There it was laid out before me, 13 acres of roses with over 400 different varieties, and over 11,000 individual rose bushes. It was the Columbus Park of Roses. Located in Whetstone Park on the north side of Columbus, it is one of the largest public rose gardens in the United States. Though I had played soccer and walked the woods just outside its boundaries, I had never been inside. Looking over the vast sea of roses I wondered why.
Normally, August is not a good month for roses, but with this summer’s cool weather the roses were full of flowers. Almost every type of rose was represented. There were hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, shrub roses, climbers, polyanthas, hedge roses. Large trees ringed the perimeter, serving both as a backdrop for the roses, and as a buffer for the homes that backed up to the Park on the north side.
We wandered for an hour or so, me snapping pictures furiously, Barb simply taking in the assemblage of colors. We climbed the tower to get an aerial view and then visited the Heritage Rose Garden, where the ancestors of the many roses we had just seen grew. Their beauty was not obvious. Most were not repeat bloomers, and now their nearly leafless stems said little to their significance.
As we drove back home, I realized that for the first time in years I was excited by roses, and I wondered why there were not more of these roses in landscapes instead of the ubiquitous Knockout rose. One reason is simply disease resistance. Most of the roses we saw were probably sprayed regularly, otherwise, most would have been leafless sticks. In a foliage quality survey we did at Kingwood Center in 2008, only two roses had perfect scores at the end of the season. Only one of them though had not been sprayed with a fungicide all season, and that was the Knockout.
Still I was hopeful when I returned home that 14 years after the introduction of the Knockout rose, there were other comparable care-free flowering roses on the market. So I visited two local garden centers to find out if there was indeed life beyond the Knockout. Barely in the doors, I quickly found out that no, there was not.
Both Arnold’s and Tuttle’s told me there is nothing on the market that compares to the Knockouts for flower power and ease of care. Tod Tuttle called them “set it and forget it” plants, and that’s what most of his customers want. They just don’t have the time to spend on plants that need to be sprayed and pruned regularly to look good, he said.
Both Tod and Maggie Coon, of Arnold’s Garden Center, mentioned the Drift roses as another carefree, disease resistant landscaping rose with never ending flowers; however, they’re low growing, Maggie said. She grows them at home and loves them, but they don’t provide the presence in the landscape that the Knockouts do.
Though it didn’t seem like there was life beyond Knockouts, that family of roses is not without its faults. They have no fragrance, and as this past winter showed, a limit to their cold tolerance. So I visited the website of a rose wholesaler, Weeks Roses, to see if there was any hope there, and there was.
Two roses, in particular, caught my eye: Party Hardy, and Cape Diamond. Both are extremely hardy, and both have fragrant old-fashioned double flowers. Party Hardy is a deep pink while Cape Diamond is described as a pure pink. In addition, their disease resistance is rated excellent.
It remains to be seen if they truly live up to their billing and provide any competition to the Knockout, but you can be certain they’ll be on my 2015 order list. It’s also certain I’ll be going back to the Park of Roses. With September near, the display is only going to get better. If you’re interested in a visit, go to www.parkofroses.org. Admission and parking is free.
