Re: roses for SoCal desert

**A* Z* <a*@earthlink.net>**

It would be helpful if you'd clarify exactly what you mean by the  
"Southern California desert."  The middle of the Mojave is  
considerably different from coastal foothills environments, for  
example, yet both are arid and probably qualify as "desert."

I'd suggest you start by contacting the folks at the Huntington Rose  
Garden.  Here's a blurb about it:

"Huntington Library, Arts Collections, and Botanical Gardens —  
Southern California, USA

The Huntington Rose Garden sits on 3.5 acres in the center of the 207- 
acre botanical gardens. It contains a broad collection of historic  
and modern roses, with around 1,200 varieties and a total of  
approximately 3,000 rose plants. The rose collection inventory is  
posted on the Huntington Gardens’ website (www.huntington.org), along  
with all issues of their newsletter, Subrosa.

Henry E. Huntington bought the property in 1903. The Rose Garden was  
installed on its current site in 1908. By the late 1960s a decision  
was made to change the focus of the rose garden from large display  
groups of a few roses, to a collection with one or two specimens of  
each cultivar. The gardens have since been collecting a broad range  
of roses to illustrate their wide range and history."

I lifted that text from this website:

http://www.heritagerosefoundation.org/2national%20collection/gardens/ 
public%20gardens.htm

The Huntington is located in mountainous foothills, but hopefully  
they'll either be knowledgeable enough about growing roses over the  
whole range of SoCal conditions to answer your question or they could  
refer you to other resources where you can get that information.  I'm  
sure that are also local chapters of rose societies that would be  
thrilled to help you.

I used to live and garden in SoCal (San Fernando Valley primarily).  
Many kinds of roses did spectacularly well there, and could be  
(perhaps needed to be) grown in a fair amount of shade, especially at  
midday.  One I can definitely recommend is 'Joseph's Coat', which  
remains my favorite rose.  It is generally available as a climber,  
but for some reason I have the thought stuck in my head that there is  
also a shrub form of 'Joseph's Coat'.  You'll have to research that.   
Maybe the folks at the Huntington or the Antique Rose Emporium  
(www.antiqueroseemporium.com) would know.

On May 9, 2010, at 1:20 PM, gardenwriters-request@lists.ibiblio.org  
wrote:

>
> I just got a question about a Rose/Roses for the Southern  
> California desert. Can anyone help? I've only spent about 3 hours  
> there. It's way out of my biome. I have no idea what to suggest, or  
> even if they can tolerate the triple digit temps there.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Daryl

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