From October to mid-December, we enjoy a fall rose blooming season. We have two excellent blooming seasons for repeat-flowering roses in southeast Louisiana — one in spring and early summer and another starting now.
Roses provide color to the fall garden and establish wonderfully in the cooler weather. If you’re looking for reliable roses to add to your landscape, Drift roses are a superb choice. This outstanding series of compact landscape roses is an LSU AgCenter Super Plants selection. After our long, hot summer, we can sit back and enjoy the color.
Drift roses
I’ve seen Drift roses used increasingly in commercial plantings around gas stations, fast food restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses. I’m amazed how well these tough roses thrive in parking lot plantings with minimal care.
The landscape rose category was created for modern rose varieties that have been bred and selected to be shapely, bushy, repeat-flowering, disease-resistant and relatively low maintenance. These roses are meant to be planted in our landscapes much like any other flowering landscape shrub, such as camellias, azaleas or oleander.
The popular Knock Out rose varieties (there are several colors) are well known and widely planted in the landscape rose category. But most landscape roses are relatively large-growing — easily reaching 5 feet or more tall and wide.
Drift roses were bred to provide the resilience and frequent flowering of larger landscape roses on much lower-growing bushes. They fill a special niche in the landscape rose market. Drift roses fit beautifully into smaller landscape spaces, provide the perfect size shrub for foundation plantings and look great in containers. These roses are from Conard-Pyle/Star Roses, the same folks that gave us the Knock Out roses.
Drift roses are a cross between low-growing groundcover roses and miniature roses. From the ground cover roses, they inherited toughness, disease resistance and a spreading growth habit. From the miniatures, they inherited their well-managed size and free-flowering nature. They only grow 2 to 3 feet tall with a generous spread of 4 feet or more. The spreading habit, colorful flowers and long blooming season of Drift roses make them a lower-maintenance alternative to bedding plants in flowerbeds.
There are a variety of colors in the Drift rose series, including Apricot Drift, Blushing Drift, Buttercream Drift, Coral Drift, Lemon Drift, Peach Drift, Pink Drift, Popcorn Drift, Red Drift, Scarlet Drift, Sweet Drift (pink) and White Drift.
Choose any of these varieties for outstanding blooms from spring to early winter. In LSU AgCenter trials at the Hammond Research Station, Drift roses produce about five flower cycles through the bloom season. The spring bloom in April/May and the fall bloom in October/November, as with most other roses, are the peak times for performance and the highest quality flowers. Flowers do appear through the heat of summer, but high temperatures can reduce the quality.
Planting
The cooler fall weather makes it a joy to get out and work in the garden. It is an excellent time to plant hardy shrubs, like roses, into the landscape. Be sure to plant Drift roses in a well-prepared landscape bed enriched with generous amounts of organic matter, such as compost. Good drainage produces the best results, so avoid low, wet areas or plant in raised beds.
Space individual plants a minimum of 3 feet apart. It would be best to plant 4 feet apart if you are thinking long term. The soil pH for roses should be slightly acidic, between 6.0-6.5, but roses adapt well to the slightly alkaline soils common in southeast Louisiana.
As with other roses, plant Drift roses in a location receiving full sun. Eight hours of sunlight daily is recommended. These ground-hugging, repeat-flowering shrubs are perfect as a border or bedding plant. They make a stunning low hedge or can edge a bed of taller shrubs.
Care
Drift roses should be fertilized each spring in March with a slow-release or controlled-release fertilizer following label directions. Make another application in late summer after pruning to encourage plants to grow vigorously in the fall. Drift roses really “come into their own” the second or third year after planting.
Pruning to control the size is rarely an issue, but like other repeat-flowering roses, they benefit from pruning back in late January/early February and again in late August/early September. Trim them back one-quarter to one-third their height and remove any dead growth. This encourages flushes of new growth that produce abundant flowers and helps keep the shrubs bushy and full.
Mulch is important for these roses (and for newly planted shrubs in general). In addition to looking nice and reducing weed problems, mulching prevents the surface soil from drying out quickly.
Make no mistake, these are not finicky roses. Appealing to today’s busy gardener, Drift roses are disease-resistant and require no spraying. Black spot disease has been minimal on plants grown in Louisiana, and plants recover without treatment.
Looking for a lower-maintenance source of color for your landscape on shapely, low-growing shrubs? Plant Drift roses. You will be glad you did.
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