"Theo" wrote in message
s.com...
Sorry Sunflower I have to disagree.
China's in my experience are not very drought
or disease tolerant. Their twigginess can be a serious
maintenance problem. Oklahama City despite its Zone 7
classification occasionally get 0 F frosts.
This is a serious no no for a china. Anything below 20F
causes kill almost to the crown/ground line leaving you this
incredible tangled mess to clear.
A much better bet would be Buck roses. Some grow rather large
due to their laxa genes. Apple Jack in particular makes
a nice drought resistant, super tough 4' high shrub. There are
many others that perform similarly.
You can get Buck roses from those same stores.
--
Theo
in KC Z5
Theo, you're zone 5. Kaye in the Fort Smith hilly suburbs which is
borderline 6/7 grows a LOT of different chinas quite successfully. Here's
her photo album of them.
http://www.picturetrails.com/gallery...529&uid=647794
Even here in my 7b, we had several weeks of below 20 weather this past
winter and I had NO dieback whatsoever. I DO spray mine with WiltPruf to
keep the winds from drying them out, as that is where most of the winter
damage comes from. Chinas are a lot more winter hardy than most folks think
they are. Ann Peck is growing a couple of dozen of them in the mountains of
E. TN in a solid zone 6, and many more people in the PA and NY area also
manage to grow them successfully. I NEVER spray mine for disease, and they
never suffer more than 20% defoliation. I'm in an incredible swamp of a
climate with humidity ranging from 80-100% in the summer and with temps in
the 90's from May through September. Chinas thrive here. Their twiggines is
an advantage in a hedging situation, and I've never found it to be any type
of maintainace issue. I mostly just let them be what they want to be with
very little pruning. But, if you're into a lot of shaping and hacking, you
can prune them with hedge clippers, for goodness sake. :~) They're the
nearest thing to a carefree rose that I've come across.
I do like the Buck roses, especially his yellow and apricot ones like Prarie
Sunrise and Prarie Harvest, and they *are* disease resistant. But, I think
of them as individual specimen roses and not hedging roses. And, they cannot
put out the sheer amount of blooms that any china will. I'm totally serious
when I say there isn't a single moment from April through November when you
can't find a blossom on Mutabilis, or Cramoisi Superieur, or Arethusa, or a
dozen more.
Sunflower
MS 7b