Very nice, Cynthia. Ironic Heart 'n' Soul is half Iceberg, isn't it? Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Heart 'n' Soul

"Shrublet" was Week's term for own root, shrubby rose. Kim

Nippstress,

I hope that you will accept a different award - my personal award for one of the Top 10 posts/Thread starts I've read here in recent years. In all probability, it would also win the Top 5 award, but please accept my personal Top 10 best award.

Fantastic pics! :)

I was looking at your pics again, Cynthia, and I want you to know how much I admire that pastel combination of Prairie Sunrise (lighter apricot), Carding Mill (apricot), Elizabeth Stuart (apricot) and Imagine (yellowish ) and Folksinger (pale pink). Wish I had an open spot for 5 new roses--I'd copy that subtle combination of pastels in a minute!

Kate

Let me put in a vote for 'Bishop Darlington,' a 1928 introduction from Capt. Thomas

I love the shades of apricot offered by the bloom, with its brilliant stamens and its touch of red at the stigma.

The plant is huge here -- tolerates firm pruning, and blooms like crazy, repeatedly through the year.

Jeri

Some of my favorite roses are shrub roses. I have several of the Buck roses which are wonderful repeaters, fairly healthy and very hardy.

Country Music
{{gwi:301420}}

Quietness, one of my very most favorites!
{{gwi:301421}}

Rural Rhythm
{{gwi:301422}}

Winter Sunset, another fav of mine.
{{gwi:301423}}

A few other shrubs I have by other breeders.

Ruffled Cloud
{{gwi:301424}}

Appleblossom Flower Carpet
{{gwi:301425}}

Home Run, I like much better than KO
{{gwi:301426}}

And of course, Knock Out!
{{gwi:301427}}

Shrubs are very good work horses that keep a constant flow of color around the garden for me.

What a treat to see the pictures and read the posts!

Cynthia -- what is the disease pressure like where you garden? I saw that the foliage seems spotless. Do you have to contend with black spot?

Great thread. I'm enjoying all the wonderful pics.

Seil, thank you for reminding me of the obvious--my KO and Home Run are also shrubs, aren't they! but your HR looks better than mine, according to your pic.

That Appleblossom pic is fine, seil--I really like it.

Kate

Absolutely love my Outta the Blue shrub. And my Drift roses offer non stop color on a small, well behaved bush.

Outta the Blue

{{gwi:301428}}

{{gwi:301429}}

Coral Drift

{{gwi:301430}}

Great thread, I love all of the pictures so far!

I have to be honest though, I've never been particularly certain on where the 'shrub' class begins and ends. So I apologize if any of my picks are not technically shrub roses...

Julia Child gets first place is my garden, I love the color, form, and healthy green foliage.
{{gwi:301431}}

Betty Boop takes second, love the dark picotee and the rapid rebloom.
{{gwi:243975}}

And I seem to remember Autumn Sunset being listed as 'climber/shrub' when I got it, once again it's the healthy foliage and color that stole my heart. I also love the fragrance on this one.
{{gwi:301432}}

In the runner up category I have to mention Bishop Darlington, he's still young in my garden and may take first once he gets a bit more established. Buff Beauty is another great hybrid musk that deserves praise. And I'm loving Anthony Meilland, Vavoom, Kirsten Poulsen, Korde's Brilliant, and Playboy in the 'hot colored' shrub rose bed next to my veggy garden. Other than watering and weeding I haven't been able to give them any care, despite that they keep pushing out new blooms and their bright colors draw the eye from all the way across the yard.

What fun - thanks for playing and chiming in with your favorites!

Kate - that Braveheart is to die for, and you've now just convinced me to give it another try in my yard. It has failed to overwinter twice now for me, but if mine can look anything like as nice as yours it deserves a new start in prime real estate. Glad you like the color combination of the apricots and that's encouraging to hear! This is one of the only beds I tried to keep a consistent set of colors - apricot, burgundy, and white - but apricots are so variable they don't really look as consistent as I had in mind. I keep looking at the yellowish tones of Imagine and thinking it clashes just a little. Fortunately it's at the end of the row, and there's a mutation of color from the screaming coral of LEM to the yellows of Imagine that works, as long as they're not next to each other.

Kim - very interesting that Heart 'n' Soul has iceberg ancestry! I can see that in the pure white at the base, but they're opposites in my yard for staying power. Iceberg blows like a soap bubble and Heart 'n' Soul hangs onto blooms that can dry to potpourri on the bush if I let them. What in its heritage gives it that substance (and disease resistance)?

Glad you all like the pictures Jim, Floridarose. Sandandsun, I appreciate your kind suggestion of an award, and I did have fun picking out the pictures and trying to tell their stories! Fortunately everyone else has been chiming in with favorites too, since I love being enabled for new roses to plant next year.

