Episode: #8 21/10/2006
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane

Roses are without doubt the most rewarding flowering plant a person can have. They produce flowers in every shape, size, and colour and with exquisite fragrance when required. They love our sunny summer days and other than some precautionary care they usually remain pest and disease free.

The down side for many people is the fact they need pruning and they are thorny but if you want results from your plants in your garden, then you have to prune and a heavy duty pair of gloves will protect you from thorns.

The face of the rose market across the world changed about 15 years ago when a new concept rose was released in Australia. The concept was landscape roses and more specifically pink flower carpet roses. The claim was they would flower for 10 months of the year and require little maintenance. They had excellent disease tolerance and would grow strongly throughout the year in most places in Australia.

The fellow behind flower carpet roses, Anthony Tesselaar, proved to be visionary and today his company has sold more flower carpet roses across the globe than any other rose variety. They are the most popular roses and in places like the USA and Europe where they cannot get enough of them mainly due to the incredible colour show put on almost all year round. The fact they are easy to care for and their disease resistance is a big issue in some places. It is a great story, but the success is mainly due to the fact these roses are so good in the home garden under normal care.

There are now a collection of flower carpet colours, pink, white, apple blossom, red, coral, gold and the latest release scarlet. All the roses do well but the original pink has always been the most popular and widely planted. It is certainly impressive when planted on mass and the key to getting the best results from it, from a flowering point of view, have been to chop it back a couple of times a year.

The scarlet is by far the most impressive when planted on mass and whilst its release has been well received in Australia most Aussie garden centres haven?t done a good enough job showing their customers just how good this rose is.

Seriously, the best of all of the colours so far is the brilliant scarlet red blooms, produced in a massed display and a vigorous hardy shrub that requires little care outside of the occasional hack back with the hedge shears.

If you want to get the best results then feed regularly about every 6 weeks a heavy feed with Dynamic lifter will improve the soils fertility and Flower Carpet loves it!

Anthony Tesselaar International Pty Ltd
Phone:  +61 3 9737 9568
Fax:  +61 3 9737 9899
Mail:  327 Monbulk Road, Silvan, Victoria, Australia 3795
Website:  www.tesselaar.com

Featured Products

Dynamic Lifter Organic Plant Food

• This is a versatile feed for all garden, potted and Australian native plants.
• Slow release nutrients improving structure and retention of the soil.
• It also encourages earthworms and is beneficial to soil micro-organisms