Just at the height of the blooming season Wegman's offers you outstanding values on first quality plants. There is a huge selection of types and colors of roses. The rhodies have a wide variety of color available, too.

Roses are a perfect Mother’s Day gift and Wegman’s has a huge selection that are 20% at the height of the blooming season! Here are some tips for choosing the perfect rose for your perfect gardener. To view the many varieties and colors available look through our Rose Gallery that is entered by clicking on Rose Gallery on the side bar.

Roses are a worthwhile addition to almost any garden. We say almost always, because if there are not six or more hours of full sunlight over the rose bed, you cannot expect total success. All of the other factors needed for growing good roses (soil, water, nutrients, and pest control) can be adjusted by the gardener.

Decide what you want your roses to do. If you want a mass of color and don't need long stemmed roses, floribunda roses will be your choice. If you want long stemmed roses suitable for bouquets, then hybrid tea roses should be your choice. There are many other types of roses besides the floribundas and hybrid teas, such as climbers (which can be climbing hybrid teas or climbing floribundas), shrub roses, grandifloras, miniatures, carpet roses and so on. Ninety percent of the roses used by gardeners on the Peninsula are hybrid teas or floribundas. Among these two groups are many colors, fragrances and disease susceptibilities to consider.

Here are some recommendations of Mr. Ed’s favorites to get you started or to enhance your existing rose garden. These roses will all grow well in a Peninsula rose garden if the factors listed above are properly applied.

RED
Mister Lincoln HT*
Olympiad, HT
Showbiz, F

PINK
Bewitched, HT*
New Zealand, HT
Bonica, F

WHITE
Honor, HT
John F. Kennedy, HT*
Moondance, F

ORANGE(ISH)
Fragrant Cloud, HT*
Tropicana, HT*
Gingersnap, F
Vavoom, F

YELLOW
Henry Fonda, HT
Midas Touch, HT*
Julia Child, F*

MAUVE
Stainless Steel, HT*
Intrigue, F*

BLENDS
Touch of Class, HT
Peace, HT*
Just Joey, HT*
Double Delight, HT*
Cinco de Mayo, F
Livin’ Easy, F*
Tuscan Sun, F

*especially fragrant

F—Floribunda
HT—Hybrid Tea

All of these roses are available at Wegman’s Nursery plus 88 other varieties! Those varieties above marked with an asterisk (*) are especially fragrant and will produce wonderful bouquets or act alone in a small vase to refresh an entire room.

There are no specific rules about using roses in the landscape. You may choose to have some hybrid teas and some floribundas in the same bed. Just remember to put the taller hybrid teas in the back and the shorter floribundas in front.

If you are just starting your first rose bed, it is important to prepare the soil properly. You will need a bag of Nurseryman’s Rose Planting Mix for every two roses plus a handful of Master Nursery Master Start Fertilizer for each bush.

Here is a link to our Care Guide on Roses for further information: http://wegmansnursery.com/services.asp?page_id=84

We will be happy to dress up a container with foil wrap and a bow as a Mother’s Day gift; just let us know!

Grandiflora roses are a cross between the hybrid tea and floribunda roses. The flower size is usually as large as or larger than those of the hybrid teas. Flowers form on long stems and usually are borne in clusters of three to seven. The blooms will have 21 to 56 petals and only a mild fragrance. Bushes normally grow to a height of 3 to 6 feet, making them ideal as a background border planting.

Grandiflora is a small class of roses and often included in the hybrid tea category and used similarly in the garden. Like floribundas, they produce clusters of flowers, where hybrid teas tend to produce single stems. The grandiflora’s clustering of its flowers is often described as a candelabra form. Queen Elizabeth was the first grandiflora and is still considered one of the best.

Grandiflora roses are ideal for cutting, exhibition and garden display. Gardeners striving for huge blooms will pinch off all the buds in the candelabra except one in the center and produce a bloom up to 8 inches in diameter. They are consistent rebloomers, grow in various shapes and heights, and come in a wide range of colors.

Cherry Parfait, (white-edged lipstick red)--2003 AARS Winner
About Face, (Yellow/Bronzy)--2005 AARS Winner
Dream Come True, (yellow w/ruby red blush)--2008 AARS Winner
Strike It Rich, (deep golden yellow spun w/red)--2007 AARS Winner
Queen Elizabeth, (clear pink)--1955 AARS Winner
Tournament of Roses, (two-toned pink)--1989 AARS Winner
Melody Parfumee, (plum)
Purple Passion, (dark purple)
Sweetness, (lavender)
Wild Blue Yonder, (red-purple)--2006 AARS Winner

Mr. Ed will begin a series of informal seminars on Sunday mornings at 10 am beginning May 3rd in the nursery. Each week will feature a new hands-on project and lots of great information! The inaugural Sundays with Mr. Ed topic will be planting a vegetable garden in a container.

Even if you missed Stuart Shim and the Giant Pumpkin Workshop World Tour, there is still time (just a little--so you need to plant those pumpkins!). Wegman's has a number of varieties of pumpkin and everything you need to grow that perfect jack o'lantern. Follow the link to the Pumpkin Guru's Step by Step Instructions. Have fun!

How hot is that Pepper?

Wondering how to rate the heat level of various types of chili peppers? Peppers are rated based on Scoville Units, a method developed by Wilbur Scoville in 1912. The original method used human tasters to evaluate how many parts of sugar water it takes to neutralize the heat. Nowadays human tasters are spared and a new process called HPLC, or High Performance Liquid Chromatography measures the amount of capsaicinoids (capsaicin) in parts per million. Capsaicin is the compound that gives chilies their heat. The chart below rates chili peppers, with 0 being mildest and 10 highest heat.

Alfalfa isn’t just the stuff that gets made into hay and fed to livestock! It has been praised in both agriculture and horticulture, but especially in rosedom.

As mulch for garden roses, it does more than retard weeds. As alfalfa meal disintegrates, it yields an alcohol, triacontanol, to which roses take a particular shine. When it reaches their roots, roses act as though they’ve been aching for a stiff drink and manifest their appreciation with basal breaks, rosarian speak for new growth emanating from the bud union (the landmark created by budding hybrid roses onto rootstock).