Peachy Roses

Apricot roses are a favourite with gardeners who want the best of both worlds – soft pastel colours that also have an intensity of colour that stands up to our long, sunny days.
British gardener Monty Don regards apricot as an elusive colour, and he is right. At the lighter end of the spectrum, apricot mixed with cream and pink produce dreamy specimens like ‘Moonlight Panarosa’, ‘Amarula Profusion’ and the climber ‘Crepuscule’.

At the other end of the spectrum, deepertoned apricot roses edge towards bronze, like ‘Marjorie Chase’, or the ‘Easy Does It’ melange of orange, peach, pink and apricot, while the large blooms of ‘Helpmekaar Roos’ take on shades of apricot-cherry brandy.
Even the classic ‘Just Joey’ changes with the weather, gaining intensity in cooler weather and autumn days. She is not pure apricot, but a subtle play of shades from creamy petal edges to an intense copper apricot heart.

The truest apricot roses are Fairytale roses ‘Clocolan’ and ‘Avril Elizabeth Home’. Both are disease-resistant Eco-Chic roses that produce full, multi-petalled blooms.
‘Clocolan’ grows to shoulder height, producing clusters of long-stemmed cuttable blooms, and needs very little care. ‘Avril Elizabeth Home’ is more compact and suitable for containers, with large, heavy blooms at the end of arching stems. It is a less upright, more informal plant.

The ‘Nomzamo‘ rose epitomise romance, with large, full-petalled old-fashioned blooms that are produced in an endless supply on healthy, glossy plants. The blooms are a warm salmon apricot, aging to dusky pink.

Using apricot roses

The softer apricot shades blend easily with other roses, adding warmth and depth to beds with roses in other pastel shades. For a more exciting effect, use brighter apricot roses, with stronger tones of orange and yellow, to complement reds, blues and purples.

Rose care for December

• Water deeply at least twice a week.
• If you are at home in December, fertilise with Vigorosa in mid-December.
  

Spray every two weeks with a spray cocktail of Ludwig’s Insect Spray and Chronos (for a large rose garden).

Keep roses looking neat by removing dead blooms. Cut off the bloom with at least three sets of leaves.

Rose bushes that are not performing can be brought out of their summer slumber by loosening compacted soil, adding some mulch, spreading out the recommended dose of fertiliser and watering well – even if you had some good rains.

If you are going away for two weeks or longer, spray with Chronos and Ludwig’s Insect Spray the day before you leave.

Reduce the water consumption of roses while you are away by cutting off all the buds and new shoots. Renew the mulch in the beds to keep the soil cool.

Move roses in pots into the shade or under trees and place the pots in saucers to catch water.