Non alpines: other types of gardening: growing veg.etc for instance

[SJW]

Two weeks ago I asked for your suggestions for very healthy roses

Don't grow many roses but of the ones that I do, 'Blanche Double de Coubert' never seems to have a blemish on the leaves, trouble free and a good scent.

Alan b and Chuck - over to you to kick start the vegetable discussions - I'd be interested !

[Lori S.]

Small streams make big rivers:already 3 cvs/sp that are healthy.

My husband, Stuart, grows tender roses in our greenhouse... needless to say, conditions outdoors here are nothing like conditions there, but perhaps conditions in the humid greenhouse may be relevant to UK climate??  (Wildly guessing...) 
Anyway, on the off-chance that this is of any use to note at all... he selects for disease resistance and fragrance (and shortly turfs out any that don't live up to expectations... there is also some turnover of cultivars, just to be able to try something different, since there's only so much room in the greenhouse).  The current line-up of have been disease-free and very good performers (re. heavy blooming): 'Full Sail', 'Sheila's Perfume', 'Dolly Parton', 'Rock'n'Roll', 'Double Delight' (despite the reputation of older cultivars to decrease in quality with propagation, this one remains good).  You can see some photos on the NARGS forum in this thread: https://www.nargs.org/forum/what-do-you-see-your-garden-walks-2013?page=40#comment-23097

[arillady]

John85 where do you live as that would determine greatly what roses you can grow?

[Alan_b]

Alan b and Chuck - over to you to kick start the vegetable discussions - I'd be interested !

I only grow vegetables sporadically in pots but as for fruit:

I have two small honeyberry bushes - I got my first berry a few days ago.  I also have two apple trees with interstem grafts ordered to arrive this autumn.  Has anyone else any experience with either honeyberries or interstem grafts? 

[Gene Mirro]

You can find some very healthy roses (maybe too healthy) in reply # 28 here:  http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10558.15

[johnralphcarpenter]

Two weeks ago I asked for your suggestions for very healthy roses.Not a single answer so I wonder:
Are you growing no roses at all?
Or are you spraying that much that no fungi make a chance
Or are all your roses so full of diseases that none is healthy?

  Rugosas are bomb-proof! Lots of choice of cultivar; see Peter Beales' website. Scots Briars too. Interesting article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/growing-scented-roses-for-summer

[SJW]

Has anyone else any experience with either honeyberries or interstem grafts? 

I've been tempted to try honeyberries but have yet to succumb. Seems to be one of the latest 'superfoods' but I suspect blueberries are more productive and worthwhile? Interested to hear how you get on with them, Alan. The gushing prose and perfect photos in the gardening catalogues (yes, I'm talking about you T&M!) are hard to resist sometimes but there's rarely any mention of a plant's negative points. A few years ago it was goji berries...whatever happened to those? I picked up a couple of plants because they were cheap in Aldi and have thus far been completely underwhelmed.

[Lori S.]

We have Lonicera caerulea - "honeyberry" - and I'm sort of surprised that the berries are thought to be desirable to eat!  Granted, we just have the plain species, not cultivars that I suppose have been selected for fruit, but I have tasted that fruit also... meh, seemed the same as from our shrubs.  To me, they have an odd soapy, somewhat bitter flavour - hard to describe.

[Alan_b]

The one honeyberry I managed to taste was quite bitter but I'm not sure if it was fuly ripe; it's my first taste.  I bought them after seeing bushes growing at RHS Hyde Hall and learning they are drought-tolerant - very important in my garden.  They also produce fruit quite early in the season.

The first ones I bought were so-called 'jumbo plugs' from Thompson and Moran and these were dreadful things, tiny twigs not as long as my little finger.  The following year they put on about another 2 cm of growth then shot up to 15 cm early this season.  It will be many more years before they amount to anything.  I despaired then managed to find a nursery that sold the plants in decent-sized pots, offering vastly better value for money than T&M.

The thinking behind my interstem-grafted apples is also to achieve superior drought tolerance.       

[Natalia]

In my garden - about 7 varieties of "honeyberry» - in our country, it is a popular and well-known berry.  Et varieties with berries - kegs, there is a spindle, as is olive .
The taste is different - some old varieties a little taste bitter, but mostly sweet, the taste is reminiscent of blueberries .

[Rick R.]

I've been growing honeyberries for 13 years, from the time that little was known about them here in the USA.  One thing that has been learned since then is that there are early and late blooming provenances, and one needs to be sure that flowering will overlap.  (They are not self fertile.)  Size of berry, taste, tartness, bitterness, flavor - all hugely variable.  Tastes can vary from season to season where I live, also.  I would recommend getting  select cultivars, rather than the species, if you want the fruit.  To me, taste is best described as a blueberry with overpowering grapefruit, and some tannins.  But again, it varies widely with the cultivar.  In my experience, at least with the older cultivars, berries need to be left on the bush, almost to the point of dropping off, to sweeten to their full potential.  Just because they are blue doesn't mean they are ripe.  Berries from the same bush may even taste discernibly different from year to year.

In Minnesota, the species can be invasive (by seed).  As a non-native, it has escaped into the wild in the northern half of our state, so please be cognizant of that possibility.  My bushes are always netted as fruit is ripening.  Birds love love them here, and being such an extremely early crop, birds would strip the shrubs and leave me nothing.  And then they would spread all the seeds everywhere, too!

Plants are very vigorous here in zone 4, and periodically, I need to severely cut them back to keep the size manageable.  I am really surprise at the minimal growth you get in the UK.  They are very drought tolerant.

[Alan_b]

Thank you Rick and Natalia, very interesting perspectives from different parts of the globe.  The minimal growth just applied to the first season of the tiny plug plants I bought from Thompson & Morgan.  I'll certainly net the bushes once I start to get fruit in significant quantities.  I wonder if my failure to get much fruit this year is down to my failure to net the bushes once the fruit started to develop; I had had quite a few flowers.   

[John85]

For Pat:
I live in Z8b(Z9a the good years ),so no major problems with the winter but summers can be dry.
For Ralf:
Most Rugosa are indeed healthy but not all:Agnes for instance isn't and it is a pity as it is one of the few yellows
I was told that some gallicas are also strong.Any experience with it?

[arillady]

John as we don't use that zonal system in Australia I am not very familiar with it.
We have a hot dry summer with occasional rain but not much and usually a 20" rainfall in autumn winter and spring and most of my roses are found roses and also own root roses.
Some gallicas such as 'Charles de Mills' do well but need a winter chill to flower well and they never get  to the plant size of European examples.
Tea rose, china roses, Hybrid Perpetuals and damasks should do well. Of course in some groups some do better than others plus the rootstock has a great influence on its survivability. Multiflora rootstocks end up dying after a few years. Indica Major or Dr Huey if you must have rootstocks. But you might have others over there that would do well. If there is a particular wild rose that might be the best to use as a rootstock - but if you are in the US you do have great sources for own-root roses.

[SJW]

I wonder if my failure to get much fruit this year is down to my failure to net the bushes once the fruit started to develop; I had had quite a few flowers.   

Alan - I wonder if our long, cold Spring could have affected fruit set? Although I see they grow well in Russia and Minnesota, neither noted for mild weather early in the year!