Rockstar Rose
The Japanese beetles continue to pester me, though they don't show up a dozen at a time anymore. My Love and Peace rose is blooming and looking awful for all the damage they've done. All of this tragedy just highlights how amazing my Champlain rose is. So I thought I'd tell you a little more about it.
Last year I was forced to keep my gardening ambitions limited. I wrote a little bit about this in one of my first posts. But I was absolutely determined to get myself one red rose bush. So for once in the history of my whole garden, I did my homework. I started with the Friends School Plant Sale catalog, which contains tons of good information about each of the roses it sells. This was where I first heard of the Champlain. It was called a Canadian rose, very hardy, and the catalog also mentioned it was planted outside of Patrick's Cabaret, which would be helpful, if the catalog didn't come out while there was still snow on the ground.
But I looked it up on the internet and liked what I saw. Not a traditional tea rose, by any means, but the pictures of gigantic shrubs covered in red roses were very appealing. Also, I'd had experience with Canadian roses which was both good and bad.
Many many years ago my parents purchased a William Baffin rose from the Friends School Plant Sale, with the idea of making it climb up the end of our screened porch. The flowers on the William Baffin are hot pink and lovely, but none of us were prepared for the gnarliest thorns in the plant world and a very aggressive growing habit. Within a few years this rose had taken over the end of the porch, not allowing us near it much like the thorn covered castle in Sleeping Beauty.
So I wasn't so sure about this whole Canadian rose thing.
But the more I read about this rose, the more it sounded like a garden superhero. I even picked up a library book by some professional northern based rose growers who said they couldn't believe some things they saw about this rose. Here are some of the things that are awesome about the Champlain:
1. Being from Canada it is hardy to Zone 3. What does that mean? Well, you may think of Minnesota as a land of perpetual snow and ice where it's cold all the time. That's not quite true, but, let's face it, more true than not. We're in Zone 4. Canada is north of us, especially the Canadian prairie this rose was bred for. That means that 30" plus of snow this winter was nothing to this guy.
2.The Champlain is ever blooming. It's the first to start blooming, and it keeps going all the way through the season, more and more clusters of scarlet roses.
3. And most importantly it is pest as well as disease resistant. Those rose experts said this was the only rose they'd never seen an aphid on.
Even more exciting, the Japanese beetles leave the Champlain completely alone. They eat the other roses to pieces, and I've yet to see one on the Champlain. My only fear now is that this rose is TOO good, now it's impossible.
But I looked it up on the internet and liked what I saw. Not a traditional tea rose, by any means, but the pictures of gigantic shrubs covered in red roses were very appealing. Also, I'd had experience with Canadian roses which was both good and bad.
Many many years ago my parents purchased a William Baffin rose from the Friends School Plant Sale, with the idea of making it climb up the end of our screened porch. The flowers on the William Baffin are hot pink and lovely, but none of us were prepared for the gnarliest thorns in the plant world and a very aggressive growing habit. Within a few years this rose had taken over the end of the porch, not allowing us near it much like the thorn covered castle in Sleeping Beauty.
So I wasn't so sure about this whole Canadian rose thing.
But the more I read about this rose, the more it sounded like a garden superhero. I even picked up a library book by some professional northern based rose growers who said they couldn't believe some things they saw about this rose. Here are some of the things that are awesome about the Champlain:
1. Being from Canada it is hardy to Zone 3. What does that mean? Well, you may think of Minnesota as a land of perpetual snow and ice where it's cold all the time. That's not quite true, but, let's face it, more true than not. We're in Zone 4. Canada is north of us, especially the Canadian prairie this rose was bred for. That means that 30" plus of snow this winter was nothing to this guy.
2.The Champlain is ever blooming. It's the first to start blooming, and it keeps going all the way through the season, more and more clusters of scarlet roses.
3. And most importantly it is pest as well as disease resistant. Those rose experts said this was the only rose they'd never seen an aphid on.
Even more exciting, the Japanese beetles leave the Champlain completely alone. They eat the other roses to pieces, and I've yet to see one on the Champlain. My only fear now is that this rose is TOO good, now it's impossible.
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