Roses Reviews

6/23/2026

This is a list of all the roses (with notes) I had in my Rose Garden in Ukiah California from 2016 to 2021. The major problems I had with growing roses in Ukiah were excessive summer heat and excessive spring winter rain which sometimes caused rot to set into the canes. A minor problem was that deer came to eat them, I tried spraying them with deer repellents but this increased the chance of sunburn in the summer. In 2021 I moved to Missouri where the deer were much more voracious. Ultimately the biggest determinant to having a Rose Garden in Ukiah was new water restrictions causing our water bill to skyrocket to $600 a month in the summer.

Abracadabra
This rose had a unique color it’s red with various accents. I got this one from Rogue Valley Roses a place where they sell roses that live on their own roots and therefore it did not do very well. I want to try these Rogue Valley Roses again as house plants next year.

rose flower

Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is actually not very fragrant and the color is inconsistent it may be hot pink but sometimes yellow you may even doubt that you’ve bought the right rose. We had a couple of these but they all proved to be very weak and could not stand up to heat. Because this rose has a lot of pedals the blooms do not fully open and wilt in the direct sun. This rose is so undesirable it’s hardly ever sold anymore. Try to Google it you’ll only find redirects to products that you can buy for aromatherapy instead of for the actual plant.

Black Baccara
This rose is an absolute stunner. It is a reddish black color. The flowers last a long time and they stand up to heat. The best red rose we grew in Ukiah.

black flower rose

Chihuly
This rose is an orange yellow rose. Chihuly is supposed to be multi-colored like the artist’s glass works. This is a rose of average quality it is neither particularly vigorous nor weak.

Coffee Bean
Coffee Bean is a miniature rose. The color is a reddish brown. It is a hardy rose. It’s smallness gives it that cute adorable factor. Highly prone to powdery mildew and you must treat it with fungal products throughout the year.  Many other red roses have a similar problem.

rose flower red

Double Delight
Jackson & Perkins Rose. An excellent rose with red with white stripes. It flowers profusely. This was the most fragrant rose that we grew.

red and white rose

Fourth of July
4th of July is a red climbing rose with pink stripes that look a little bit like fireworks.

Fragrant Cloud
This reddish pink rose was disappointing. It wasn’t very hardy and did not flower much, nor was it fragrant.

Golden Buddha Rose
A mini rose that only grows 3 by 3 feet. I wanted this rose based on photos I saw online which showed it to have yellow ruffly flowers. However I was only able to get it as an own roots rose and none of those did very well.  They all perished fairly quickly in the Ukiah heat. I was not even able to get one photo of the flower before it died.

Henry Fonda
Is one of the best roses that I ever grew. The flowers are a deep buttery yellow and it stands up to heat. It is also one of the most prolific roses.

John F Kennedy or JFK
This white rose was always terribly weak. It could not take sun and the flowers quickly burned up.

John Keats
John Keats is a marvelous rose that I had in San Francisco and I transplanted to Ukiah. It is a large pink climbing rose with ruffled peddles. I got John Keats from Golden Nursery in San Mateo based on the fact that it was rated as one of the most fungal resistant roses.

pink roses

Joyfulness
This was one of the most beautiful roses I ever owned but being an own roots rose it died very quickly.

pink rose

Katie Lindelli
This was unfortunately also an own roots rose and it soon died. It had the most beautiful shape and a delicate pink as well similar to Joyfulness but the pink was a little bit more dusty. The heat made the rose bloom quickly turned white so I was much less impressed with this then I was with Joyfulness.

Let Freedom Ring
This is a red rose that never performed very well. Let Freedom Ring died due to excessive cane rot.

Livin Easy
I grew this rose in San Francisco California and it was a beautiful orange color. This was a rose I got at Lowe’s which was on the clearance table. It was half dead when I got it, but it rallied and became an absolute stunner.

