This info is for all those who dream of winter hardy roses.
The rose pictured above is called Campfire. It's one of the Canadian Artist's series of roses now being bred in Canada. The roses are either named after famous artists or their art. In the case of Campfire, it's named after a canvas done by Tom Thomson, a Canadian landscape painter.
This rose starts out mostly yellow with bright pink edges like the picture above. And then it becomes more and more pink as time passes, like the picture below. That means you can have roses of different colors on the same plant.
Campfire was brand new last year, so there were no guarantees how it would do. I bought three of them because of their amazing colors and kept my fingers crossed. It was a bad winter last year and many of my older plants had a hard time, but this rose did not. We're in zone 4a, which can get to 30 degrees below zero at some points. But I tend to plant items that can survive the colder zone 3, like Campfire is supposed to be able to do, just in case. All three of the Campfire roses came through with flying colors as you can see.
The plants are still small, but determined to flower. Meanwhile, some other roses that were supposed to handle the weather well didn't. The two Morden Blush roses I planted disappeared completely. And the two Hope for Humanity roses are acting as if they think summer is even worse than the winter was. I expect them to perish soon. That's par for the proverbial course as there are other things to consider besides zones when building a garden.
You can follow all the rules and still have plants die where the data says they're supposed to thrive. In my yard I've learned to follow Mother Nature's lead. Whatever works I do more of. And I don't beat my head against any rocks if a given plant likes the soil in one area in the yard and not another.
Anyway, I wish now that I'd bought more than three Campfire roses. The place I bought the roses from last year was sold out very early. Oh, well! Maybe next year!
