Contest and Easy Elegance® Roses in My Garden
My garden has become this sprawling affair filled with passion and color and all things green. The love of my life, a.k.a. The Husband, has come to reference our suburban acreage as “the farm” due to the sheer volume of plants housed within the fence line. With this in mind, my goal with the garden is to keep the shrubs and perennials basic and absolutely easy to grow – no delicate flowers or prima donna’s allowed. Essentially, if you are not tough and beautiful, you will be promptly ripped out of the ground and composted. Only the strong survive in my beds, which makes my life filled with significantly less drama.
The Growing Experiment
Several years ago I ripped all the roses out of my garden with glee because of the average rose’s demanding nature – managing prima donna roses was driving me bonkers. Then along came Easy Elegance® Roses which are disease resistant, bloom from the beginning of the season to the end, and are completely no-fuss and ultra easy-to-grow. They have the classic hybrid tea look of my grandmother’s rose shrubs without the hard work because they have superior heat and cold tolerance and you don’t have to use a lot of chemicals to keep them looking fantastic. I want to conduct an experiment and see how they perform for the season in one of the toughest places to grow in my garden that gets the least amount of attention – out by the street behind my property fence.
Easy Care Shrub Roses
Mother’s Day
The Easy Elegance® brand provided roses and supplies for me to use in the garden – several different varieties of Roses You Can Grow™ – then asked me to share my results with you. I wanted to get started on Mother’s Day week because this is the perfect gift idea for Mom. Buy her easy-care shrub roses that will last, blooming over and over, instead of a bunch of cut flowers which will lose their bloom quickly. These easy-care shrub roses should make an excellent addition to your cutting garden since they bloom all summer.
The Easy Elegance® Roses are great planted in large landscape swaths or alone in the garden as a special feature. I shopped for them for my growing experiment so that I could plant them to share some color and flowers with my community. I think these roses will bring a special touch of floristic love for my neighbors outback. Three roses were planted behind the fence and one rose was planted in my front garden.
Planting and Care
I found the Easy Elegance® Roses in the red pot at the local independent garden center. I also purchased some dry organic rose fertilizer, compost, and mulch. According to the Easy Elegance® instructions, you do not have to add fertilizer to the planting hole, but I felt a little boost might be good. They do best in a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight in well-drained soil. First I found my planting spot, added some compost, and then dug holes that were about one and a half times wider than the containered root ball. Next step, I placed fertilizer in the hole according to package directions, then planted the roses. Place two to three inches of mulch around the base of the plant, being sure not to “volcano” the mulch.
If you would like to get more growing instructions, go to this link — http://www.easyeleganceroses.com/design-and-grow/planting-and-care.
Super Cool Text Program
Easy Elegance® Roses also has this nifty “text program” to help make growing the roses even easier. To opt into the program, just text EASYELEGANCE to 73095 on your cell phone for timely care tips for your region.
Follow along this season on the blog and I will give you updates on the Easy Elegance® Roses and how they perform in my garden. I am excited to see if they pass my “no prima donna allowed” plant test and cannot wait to show you my results. Happy rose gardening my friends!
Contest!!!
If you would like to win an Easy Elegance® gardening tool kit that includes: a knee pad, pruning shears, soft grip hose nozzles, quick hose connects, and water splitter/controller, and one (1) pair of Easy Elegance branded gloves, LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TELLING ME YOUR FAVORITE GARDEN STORY ABOUT ROSES. I will randomly select a winner on Mother’s Day morning!
AND THE WINNER IS LAURIE OBERT. CONGRATULATIONS LAURIE!!!!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Easy Elegance Roses. The opinions and text are all mine.
The very first thing I planted (other than stuff in grade school) was after I graduated college. I was living in Houston, and it was a beautiful pink rose. That I planted in a deeply shaded corner of the yard (because it’s so hot there). It didn’t take long before I knew that was a big mistake!
Several years ago one if my daughter’s bought me a peace rose for Mother’s Day. I had to keep it in a pot for awhile cause we were moving. The poor thing got in bad shape. I was able to plant it and it flourished. Moved 2 more times took it with me each time it always grew and bloomed with love. Sadly after 10 years it was gone.
One of my most beautiful memories is of a pink rosebush. Mom had gotten a clipping from a friend, and started a beautiful bush, which she babied until it flourished, thentransplanted when she and dad bought their first home. That home had a dangerous well that would have been nearly impossible to fill, so she managed to rig a base that covered the hole, and planted that rosebush to discourage people from getting too close to the well. Gorgeous.
My friend Lenore gave me a Knock-out Rose bush for my 5th anniversary of being cancer free. I had not had much luck with plants & never a rose bush. Luckily, we found a spot that it likes (& it is easy!). Just celebrated my 17th anniversary & it is still doing well.
Our roses have not been doing well the past couple of years. My husband wants to plant new ones. I have hesitated because I am afraid I will kill them. I am planning to try these. It sounds like they will be perfect and worry free.
