By Beth Burwinkel
Enquirer contributor

A summer look at some of the "couple of thousand" roses in John Pottschmidt's gardens behind his Delhi Township home. JOAN POTTSCHMIDT

Rose growers lean toward the perennially popular hybrid teas, grandifloras and floribundas, all prized for cut blooms in the home and color in the garden. But those aren't the only roses growing in Greater Cincinnati gardens.

You can pick roses for a particular color or fragrance. You may want a rose that blooms throughout the season. If you're short on land, miniature roses and smaller shrub roses are great in pots on the deck or patio.

Best of all, says Kerry Stetter, nursery manager at Delhi Flower and Garden Center, you don't have to be an experienced gardener to grow beautiful roses.

"It's always been kind of a misconception that roses are hard to take care of," she says. "There are a lot of new varieties that are very disease-resistant."

Old garden roses

Margo Warminski lives in an older house in Newport and gravitates toward older varieties of plants. She likes the old garden roses for their wonderful fragrance and graceful arching forms that remind her more of flowering shrubs. She's found that old garden roses tend to be more disease-resistant and vigorous than some modern roses.

Some of her favorite antique roses are Marie Pavie, pale pink flowers that bloom all summer; Delicata, a low-growing shrub with bright pink flowers, and Rene d'Anjou, an upright shrub also with bright pink flowers.

Warminski grows about two dozen old garden roses mixed in with a popular shrub rose named Knock Out and one floribunda.

Many of Warminski's old garden roses just bloom once in late spring.

Rugosas are hardy

For beginning rose growers, Warminski recommends rugosa roses, an old-rose species that is hardy and disease-resistant.

Sarah Knife of Montgomery is also a big fan of rugosa roses, especially the Therese Bugnet, with intensely red canes all winter and fall color on the leaves.

The flowers are deep pink and fragrant.

Among her favorite old roses is Madam Isaac Perriere.

It has wonderful fragrance and blooms all summer.

Knife grows a mixture of antique roses, climbers, shrub roses and hybrid teas.

Among the roses she plants are a variety of perennials and annuals.

Some of Knife's favorite shrub roses are Knock Out, with reddish-pink blooms; Folk Singer, a yellow bloomer bred to live in Midwest winters without protection; and Carefree Beauty, with pink flowers. She also likes Fairy, a polyantha with small pink flowers.

For climbers, she uses Iceberg, with white blooms, and New Dawn, with light pink flowers.

For areas with less light, Knife says to try hybrid musk roses.

They have a nice fragrance and can get by with a couple of hours of sun, while most roses need six hours of sunlight a day.

All-America roses

Some people turn to the All-America Rose Selections (AARS) to find well-performing roses. Roses in the AARS program undergo two years of evaluation and are judged on 15 characteristics, including disease resistance, hardiness, fragrance, vigor and flowering. The best are chosen as winners.

Winners for 2004:

• Honey Perfume, a yellow-flowering floribunda.

• Memorial Day, a pink flowering hybrid tea.

• Day Breaker, a floribunda with yellow blooms that blend to pink and apricot.

Dr. John Pottschmidt, a rose gardener and hybridizer from Delhi Township, has two rose bushes headed for the All-America Rose Selections trials. A yellow-flowering grandiflora with shiny green foliage, nice fragrance and 20-40 blooms per stem will go to trials this year.

A floribunda with pink outer petals and cream-colored inside petals will go to trials in 2005.

Getting into the AARS trials is a big accomplishment. Large rose growers may start with 250,000 seeds and send only a dozen bushes to the AARS trials, says Weeks Wholesale hybridizer Tom Carruth.

Pottschmidt began growing roses in 1964 - hybrid teas, grandifloras and floribundas.

He estimates that "a couple thousand" rose bushes grow in his yard, all products of his hybridization efforts.

One Pottschmidt rose, Sweet Success, was in the AARS trials several years ago.

It didn't win an award, but was introduced to the public by a rose company that later went out of business.

Dr. Pottschmidt will speak on the basics of rose growing April 10 at Delhi Flower and Garden Centers. He will be at the Delhi Pike store at 10 a.m. and the Tri-County store at 2 p.m. Reservation fee, $5, will be returned as a store gift certificate after the talk. To register, contact either store.

Low number better

Most rose growers grade their roses by number. The higher the number, the lower the grade, says Kerry Stetter, nursery manager at Delhi Flower and Garden Center.

A lower grade - and less expensive - rose will have one or two canes, each about 1/2-inch in diameter. A Grade 1 rose, on the other hand, will have three or four healthy canes of at least 1 inch in diameter. If you buy a Grade 1 rose, you are starting out with a stronger plant.

Roses can be purchased bare root or growing in containers.

Container roses generally can be planted in Cincinnati gardens in mid to late April, while bare root roses can be planted earlier as long as the rose hasn't started to leaf out, Stetter says.

For buying roses, amateur grower Sarah Knife of Montgomery recommends Delhi Flower and Garden Centers, Delhi Township and Tri-County, and Mary's Plant Farm near Hamilton. She's also found good roses at Wal-mart.

Organic roses

Black spot is a common rose disease. Gardeners who resist using chemicals will tolerate a certain amount of black spot, but they also advise:

Plant roses where they will get adequate sunshine and air circulation. Don't crowd them.

Use soaker hoses and water once or twice a week, depending on weather. Water in the morning, rather than in the afternoon or evening, to reduce the likelihood of black spot.

If you see disease, try to control it quickly. Remove infected leaves and sweep up any fallen leaves.

An organic product called Rose Flora will prevent an outbreak or reduce its severity if sprayed once a week.

Some gardeners mix 1 tablespoon of baking soda in 1 gallon of water along with a couple drops of liquid dish soap. Sprayed on roses once a week, the mixture fights black spot and mildew.

A good source of organic products is Gardens Alive (www.gardensalive.com) .

In The Organic Rose Garden (Taylor Publishing; $18.95), Liz Druitt offers a list of roses that thrive in organic conditions, as well as advice for growing roses organically.

Rose care

Amend soil with organic matter. One grower uses leaves from maple trees in her yard. Peat and sand also work.

Plant roses in full sun and fertilize once a week with a liquid fertilizer or once every three to four weeks with a granular fertilizer. If you feed with organic products, feeding time isn't as critical because organic fertilizer will gradually release nutrients into the soil.

Mulch around bushes to cut down on weeding.

Raised beds provide good drainage.

Major rose types

Hybrid tea: Produces classic large blooms - one to each long stem.

Floribunda: Bushy plants that produce clusters of flowers continuously. They were created by crossing polyanthas with hybrid teas.

Grandiflora: Tall bushes - sometimes 6 feet tall - created by crossing hybrid teas and floribundas. Grandifloras produce beautiful blooms in clusters and singly.

Polyantha: Vigorous smaller bushes that generally bloom all season. They produce small flowers that usually have no fragrance.

E-mail: GardenStories@cinci.rr.com