Natalie's Top 3 Roses for Valentine's Day AND Peppy Le Pom™ Punica

Happy Valentine's Day!

This week Jane writes about an alternative to roses for Valentine's Day, a peppy little pomegranate plant! (Scroll down for the post.) However, consumers will have to wait on this one, it won't be available to retail until 2020.

Until then, a rose never is a bad idea, right? So, just for Valentine's Day, here are my favorite three Proven Winners® ColorChoice® roses:

Oso Easy® Double Pink rose

Oso Easy® Double Pink Rosa 
I fell in love with this one at CAST last year. It is an amazingly prolific bloomer and I love the bright yellow centers on the full, little bubblegum pink flowers. This rose can have up to 10 blooms per stem, so it's always bright and colorful.

I planted quart-sized plants of this rose in my garden last spring and they doubled in size by fall. Plus, it just kept blooming and blooming well past summer. I can't wait to see what they do this year!

It's brand-new at garden centers this year...if you can't find it ask if they can order one for you! When local options fail, you can also get it online on the Proven Winners website.

Ringo™ Rosa

Ringo™ Rosa
I know, we talked about this one just last week, but look at it! It's ridiculous how gorgeous it is. Okay, you can't get it until 2020 but plan a spot for it in your garden because this one will stop passersby dead in their tracks.

At Last® rose

Finally, you can't ignore the 2019 Proven Winners Rose of the Year, At Last®.  

This rose has a beautiful upright habit and the soft, apricot-colored blooms are super-full and heavenly scented. Yes, this is unique for a shrub rose. Most are lovely, and the pollinators still flock to them, but the blooms have no scent at all. If you grow tea roses you'll get fragrance, but they susceptible to diseases like black spot and powdery mildew. But because At Last is shrub rose, (and a PWCC rose) it resistant to the typical diseases that befall hybrid tea roses. Plus, it's self-cleaning! When the bloom is spent, the petals simply drop to the ground so more flowers can take their place. So, if I can get a sweet-scented, fully petaled rose that is less work, I'm all in.

 So that's it...my Valentine's Day rose roundup!  See you next week - Natalie 

Not your typical Valentine's Day gift

Peppy Le Pom™ ornamental pomegranate

It's Valentine's Day, and you shouldn't be thinking about roses. The perfect gifty plant is Punica, a.k.a. the pomegranate.

Yes, the same plant that your health nut cousin is always talking about has some serious ornamental appeal, too.

Peppy Le Pom™ Punica is a very cute little dwarf plant that's ideal for gifting. It has fun orange flowers that will produce tiny pomegranate fruits. They are edible, but the primary appeal of the plant is the flowers and the compact habit.

Why pomegranates?

The pomegranate is already a traditional gift in many cultures. It's presented at Rosh Hashanah, they are used to celebrate the Greek Orthodox New Year, and they make a great Thanksgiving centerpiece, too.

Don't just take our word for it: Peppy Le Pom™ was recently awarded the Direct Gardening Association's Green Thumb award.

Peppy Le Pom™ Punica is hardy to about 40F, so for most of us, it's strictly an indoor plant. But if you're in a mild climate you can expect it to get 3-4' tall and wide. It will want full sun.

Plant of the Week is written by Jane Beggs-Joles.

Plant of the Week: Ringo™ Rosa

Ringo™ rose

This week Jane writes about a "new" rose we're introducing called Ringo™. I say "new" because even though we are just introducing it to growers this year, and you won't see it at garden centers until 2020, it has been winning awards overseas since 2014.

Ringo™ Rosa has been honored with the Public Award and a Second Class Certificate at the Hague Rose trials in the Netherlands, it earned a Novelty Award at the New Zealand Rose Trials, 1st prize at the Lyon Rose Trials in France, and in the UK, a Gold Standard certification at the Gold Standard Rose Trials, and a Certificate of Merit at the Royal National Rose Society Show. Whew! I'm excited to see how it performs in the US...time will tell!

Hulthemia Persica (Rosa persica). Baikonur, Kazakhstan 

One thing I've learned from Ringo™ rose is (and this probably won't come as a surprise to my garden writer friends) that this particular rose is a hybrid of the species Rosa persica - a species in subgenus Hulthemia. (Pictured, right.) This is a tough little thorny plant that is native to eastern Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkestan. It is really thought of as a low-spreading weed, that only blooms once a season. But that bloom is what gives this rose its distinctive red center or "blotch" as it's characteristically described. In simple terms, the breeding of Chris Warner has taken that tough, drought-tolerant plant with a beautiful bloom and crossed it with a shrub rose, turning Ringo™ Rosa into a repeat bloomer with glossy, compound foliage on a bushy, compact, habit. The best of both worlds.

So, enjoy this post about one of my favorite new introductions, Ringo™ Rosa. 

- Natalie 

It's Ringo™!

The human Ringo, part of pop music's British Invasion, appeared with the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show over 50 years ago this week.

We don't have an Ed Sullivan show for plants, but Ringo™ the rose has won a number of awards. It's just as fun and flashy as its namesake - the bright yellow flowers have brilliant red centers.

Ringo™ rose has good disease resistance and also reblooms through the season. The bright yellow flowers will mellow to cream with a hot pink eye; you'll often see several different shades of bloom on the plant at the same time. This is a fun little plant with lots of garden appeal.

Ringo™ Rosa, it's just fun to say...

It is hardy to USDA Zone 4 and grows 3-4' tall and wide. Like other roses, it will do best in full sun.

The British (rose) invasion.
Many of our beautiful roses come from the efforts of British rose breeders.

Ringo™ is the work of Chris Warner, who also developed Suñorita™ and many of our Oso Easy® roses:

• Oso Easy® Paprika
• Oso Easy® Peachy Cream
• Oso Easy® Urban Legend®
• Oso Easy® Pink Cupcake
• Oso Easy® Mango Salsa
• Oso Easy Lemon Zest™
• Oso Easy® Italian Ice®

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris several years ago, and he is a delightful man - and very, very British.

Plant of the Week is written by Jane Beggs-Joles.

Note from Natalie: Want to know a little more about Chris Warner? Read Tim Wood's post "Breeding a Better Rose - UK Travels continued" on The Plant Hunter. It's a little older, but there are a couple nice pics of Chris and his rose beds on there. See you next week!