One of my favorite memories was picking my mom’s roses on the farm in Iowa. I grew up with roses all over the yard. I now have shared this love of gardening with my grown children. Mother’s day has been and still is all about Mom’s Garden! Roses have many prominent places in the gardens. I love to open the front window and smell the roses planted directly in front of the windows. I have had some for over 25 years in the garden. Always love to try new varities over the years! Love to see the ones you shared Shawna with me over the years continue to grow and flourish!
Wow what a great contest….I have loved roses since childhood as my parents both loved and grew them at all our homes (there were 3 homes growing up) and they even planted them at my sister’s house and their new house in AZ. I have always wanted more roses that were easy given my harsh growing climate so I will finally check these out. My parents have always inspired me in my gardening even in their absence (my dad now gone and mom 85 and not independent anymore). Thanks as always Shawna for your inspiration!
When we moved into our house 20 years ago my Aunt gave my Mom rose bushes to make the garden her own. Mom and my Aunt have both passed away but the roses are still here blooming every summer.
I never gave much thought to gardening when I was growing up. We had a lanky rose bush next to our side gate that my neighbor born in the late 1800s had told us was there as long she remembered. She told me that I had to be the one to take care of it because she knew my love for history. She said that rose bush will be there long after I’m gone and to preserve it for future generations. I’ve never forgotten her words and I never stopped cultivating my skill to grow flowers.
My favorite rose, Mutabalis, is one my husband and I bought on our 1st wedding anniversary. Its simple blossoms blush with hues of yellows and pinks that resemble flouncy bouncy butterflies perched on a carefree bush. Throughout the years other roses have come and gone – victims to blackspot, heat, mildew, drought and occasional neglect- but Mutabalis, like our marriage, has survived and even thrived throughout any challenge.
My grandmother had a green thumb and inspired me to try to be as great a gardener as she was. My favorite trick of hers was propagating roses. She simply laid down a branch of her favorite rosebush and placed a brick on it to keep it firmly on the soil. The following season, she would remove the brick, and transplant her newly rooted baby rose bush. Nothing fancy, no rooting hormones no greenhouses just simple gardening.
I moved out here to West Chicago in 2003, the house my hubby grew up in. My mother-in-law had a rose bush by the back door that wasn’t doing so well. I decided to take a chance and move it on the other side of the garage. To this day it is twice the size and is magnificent and my next door neighbor absolutely loves it!!?
Thanks everyone – keep the comments coming!
Growing up I never really cared for roses especially the red ones because they seem so stuffy. However as I got older and moved into my first home my neighbor started to grow different types of grandiflora roses and that is when they started to come alive to me. However living in Minnesota the climate can be a challenge to roses of any kind. When I moved out of that home and away from my best friend, I discovered easy elegance roses at a small town nursery. I have started growing them then and use them every year to bring a little bit of joy and sunshine into coworkers and friends lives all summer long!
Great contest, Shawna. Easy Elegance are the best! Which varieties did you plant? ‘Grandma’s Blessing’ is one of my faves because it just looks so “grandmotherish!” My rose story is about this little bungalow I moved into 10 years ago. It was built and owned by the same people for 80 years and one of its special touches are roses along the south foundation. These are toughies to be sure–I’ve never even mounded them. But imagine my delight when one of the roses turned out to be lavender! Though I dearly love the reds, that little bluish-purple blooms remains my fave!
When my grandmother died, we were given a bareroot rosebush from a family member to commemorate her. Her maiden name was Mary Rose, and she adored anything with roses. Whenever I see roses, I think of her. I wasn’t sure how this ‘New Dawn’ rose bush would do. I had never grown roses, let alone a bareroot rose before. We were all shocked to see how fast it grew and how tall it climbed. It is growing up a metal trellis in a spot dappled in shade. I can see it when I look out my kitchen window. It has so much significance for my whole family. We all named it the “Nana rose bush”. It really gave me a big boost of confidence when it came to growing plants and entering the gardening world. It has become so tall, it’s can almost reach the tree branches above it! I can’t wait to watch it bloom again this season. I think it is magical how roses make people happy, make you feel special and can even give you hope for the future 🙂
We buy a new rose bush to plant in our garden to remember each of our pets when they walk the Rainbow Bridge.
Happy Sunday my friends. I’m so very excited because ‘Champagne Wishes’ from the Easy Elegance Rose Collection bloomed today – it’s still May and I expect flowering all summer. Such a pretty white. At any rate, I wanted to announce the winner of the Mother’s Day contest. I used a random number generator to select the winner – lucky #13. Counting down in the comments here – https://goo.gl/YQoFiP – the winner is Laurie Obert. Congratulations Laurie!! Send me your address privately and I’ll have the prize sent out. WOO WOOOOOO!!!
#RosesYouCanGrow #EasyElegance #ad
Congrats to Laurie. Lucky gal. And thanks Shawna for running this contest