For a long time, I thought rose bushes were too common.
Everyone has rose bushes around here.
So I refrained from adding one to the garden.
My loss! I missed out on this 'Carefree Beauty' all those years...
It's been a champ throughout our hot, humid summer. It grows in full sun from morning through early afternoon and then has shade for the rest of the day.
Early on in the season, I was disappointed with the way it suffered from Japanese beetle attacks, but the beetles soon went away and the rose recovered and flourished with little help from me.
In August, I started cutting just about-to-open roses every few days and bringing them inside to adorn the kitchen or dining tables.
I'd say that Carefree Beauty has a light but delicious fragrance. I don't think I'll go bananas about sprinkling roses throughout my garden. I'm too nervous about rose rosette disease (RRD) to do that. But I do hope to add a couple more tough, vigorous and hopefully even more fragrant roses.
I've got my eye on Jacqueline du Pre. And I'm also interested in the native Carolina rose, which reportedly is resistant to RRD.
