New Flower Carpet Amber ups the ante for high-fashion color and virtually non-stop bloom in the world of easy-care roses. Amber’s luscious amber-apricot double flowers are borne in such awesome abundance that mature 3-foot high bushes are covered with blooms late spring through frost. Available nationwide beginning in spring 2009, this top-performing groundcover rose is as tough as it is attractive.
A new rose for the Next Generation
Noack Rosen, the German hybridizer behind all the roses in the award-winning Flower Carpet series, bred the new Amber. Like all Flower Carpet roses, once established, Amber is drought tolerant, disease resistant and easy care, requiring no fancy fuss or pruning.
Amber is the ninth color in the Flower Carpet family of groundcover roses, and the third of the Next Generation Flower Carpets, following Scarlet and Pink Supreme. The result of 20 years additional breeding based on the original Flower Carpet series, the Next Generation roses retain all of the robust strength, drought-tolerance and disease-resistance that is their heritage while being specifically bred for sustained non-stop blooming, vibrant new colors and greater range in handling tricky hot, humid and/or cold climate conditions for roses. This increased range is big news to gardeners used to struggling with roses in areas with steamy mildew-inducing summers or extreme winter cold exposure (including some areas hit by both!).
Easy-care rose, masses of blooms
In the Flower Carpet tradition, Amber is an easy-care, high-performance rose. It is an early bloomer, with a particularly long season of bloom. Plant it in full sun. It will still bloom in partial sun but less intensely. Once established, it is drought tolerant, but prefers occasional deep waterings. Once or twice per season provide a dose of controlled-release rose food. A Flower Carpet Amber planted in full sun produces more than 2,000 lightly fragrant double flowers per season in clusters of up to 45 flowers each, on a full, compact bush that grows from 24 to 36 inches high and up to 36 inches wide.
Hardy in USDA zones 5 to 11, Amber also handles zone 4 readily with winter protection. Winter protection is advised in zones 6 and below for the first year. In areas of intense dry heat (for example Phoenix), protect by planting in semi-shade. Flower Carpet Amber will be available coast-to-coast, with retail prices ranging from $12 to $29, depending on plant size. Flower Carpet roses are also available bare-root by mail order from Willow Creek Gardens, www.WillowCreekGardens.com, and from Cottage Hill Nurseries, www.CottageFarmsDirect.com.
For more information, visitwww.FlowerCarpet.com.