Jeri - oooh, that Bishop Darlington is just lovely and your backlit photo on HMF gives it a haunting quality. It sounds like it's hardy to zone 5 and with hybrid musk in its history it might just be perfect for a big spot in a part-shade spot that has mostly traditional looking roses. See - I love learning about new roses I hadn't considered before!

Seil - great shots of the year-round bloomers with some terrific Buck and Appleblossom shots. I have Double Knockout in a different bed and it's easy to love roses that work so hard to bloom, even if a lot of other people love them too. I hadn't realized that Country Music had that wonderful dark reverse, and that one may have to join my "pink" bed. Being a fan of folk music and dance, as well as living on the Prairie, I love the names Buck chose for his roses too.

Farmerduck, the reason the leaves look so good in these photos is that they were from the spring flush in June, when blackspot pressure hadn't hit yet. We get a fair bit of various strains of blackspot, and some of my more susceptible bushes are completely defoliated. Still, I suspect you folks have it worse on the east coast, since our heat is dry, particularly this year - no rain at all in July, though we're hoping for some this evening.

Pat_bama, that is one FINE looking Outta the Blue, and I'm showing your picture to my bush hoping it gets the message and gets a little more energetic. I agree that the Drift roses are another great category of shrubs that are hardy, floriforous,and trouble free.

I know what you mean Peachymomo, I had to double check several of mine to see if they technically fit the category to get things started on the thread, but in my world any trouble free hardy blooming fool of a rose is welcome as an honorary shrub if needed. Your picture of Betty Boop is a great selling point to convince me to try that one - how tall is yours? If it gets to 4-5 feet, it could hang out with Watercolors in a nearby space. I agree that having a "hot colors" bed is a fun way to show off the brilliant types of roses you mention, and it's always a cheerful spot of the yard.

Thanks for chiming in. Keep 'em coming folks - I haven't put in my order for next year yet, so I'm all set to be enabled further!

Cynthia

I'd think it would have to be Tamango, Cynthia. You know what Iceberg does for you, so it would have to be the combination with Tamago.

Tamango has an interesting lineage, including Mutabilis behind it. Interestingly, the only seedling so far from Heart 'n' Soul is Stormy Weather, from the same breeder. Kim

Soooooo pretty! Don't you just love summer!

For my climate, few are performing as reliably as some of my own seedlings. Carlin's Rhythm never misses a beat and never experiences any fungal issues. {{gwi:301433}}

Normally, I would include Lynnie for her cast iron constitution and continuous bloom...
{{gwi:301434}}
but, she's otherwise occupied at the moment and not pushing new flowers. Less full flowers don't last as long per flower as heavily petaled ones, but they take much less heat, light, time and other resources to be created; they open more easily in less than ideal conditions and they repeat significantly faster. Kim
{{gwi:301435}}

I would guess that my Betty Boop is about 4.5' tall, but I'd have to measure to be sure.

Kim, Carlin's Rhythm is lovely, I want one!

Thanks, Peachy! RVR lists it in stock as a band. Linked below. Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Carlin's Rhythm at RVR

I was just thinking how much I love my Elsie May and why no one seems to know about her. I was told on a garden tour that I must get this rose, and I did. It never stops blooming profusely, which in eastern CT is some feat. It is a bright color but when the garden is fading, like now due to all the heat and humidity, it's a lovely bright spot. I like it better than my Knockouts. The Fairies take a breather between flushes, but not Elsie. The Grootendorst rugosa blooms a lot as well but the thorns are killers.

Cynthia, I hope Braveheart works for you this time. It is such a gorgeous red shrub and it is supposed to be hardy through zone 5--so it should work.

Kate

Wow! Gorgeous pics everyone! I'll have to go look thru mine and see what I can post. (I'm at work now)

Cynthia, your garden is beautiful! And your roses look so healthy and happy.

Seil, my WINTER SUNSET never looks as good as yours!!! That's positively yummy!!

I really enjoyed this post. Nippstress, do you blog? Because I would read it.
It's wonderful to see the diversity of shrub roses celebrated. I really had no idea there were so many- I'm mostly familiar with the Zone 3 shrubs and have never seen many of these.
Thanks!

Thanks for the extra info, folks, and I'm definitely primed and ready to convince Braveheart to survive, Kate. Betty Boop does sound like the right height, peachymomo, so that can fill one of the taller rose spots near Watercolors, and ooh, ooh, put Carlin's Rhythm on the other side! Kim - I presume this one has some height on it from the picture you show (or is that just California). Either way it's a lovely rose and one to be proud of. Thanks for the info on Tamango - it's interesting that the cross of two fairly undramatic roses like that and Iceberg could have the wow impact of Heart 'n' Soul, and then produce the dark beauty of Stormy Weather as a grandchild - part of the fun of breeding I'm sure, but given the work you've obviously done to mark your crosses on the rose hips it puts the idea of "fun" into a different light.

