Saturday, July 30, 2011

'Thrive!' Drive




'Thrive!', a healthy descendent of the 'Knock Out'® rose, is a new landscape type rose that is being introduced by Star Roses in 2012.  The 17 'Thrive!' roses lining our driveway were planted earlier this year.  The photos in this post were taken today, July 30, 2011, in Bakersfield, California.  I am pleased with how it is performing despite the usual hot summer weather that we have been having.


The parentage of 'Thrive!' is ('Marmalade Skies' X 'Baby Love') X 'Home Run'.  This variety has excellent disease resistance in Bakersfield, to the powdery mildew and blackspot prevalent here, and has good disease resistance in other locations tested, getting some blackspot on the East Coast, but still holding onto most of its foliage.

The foliage and blooms are nicer during the spring bloom cycle, but IMHO it's not doing too badly now either.

3 comments:

  1. Those are very pretty, Jim. Lovely foliage in your neck of the woods. Is it supposed be a small/mini rose? Thanks for posting. You'll have the prettiest driveway in town!

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  2. Hi Sherry, Thank you! 'Thrive!' will grow 3 to 5 feet tall depending on climate and how severely it is pruned. These plants were planted bareroot in February and then in early April got hit be herbicide drift that our neighbor's gardener was applying. I thought that I was going to lose several of the plants, but they all bounced back. I will post update photos probably this Fall and next Spring. I suspect that it will be a rose that will respond well to hedge pruners.

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  3. Wow, Jim, those roses are gorgeous considering their age. I can't wait for them to become generally available! I just added them to my wish list for 2012. I'll be interested to see how they do for you, but from what I can see, based on when you planted the, and based on their reported disease resistance, they are sure to be outstanding, definite "must haves" for us!

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