Miniature Roses: A Gift for the Garden

To many, it will come as no surprise that I love roses. However, I am not a rose snob.  I love large, elegant, fragrant blooms and can chat away about this and that variety. When I go to a garden center, I have to examine every rose bush and ask all sorts of questions about the growth habits of each variety before I can bring one home. But I also have a penchant for buying those little potted rose plants with the tiny, highly structured flowers  that sell in grocery stores for a few bucks around the holidays – a gift for my garden. When I buy them over the winter, I keep them alive inside until I can plant them outdoors in the Spring; and, they have turned out to be surprisingly winter hardy for Kansas. My oldest few have been in the garden for four years now. I have around a dozen grocery-store-bought miniature rose bushes in the garden, give or take, ranging from the most delicate pink to bright coral. I don’t know their names, but that doesn’t matter. What’s in a name?