"Groundswell" wrote in message
...
Sunflower wrote:

"Sunflower" wrote in message
news

"Groundswell" wrote in message
..
Hi --

I live in the northern Washington DC suburbs and I'm looking for
ideas
for a flowering hedge or thick border plant. I'm bored with the
idea of
the typical yew or boxwood or privet. The location has mediocre
quality
soil, it's neither heavy clay nor heavy sand, full to medium sun.
The
length of the hedge would be about 40 feet.

I'm interested in something that is relatively low maintenance. It
doesn't need to be a privacy or security hedge, just something to
define
the border and discourage the dogs and kids from running off the
property. Ideally it would thrive at somewhere between 3 and 5
feet.

snip

Why not consider roses? Most of the china class of roses love the hot
and
humid conditions of DC while being hardy well into the zone 6 of it's
outlying suburbs. Archduke Charles, Arethusa, Cramoisi Superieur,
Ducher,
Le Vesuve, Napoleon, White Pearl in Red Dragon's Mouth, and Hermosa
are
in bloom from April through November and are semi evergreen through
the
winter.

Thanks for the info. I've been interested in some low-maintenance roses.

For me, the big strike against roses in large plantings is cleaning up
after
pruning. Dealing with the branches from one plant isn't too bad, but
pruning
and disposing of an entire hedge would be more work than I'm willing to
spend.

I'll definitely consider one or two of these, though.

You do NOT prune these types of roses like you do hybrid teas. Treat them
like any other flowering shrub you might be considering. When the bush is
mature, (3-4 years) remove about 1/3 of the oldest growth per year and trim
about 1/3 off of the remaining height of the shrub. Treating them like the
typical hybrid tea by pruning them down to 14" nubs will cause them to sulk
quite abit.