Shrub Roses Add Easy, Ever-blooming Color to Landscapes

Looking for instant color to dress up your deck or patio for that summer garden party or backyard barbeque? Or maybe you need a dash of color to brighten your landscape with long-lasting visual drama. Whatever your garden quandary, consider a low-maintenance shrub rose for nonstop color from spring until fall.

Shrub roses are easy to grow and cover any landscape with gorgeous color and flowers. They look beautiful spilling over the sides of a container, either alone or mixed with your favorite perennials or annuals. User-friendly and low-maintenance, they need little to no care for year-round color and nonstop blooms.

Shrub roses are one of the hottest trends in gardening today, says Doug Jimerson of the Better Homes & Gardens. "Think of shrub roses as a flowering plant -- not a rose," Jimerson says. "The great thing about shrub roses is you don't have to have a green thumb to make them grow. They are so easy -- just plant in a sunny spot, water them and watch them grow. They’re the perfect plant for today's busy homeowners."

Jimerson recommends these four steps for a rosy garden:

1. Get Rich: Use healthy soil in a big hole for roses. Experts say to dig a hole twice the size of the container the rose is in. And be sure to provide ample space for the plants roots to assure healthy and beautiful roses.

2. Sun Kissed: For the most prolific blooms, plant Drift Roses in a location with plenty of sun. Hardy to zone 5, these ground hugging, ever-blooming shrubs are perfect as a border or bedding plant. Growing only about a foot around, they make a stunning low hedge or edge on a border.

3. Feed Me: Drift Roses aren’t fussy eaters. Give them a good dose of slow-release or timed fertilizer, which releases nutrients to the plant when the plant needs it most, and you’re set for the season.

4. Cover Up: And remember to mulch your roses. Mulching helps to buffer the cycle from wet to dry, keeps the feeder roots from drying out, and helps to establish the roots quicker. And less watering is required.

New Groundcover Roses Perfect for Your Landscape

This year try planting Star Roses’ new Drift Roses for a dramatic groundcover effect in your garden. They combine wonderfully with perennials intermixed with other upright shrubs like coreopsis, veronicas or lambs ear and even hostas.

Choose from four cultivars that bloom from spring to early frost. Ranging from scarlet red to bright soft peach, they provide the gardener with a complete range of color solutions for landscape use or in containers.

Two favorites in the collection are the Peach Drift Rose and the Pink Drift Rose. The most floriferous of the series, Peach Drift’s small bright apricot-salmon blooms have dark green, semi-glossy foliage and grow up to 2 feet in height. Pink Drift’s low growing mound of semi-double deep pink blooms, reaches 1-1/2 feet in height with a 3-foot spread.

Make no mistake that these are not finicky miniature roses. These hardy groundcover roses are true low spreading, dwarf shrub roses that grow only about a foot high by 1-1/2 feet wide and are covered with blooms that open to 1-1/2 inches. Drift Roses are perfect in small gardens, splashing your landscapes with visual delight.

Appealing to today’s busy gardener, these low-maintenance roses are highly disease resistant. They require no spraying except in the most humid regions of the Deep South. Bred to be “chemical-free,” Drift Roses resist rust, mildew, Japanese beetles and black spot while blooming for months on end.

Whether planting for a shock of ever-blooming color in a spectacular landscape or seeking easy, carefree ways to solve a gardening challenge, think easy-care Star Roses for long lasting, maintenance-free color.

To find out more about these and other Star Roses, or to find a garden center near you, visit http://www.blogger.com/www.starroses.com.