In article ,
says...

On Thu, 17 Apr 2003, Kim asked me:

Mike, do you have any links to sites that might show the general shape of a
bush once it's "fully grown"? Please see example of what I'm talking about at
the link below.

Hi Kim,

I'm sorry to say you have me stumped. I can't think of a site that has
photos or drawings of the mature form of a large variety of roses. It's hit
and miss with vendor sites - they sometimes show a shot of the entire
plant, but mostly stick with close-ups of the blooms. Non-vendor sites that
I've bookmarked are mostly specific to a particular "type" of rose, such as
Old Garden Roses or Austins. Or they relate to the care of roses, or have
lots of beautiful photographs (again, focusing on the blooms) of roses. I
would say that a site like you're hoping to find would be very useful,
though. Maybe someone else here knows of one?

Here's one I've known about for years. It's where I found out just what my
John Cabot was. At that point I had completely forgotten what the rose's name
was so I had to search for it totally by looking at pictures and going on the
comment that it was hardy in cold areas.

http://www.oldheirloomroses.com/

They have quite a few pictures on their site of the "full" rose bushes.
Picture quality isn't superb -- looks like some of them were blown up a bit too
much -- but there are quite a lot of "natural" looking photos of full bushes to
look at.

I can tell you most floribundas tend to be medium size plants (about 4 feet
tall,) and a little wider than they are tall. The Fairy is a polyantha, it
will be a little shorter, not much - still a medium sized plant, and about
as wide as it is tall. The overall form will be very similiar to your
floribundas. Baby Grand is a miniature and will be the shortest plant by
far. Probably about a foot and a half tall and not as wide. This is
generally speaking, some floribundas are a little taller than others, etc.
I believe most of your roses will be around the same size and shape at
maturity, save the Baby Grand. Intrigue will probably be a little taller
than the other floribundas. The Fairy will probably be a little shorter
than your floribundas.

When I was doing my online shopping in January I used 'Fork 'n Spade' for
looking up info on the roses I was considering. They had one part of their
listing for height & habitat. I'll show you what they said about the ones I
ordered:

George Burns - 4', Rounded
Intrigue - 4', Bushy
Lavaglut - 4', Upright
Margaret Merril - 4', Upright
Easy Going - 4', Rounded
The Fairy - 2', Bushy
Baby Grand - 2', Compact, Bushy

Now what the heck are the definitions of "Rounded", "Bushy", and "Upright"? I
had a vague picture in my mind of what I thought they were, but now I have no
clue, since I've gone out and looked for the same roses at other sites and have
gotten different dimensions (for instance, one place said George might get to
5' high).

Since some of these roses are pretty well known, can somebody possibly tell me
if the above descriptions are anywhere close to accurate, and what they
actually mean? It would make things alot easier on me to have a good mind's
eye picture.

some pruning

Sorry I couldn't give you better information. I hope this gives you some
idea, though - and try helpmefind. It will at least provide you with the
mature height of all your roses. Since all but two of your roses are
floribundas, they will all have similiar form, so you should be able to
figure out your design by finding out which floribunda should grow the
tallest and placing it in the center, and then arranging the others by
bloom color with your miniature Baby Grand as an accent.

A little bit of advice - you might end up wanting to get one or two
additional Baby Grands to balance out your design. Two or three of them,
either grouped together or strategically placed around the outside edge of
your design, might look better than just one with all those other
relatively tall roses. You could fit two or three miniatures in the space
you have reserved for one average-sized rose.

Ummm...after rethinking the Baby Grand I decided it would make a good Mother's
Day present. g Mom will be putting in a boatload of minis this year
(purchased from I have no clue where) and perhaps this Baby will become the
focal point of this year's gardening effort.

To replace it, I got a J&P "Cherish" at the co-op. Yes, I realize it'll be one
bare root rose amongst the 6 container roses in the bed, but it will be
interesting to see how it does in comparison. It claims it's a Grade 1, and
has a few leaves starting on it now.

Unfortunately it has to wait until the others get here to go in the ground.
I'm feeling a bit timid about ripping the box off of it and plunking it into a
bucket of water. This may sound silly, but where should the bucket be stored,
once the rose is in it? Indoors? Outdoors? On the sun porch? In the
garage/shed? Never having done this I don't know where to put it to hold until
the others arrive.

--

Kim

"We have done so much with so little for so long that now we can do anything
with nothing." -- Dave Marcis