Summer and Easy, Beautiful Roses... At Last®

Summer means Roses. When I was young, my aunt and cousin would take me to visit a local Rose Garden with hybrid teas and old fashioned varieties that showed off blooms that were heavy with petals and fragrance. The grown-ups would say that such Roses were a challenge to grow.

Today, there is an abundance of easy-growing Rose offerings in a wide array of colors such as lipstick magenta, baby pink, bright white, lemony yellow, apricot, blush…. Colors are endless. Now, the Proven Winners® Rose called At Last® brings the most beautiful sunset tones of pale orange to the mix.

At Last® is a landscape variety that has been bred to host a profusion of blooms from late spring to first frost, once established. Taking little time to get established in a sunny location (6+ hours of sun per day), At Last® with its glossy foliage can be thought of as a summer splendor Rose. It will not disappoint gardeners at any point in the growing season, and it will require no more than straightforward care.

About five years ago, I started collecting buff-toned and pale apricot Rose varieties. I planted three or four creamy buff climbers and paired them with a couple of stronger-toned apricot Rose bushes that grow low and compact. When the sun hits the petals of each of these Rose varieties, the petals practically glow. See them at sunrise or sunset, and you are in for an extra special treat. 

Proven Winners® At Last® blooms in a truer orange tone, but it is a pale orange that would work well with the plants I just described. Proven Winners® has called it sunset-orange, and this seems perfect for describing the color of the many-petaled blooms.

Some of the buff varieties I chose in the past develop into a darker peach as they mature. The blooms of Proven Winners® At Last® bud in pale orange, open in pale orange, and mature in pale orange. What a lovely sight they make.

Some of today’s easy-growers are shrubs with absolutely beautiful single-layer blooms, or those that show just slightly more than one layer of petals with very visible discs at their centers. Though very attractive, they have a simplified form and are not grown to be fragrant. Harder-to-grow Roses often are the multi-petaled ones with old-fashioned charm and heady fragrance. Proven Winners® has managed to breed At Last® with full, rounded blooms that put me in mind of the Roses I saw with my aunt and cousin. But while I fear the heavy, rounded blooms of old Roses must have drooped as they matured, Proven Winners® At Last® supports its full blooms with seeming ease. Its stems have good strength, and its dark foliage has a glossiness that makes it a striking backdrop to the pale orange flowers. 

When I see good foliage and hear that a plant has been bred to be disease resistant, I breathe a sigh of relief. Some of my old Roses have gone through seasons of having black spot disease. They have faced stem canker and other problems. Knowing Proven Winners® has focused on disease resistance with At Last®, I feel good about adding it to my garden. To be on the safe side, I do not let clippings and fallen leaves stay on the ground under my plants. I keep the base of my plants as clean as possible. But I can let up on this with a disease-resistant option. At Last®, I can relax a little, or a lot, and take in the beauty and the sweet perfume of an easy Rose.

I think that Roses turn on their charm especially when they are grown in partnership with other Roses. Place a fragrant Rosa Rugosa, or Beach Rose, near an easy-growing scent-free shrub Rose. Plant a climber near a fence, as backdrop to compact shrub Roses or miniatures. And now, At Last®, add a beautiful full-sized and multi-petaled pale orange, fragrant, disease-resistant Proven Winners® Rose to the mix. Planting a Rose Garden is no longer out of reach of gardeners like me. The Rose Garden is now right in my own yard, and caring for it is as easy as summer.