Regionally resilient roses

Resilience (n.) re-’zil-yen(t)s - the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

That rugged determination to thrive despite the challenges at hand is essential to success in life, business, and yes, even the garden.

Diseases, pests, climate pressures, and minimal care are all difficulties faced by roses that are trialed in the American Rose Trials for Sustainability (A.R.T.S.) program. To win, roses must prove they are resilient on their own merits, without being buffered with repeated fertilizer applications or chemical sprays. A.R.T.S. helps you identify which roses have real-world resilience in your region to meet the high expectations of your customers. Knowing your regionally-winning roses have demonstrated beautiful blooms throughout the growing season and continued to have attractive foliage despite those specific growing challenges you and your customers face is reassuring.

A.R.T.S. is an independent, non-profit organization that conducts, under low-input conditions, two-year scientific studies to evaluate the newest roses coming on the market. Low-input conditions mean that plants are grown in a “no spray” environment that includes no applications of fungicides, insecticides, or miticides, and nutrition is managed through the modest addition of compost to trial beds prior to planting (i.e. no fertilizers are applied). In these multisite, regional plant trials that span the nation each year, the roses are not pruned or deadheaded during the growing season, and they are only given moderate irrigation under drought conditions. The A.R.T.S. trialing program is designed to identify the most resilient and beautiful new roses available today. Most importantly, A.R.T.S. awards are determined on a regional basis. The trial sites are located across the United States, and those that share your climatic region provide a great service to support you and your customers. (See sidebar for list of trial sites.)

A.R.T.S. awards are based on regional performance data collected over two years. For a rose to win a regional A.R.T.S. Local Artist award, it must score as well or better than the average of the two control, or reference, cultivars (Double Knock Out and Sunrise Sunset). These two high-performing cultivars have proven track records for strong performance across regions and are planted at every site for comparison. For 2023, six resilient roses join the prestigious collection of A.R.T.S. Local Artist winners, with four winning in multiple regions.

For more: www.TrustedRoses.org