Love and Peace
Love and Peace is similar to the Peace rose but it is not very remarkable and not as hardy as Peace. It’s a little bit more pink/red than the Peace rose. Breed from Peace which has a more delicate and impressive pink color.

Marilyn Monroe
This rose has many petals and is almost a square shape. It is a pale peachy pink similar to the color of another rose named Medallion (see next rose below). I thought it would be kind of cute to plant Marilyn Monroe next to JFK which I did.  But Marilyn Monroe towered over small pitiful JFK. JFK stayed alive. I could never bring myself to get rid of JFK because I liked it. In the sun the flowers on Marilyn Monroe aged to yellow and were not as beautiful.

Medallion Rose
AARS winner in 1973 and All-America Rose Selection award in 1980. This is a tall rose with a peachy pink color similar to Marilyn Monroe.  The color is sometimes called apricot it doesn’t look anything like the color of an actual apricot which is more tinged with red and yellow. I first bought Medallion Rose in the early 90s at Woolworth nursery in San Jose.  Woolworth actually had their own nursery in the South Bay, but I only managed to go there a couple of times before they closed it. I hadn’t gone there to buy roses, but they had a very large amount of this  Medallion Roses and they were on sale. I later learned that in 1993 the Medallion Rose came off patent. Woolworths decided clone a large number cheap ones. Woolworth was the best store that ever existed.

I lost the first Medallion rose when I moved to a different house but I managed to find a second one at Reagan Nursery in Fremont. Regan Nursery is a great resource for finding obscure roses that you can’t find elsewhere. However the second incarnation of Medallion ended up having mosaic virus so I had to remove it. Medallion was not left for the new house owners when I moved.  I left little signs stick in the ground signs next to each roses for the new people. Hopefully they remembered to write down the names of the roses somewhere before the rains washed away the Sharpie marks on the tiny signs.

Mr. Lincoln
Red rose with a large flower that I picked up on impulse at Lowe’s. Mr. Lincoln had had mosaic virus because it came from a big box store.

Oranges and Lemons
A bicolor floribunda rose in orange and yellow.  This was one of my best roses. The flowers it stood up to the heat and it was resistant to disease. However it was vigorous and it grew tall so you might actually mistake it for a hybrid tea.

Pumpkin Patch
 A floribunda rose the color of pumpkin pie. It is a low growing rose with many small flowers. The color stays true even in the heat.

orange brown rose

Rainbows End
This is a miniature rose with frilly petals in the multiple colors of reds and yellows. As the petals age they tend to pick up a white color. It stands up very well to heat in Ukiah.  One of our neighbors even had a similar rose that was neglected, but continued to live on for years and years even in poor soil with little water in the summer. Purchased at Orchard Supply in Petaluma California.

Saint Patrick’s Day
From Kings Nursery in Santa Rosa.  New flower have a greenish tint hence the name Saint Patrick’s Day. This is a fantastic rose. It’s strong in spite of its unusual color. I took this photo when it was as green as it could possibly be. New flowers come out light green, but then quickly age to yellow. Saint Patrick’s Day is basically a yellow rose and that was disappointing because many roses flower age to yellow.  I stopped wanting to have yellow roses in my rose garden because it was repetitive.

green rose

Starla
A miniature rose. The flowers are white and double. It does very well unlike other miniature roses that you might tend to pick up on impulse at a grocery store that die as soon as you plant them in the ground.

Sterling Silver
Introduced in 1957 A lovely lavender rose prized for its unique color. I grew Sterling Silver in the early 90s in San Francisco and it actually was one of my best roses. I decided to try and get it again in Ukiah, but it did not stand up to the heat. I also heard stories that Sterling Silver in recent years had greatly degraded. It’s now known as the weakest rose and generally given the lowest quality rating by rose enthusiasts.

Vavoom
This orange rose has an glowing fluorescent Halloween like color. It’s one of the most interesting colored roses I’ve ever seen. I got Vavoom a few months before I moved away from Ukiah so I wasn’t able to evaluate how well it did.

orange rose

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