Chardie, you definitely got some great advice on Lady Elsie May and she's repaid you well in blooms! I agree that she really doesn't rest and earns her keep.

Beth, I await with baited breath the intriguing shrubs that I'm sure you have in your yard.

And Donald, I am very glad that you enjoy my nattering on about roses enough to want more of it, but I'm such a technology dinosaur the very idea of a blog makes me put my hands over my ears going "lalala". Besides, the main time I put out much writing is usually when I'm supposed to be doing something else, so I wouldn't want the obligations of a blog - I'll enjoy the ones by Paul Zimmerman and Sherry and others and just chime in here now and then.

Cynthia

Thank you, Cynthia! Size is difficult to guess or know, until more plants are grown in more climates. RVR lists Carlin's Rhythm as 3' - 4'. I don't know if that's their observation or repetition of what they've read. The roses are always changing the rules! I'd never seen Lynnie get huge, until Lyn G's Lynnie hit nearly six feet! Lynnie is mini X Basye's Legacy. Carlin's Rhythm is floribunda X Basye's Legacy, so who knows? A lot will have to do with the soil, water, light and climate. My soil isn't as moisture retentive; the sun is brutal so the plants never have to reach for it and the intensity is so great, it actually dwarfs them a bit; but "winter" doesn't slow them down a bit, so the sizes in my garden may, or may not be what should be expected elsewhere. Lyn's soil retains more moisture. Her heat is as brutal, if not a bit more so, and she receives much more rain than I do, but she actually gets snow which can remain on the plants and ground long enough to inhibit and even break plants. I never get snow, period. Trying to figure out how something is going to respond to other conditions requires a very large, very sharp crystal ball! Kim

Thanks, Beth. WS doesn't always get that pink blush to it but I love it when it does!

Aha, Kim - that's why those of us in a variety of zones need to be growing Carlin's Rhythm, and Lynnie, and Annie Laurie McDowell, and posting the results on hmf so we'll know more for sure across different climates! Thanks for the detailed info. I've already tried ALM once in a less than ideal spot, and I have her on my priority list from Burling for next year, probably with Lynnie as well. If Carlin's Rhythm is slated for 3-4 feet, I doubt mine would be a monster. I'll have to work out a spot closer to the front of the border for her (which of course she richly deserves!).

Cynthia

That would be lovely Cynthia. It's not always easy to keep things in production...Kim

Windeaux in a recent thread asked me to post about my success stories, so being an essentially lazy gardener I went back and resurrected this one. Hey, we're gardeners- we're all about recycling and renewal and all that, right? Besides, it's getting towards the fall/winter order season for all of us in cold zones so I need some more enabling of roses on my drool list. I already have Bishop Darlington, Betty Boop, Carlin's Rhythm and Braveheart on my plans (along with an embarrassingly long wish list), but as we all know you can never have too many roses, though you can have too little space.

Cynthia

A great thread to resurrect.

Quote from Nippstress:

"They're terrific survivors in my zone 4 pocket on the north side of my house. "

What kind of sunlight do they get there? Does this mean they are doing well with less than optimal light?

Hmm, trovesoftrilliums (I like your nickname) - that's an interesting question. I've always referred to that bed as survivors because of the clear cold pocket they have to survive, but now that I think of it they probably get fewer hours direct sunlight than other parts of the yard. I have two Queen of Sweden bushes, one in this zone 4 pocket and one on the zone 6 pocket at the sunny side of the backyard, both grafted from David Austin and planted the same year in the same way. The one in the sunny spot immediately sprang up to its usual 6 foot pillar and is a fairly regular rebloomer through the season. The one in the zone 4 pocket was under 3 feet for at least three or four years, and is only now looking as good as the other bush. My Teasing Georgia in this zone 4 pocket blooms notably more than one in a part shade spot in another bed, so I expect they at least get 4 or 5 hours of sun in this spot.

In answer to your fundamental question, though, yes - I think many of these shrubs can do well with less than optimal light, but they're not the particularly shade tolerant bushes like Darlow's Enigma or all of the hybrid musks are for me. Like any other rose, it's happier in more sun and will respond with more blooms, but the Easy Elegance roses in particular seem to thrive in a wide variety of conditions.

Cynthia

Such beautiful roses! Please keep them coming. They just make my day.

Thank you Cynthia for the details.

I am pretty new to gardening in zone 5 and roses in general. Your pictures compel me to give them a try here. Such lovely rose chaos. :)