![]() Since they’re relatively new, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to test them out, but I’m already inspired by the glossy deep green foliage and attractive form. You don’t even need to deadhead them much, as they’re self-cleaning – the petals drop off the rose once they’re finished, so you can clean up the deadheads at your leisure to encourage re-bloom, rather than rushing out to deal with a mess of guilt-inducing brown petals. They have a light, pleasing fragrance and are easy do-ers even for beginning gardeners, so long as you give them good sunshine and summer water to get them well-established. ![]() They’re about a third the size of Knockouts and come in a similarly cheerful array of colors. That’s where these new Drift Roses fit in. When the last bloom in a cluster finishes, cut back to the first full-sized leaf, to encourage more and more flowers. Your plants will grow rapidly in spring and before you know it, they will be back in bloom. But sometimes you don’t have room for a bountiful 5′ behemoth in your garden beds, and just want a little color and fragrance tumbling along a border or spilling over the sides of a pot. Remove a few inches of the tip of the strongest branches and cut thinner branches closer to the base. I’ve even had luck with them in tough, windy conditions and poor soils, if they’re given regular irrigation. That’s why I’ve been such a fan of the newer landscape roses like Knockouts, which need nearly no care, can be pruned by inexperienced hands with decent results, and don’t need spraying. They have that old-fashioned, secret garden-type appeal that makes me feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside. Yet when roses are done right, the colors, fragrance, and luxuriant flowers are hard to resist. As an organic landscaper, I’ve long been annoyed by those weakling, disease-prone roses that are pesticide junkies from day one.
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