Rose
of the Month #5
By Gaird Hamilton
PLAYBOY
For our fifth Rose of the
Month we are picking a second floribunda, because when it comes to adding
color to the rose garden, a floribunda is hard to beat. With a rating
of 8.4 in the Handbook for Selecting Roses, while that is a very high
rating there are some others with higher, but in the garden the bright
colors of the multitudes of scarlet single flowers with a golden eye
are always a pleasure to behold. As the flowers age on the bush they
turn to more of a pink and white color as the bright fades out but they
are still lovely enough that it is not necessary to deadhead the plant
for quite a while. The flowers are each about 3.5 inches in diameter
and have a slight but pleasing fragrance.
This rose grows very vigorously
in our climate and because of the single flower form has very little
trouble with botritis. The foliage is splendidly dark green and glossy,
lovely therefore even without flowers, but clothed with them most all
of the time anyway. The new clusters of buds emerge from the plant and
get to a very developed state before the last flush need deadheading.
The rose was hybridized by Cocker in 1976 and is a cross between City
of Leeds X Chanelle X Piccadilly. It won the Gold Medal in Portland
in 1989.
I don’t know how many
of you are interested in showing your roses at a rose show, but it is
nice to know that Playboy is a frequent winner on the show tables. It
is also very nice and long lasting in bouquets though ours are so lovely
on the bush that we leave them there usually to make a special highlight
point in the rose garden.
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