I think you will be surprised to find that many roses will thrive in your zone. I would avoid Hybrid teas unless you want to pamper them, but I have lots of old garden roses that do well here which is also hot and humid. Knock Outs would be an easy start to help establish your rose addiction. It is one of the Earthkind roses that have passed the test of neglect with flying colors.

Robert from what I have seen they are a useful perennial. It just depends on what look you are designing. Have you seen them? Anything that can take a beating and look good and I do not have to baby I am all for especially if it a color I need in my garden. I have a red that I think is a knockout but it was in the garden when I purchased the house. I love that it blooms all summer.

Teri, I am not sure if I like all the mix of the colors I have in the bed. That is strange about the smoke trees. Maybe one was not as mature as the other. It took my smoke tree 5 years to start to smoke. But I had it in a semi-shade position.

The smoke trees bloom better if the soil is a bit dry and lean. I mound mine up a bit so they are well drained. Shade or sun doesn't seem to make a difference. Cinta, I don't know if I have pics from last year...I'll look. This year everything is pretty shredded so it may be a couple of months before I can get a decent pic.
The knockouts have recovered from the hail faster than any other roses. They all have new foliage, and it's only been 20 days. Most are full of buds again, too. The pink double hedge is somewhat sheltered by an apple tree, so they are in full bloom again.

I had a smoke tree for 3 years and it never smoked. Of course, the first winter one of them was in the ground my golden retriever ran into it & broke it down to the ground. Came back the next year and was over 5' tall by the end of the summer. I saw that they were never gonna be a nice bushy plant, but rather leggy, so I dug 'em both up & gave 'em to a friend who had 5 acres of blank field. Dunno if they survived for her.. she wasn't ever very prompt in putting things in the ground.

My minibed is a total riot of colors. Actually, most of my yard is a total riot of colors (when it's not fried to a crisp). I love it. :D

I love your mini bed, Toni, so happy looking!

I have discovered there are different smoke trees, You might have gotten one that was not really good. The one I have no one could pry me away from this bush. The Fluorescent color leaves are the prettiest thing I have ever seen on a bush or tree. I get so many compliments and questions about this bush it is amazing. I picked it up at Aldi a discount food store for 2.00 no name it only said Smoke tree. I rooted a piece last year for the back hillside garden.

I have to get a better pic of it this was after a bad winter we had a couple of years ago and it was very short. But you can get a pretty good idea of how pretty the colors are and it was this color all summer until fall when it was a beautiful red.

I Aldi's! We don't have them here in CO, but when I lived in NNY I shopped there a LOT. I was beyond poor, but we could get lots of food there! That looks just like a standard purple smoke tree. That's the kind I had that Wolfgang broke to the ground & it sprang right back up the following year. I too love the vibrant hot pink it turns in the fall!

Yep Aldi is the greatest thing going in my town. I have to admit it but I buy more plants and garden supplies and decor than food there but there are somethings they sell that I cannot find anywhere else.

They have the best roast beef lunchmeat I have ever ate. They sell a dressing that I like to use as a dip for cheese fries. It is called Spicy Ranch. Their Cesar Salad Dressing is the best. The only time I tasted better was in a upscale restaurant in Puerto Rico.

That is where I have been buying the body bag roses from.

porkpal said:I think you will be surprised to find that many roses will thrive in your zone. I would avoid Hybrid teas unless you want to pamper them, but I have lots of old garden roses that do well here which is also hot and humid. Knock Outs would be an easy start to help establish your rose addiction. It is one of the Earthkind roses that have passed the test of neglect with flying colors.

I like the no pamper thing, that is why I got out of the orchid racket! MMMMmm Passes the neglect test!.... sounds like my kind of plant! I don't mind some work but I'm not spritzing it every morning !

Thanks for the tips everyone!

Robert, nematodes are a big problem for roses in Florida. Knock Out roses usually are grown on their own roots, and own-root roses don't stand a chance against the nematodes. They're usually gone within the first year. Roses grafted onto Dr. Huey usually last about 3 years. If you really want to grow roses in Florida, your best bet is to find some grafted onto Fortuniana rootstock.

I don't know where in Florida you're located, but here's a list of dealers in various parts of Florida who sell Nelsons' roses, which are grafted onto Fortuniana.

http://www.nelsonsfloridaroses...

I was all looking at knockout rose pictures to pick a color Zuzu!!. I'm south of Tampa in Bradenton..... isn't there stuff to kill nematodes?

I don't think you can ever kill all of the root knot nematodes. Your best bet is to find grafted roses, preferably grafted onto Fortuniana. You could also try growing roses in large containers, but I think the nematodes probably would find their way into those also in time.

There are some places in Florida where the root knot nematodes are not as big a problem as in others, but I don't know where they are. Ask someone at a local nursery whether your location is full of nematodes.

Here's another really good nursery in Mississippi that sells roses grafted onto Fortuniana. It doesn't carry the Knock Out series, I don't think, but it has a good variety of other roses. I've bought roses from this nursery and they're spectacular. Fortuniana is not a hardy rootstock, so it's not for everybody, but it works beautifully in California and in the southern states. Most of my Fortuniana-based roses are easily twice as tall and wide as other roses in the same beds.

http://www.kandmroses.com/

This is on one side of the driveway:




This is on the other side of the driveway:




They were bought from the same nursery 6 years ago and put in the ground at the same time. Strange thing is that this year, the Kousa Dogwood near the smokeless SmokeBush had hardly any blossoms on it, while the Kousa next to the smoking Smokebush was loaded with blossoms as usual.

I sniffed again, and my Red Knock Out Thing DOES have some scent. Nice, but faint.

I agree that they don't look like "roses". And mine don't work as cut flowers, they just scatter petals around the vase.

But the real roses that were there when I moved in have never been anything but bug fodder and 'black spot on a stick'.

A local nursery almost laughed at me when I asked about buying on of their hundreds of roses for sale. "They won't grow here! They get all moldy! You'll spend hundreds of wasted hours!"

So why sell them, then??

How bizarre, Rick. Why sell them, indeed? Did the nursery think people were coming from out of state to take advantage of that sale?

I had the same experience years ago when I moved here and started facing the gopher problem. The local hardware store was selling a gadget that was supposed to repel gophers by emitting some sort of underground noise and vibrations. When I asked the guys at the hardware store about it, they fell down laughing and said it didn't work and might qualify as the biggest scam ever. So why did they have it in stock?

Rick, you may have trouble growing roses, but you're doing a great job with frogs! I love the "line-up".

I finally, finally, FINALLY saw one more tree frog in my yard. Those four "sardines" were almost the only ones I had ever seen, and now several years later I saw one more (at ground level).

They may well have been space aliens that picked the wrong costume for masquerading as natives.

Actually, we've tried those gopher thingies and they do work, to a certain extent. They'll cause them to move a ways away. We use them to keep the little critters out of the front yard because the dogs dig massive holes if they smell or hear them. I watched Hunter stalk one as it was moving underground. When it got to a dug up area, he pounced and came up with the gopher!

Woofie, we have the same problem with the dogs mining gophers, but I'm pretty sure they would also chew up the repelling thingies - we have dreadful dogs! For some reason our gophers don't eat rose roots, a puzzle to me...