JAN 10 by
HMF Admin
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HMF members should not rely on us having the best ideas or solutions. If you have an idea for a new feature or an improvement to an existing one let us know. We can't promise to implement it - it depends on how popular it is and the resources required - but every suggestion is recorded and taken into consideration.
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#17 of 19 posted
25 JAN 10 by
CarolynB
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Jeff, I agree with you that the Comments section is invaluable. After checking the rose Description page for basic information, the Comments page is always a crucial thing for me to check when I'm interested in a rose. I comment when I can, to try to give others the same help. I have very few roses compared to most serious rose growers (about 20), and some of mine have suffered unusual setbacks that delayed my getting realistic experience to relay. But I'm doing my best to offer useful information to others when I can, because I appreciate so much learning the experience of others offered here on HMF.
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#18 of 19 posted
26 JAN 10 by
HMF Admin
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Exactly! We cannot stress this enough - HMF is a "tool" for the gardening community to share their insight and experience. Please take the time to participate and enrich HMF for everyone.
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Initial post
30 OCT 10 by
RobC
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This rose has stayed completely healthy during a damp, wet summer. The blooms come from near black buds which is quite unusual for a pink rose and can be quite variable once they have openned, sometimes reddish pink and sometimes quite a light pink. The only demerit is that it was quite slow to produce its second flush, although as its in its first year this may improve next year.
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Initial post
30 OCT 10 by
RobC
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I am slightly disappointed with this rose having grown it for a year. The main problem is that the blooms always look messy and in need of deadheading from the minute they open up, the colour also fades very quickly in full sun. I think I would recommend 'Rhapsody in blue' for anyone wanting a 'blue' rose.
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