While I'm out in the garden getting ready for the BIG tour enjoy this article from Proven Winners. A while back, I wrote a few articles under David at the University of Minnesota, he's a great plantsman and just a wonderful guy.
The Amazing Story of This Rose Started in...a College Dorm Room
David Zlesak wasn’t like any other college kid you know.
According to the story recounted on Tim Wood’s blog, Zlesak was so passionate about breeding roses in his college years; he was growing thousands of rose seedlings under florescent lights – in his dorm room!
The result of these breeding experiments? Candy Oh™ Vivid Red Landscape Rose, one of the newest roses from Proven Winner ColorChoice.
Quoting Tim's blog post: “Out of the thousands of seedlings he started out in his dorm room, David found one seedling, a polyantha hybrid, which stood out from all the others. It was vigorous, healthy and very floriferous. The vivid red flower color was so intense that it seemed almost to smolder in the summer sun.”
I received two of these new shrubs as part of the recent trial mailing to garden writers. After just two months in my landscaping, I’m already seeing loads of striking red blooms. And keep in mind these roses are just “quick-turn”/liner-sized plants…I can’t wait to see what these look like as they grow larger!
This sweet landscape rose has loads of perpetual blooms. Large sprays of single, candy apple red flowers bloom from summer until frost. This polyantha hybrid has a dense, mounding habit, and is great for mass plantings.
Like most polyantha roses, it has numerous small flowers borne in a cluster. It's also hardy (zones 4 – 9) and resistant to diseases such as black-spot.
Little care is needed with this rose. Just trim to shape in spring, and apply a controlled release fertilizer.
Remember, Candy Oh™ Vivid Red doesn’t require any deadheading, and because it was bred in Minnesota, it doesn’t need any winter protection. It’s about as low maintenance as roses get!
To learn more about Candy Oh™ Vivid Red, click here.