Standard roses can be used in many different ways, especially in small gardens. Here are some ideas …
Standard roses provide height and structure in a garden. They fit into awkward, long, narrow, or unusual spaces providing an abundance of blooms at eye level.
Best of all, they can be underplanted with other roses and garden flowers or colourful foliage plants so that every ‘inch’ of space counts.
A standard rose is just a bush rose raised in the air by being budded onto a root stock cane either 90cm or 60cm high. Some hybrid teas are budded on 1,1m canes. The shorter the stem the thicker, and stronger, it will become.
Like bush roses, each type, with its distinct growth habit, produces a different effect. The groundcover roses (the ‘Sunsation’ and ‘Grannies’) produce spectacular, arching umbrella standards. Floribundas like ‘Durban July’, ‘Satchmo’ and ‘Johannesburg Garden Club’ create a froth of colour while the elegant hybrid tea standards are ideal as garden cut roses. The miniature standards are the neatest and most compact, lending themselves to containers.
The favourite standard rose is undoubtedly ‘Iceberg’ and nothing can beat its profusion of white blooms that seem never ending. What makes ‘Iceberg’ and its variations unique is that new growth sprouts from old stems in spring so that it builds into a massive flowering bush.
Because they produce such massive heads of blooms, the standard needs to be very securely staked so that the large heads are not snapped over by the wind.
Use a metal stake, ideally a T-bar that is knocked firmly into the soil but with the T-bar at least 5cm above the bud union and in the centre of the crown.. Then some of the strong stems in the crown can be tied to the stake. The standard stem should also be tied to the stake in at least three places.
The best ties are strips of shade cloth. Never use wire or string that will chafe the stem or grow into the bark. Wedging a piece of Styrofoam between stake and stem is a good idea as well.
Use as standard rose as a focal point in a mixed flower bed. In small beds the standard rose can be placed towards the back of the bed but in larger beds it should be in the centre.
Yellow standard roses like ‘Tawny Profusion’ and ‘Friesia’ are good repeat flowering floribunda roses with a bushy, rounded growth. Surround the roses with lower growing annuals and perennials in contrasting colours and textures such as blue salvia, white irises, lavender, and other low growing bush roses like ‘Bridget’ or ‘Karoo rose’.
Soften walls by planting evenly spaced standards along the wall but leave with enough space between the plant and the wall for good air circulation. East or north facing walls are suitable whereas west facing walls become baking hot in the afternoon sun. Plants with similar water requirements, like arum lilies, foxgloves, and blue myosotis are ideal.
In a formal garden with straight line and rectangular formal lines, standard roses underplanted with bush roses or other flowering plants provide a softening effect. They also add structure and height to a formal layout, especially when planted equidistantly in a row to emphasise the lines of the design.
Enclose the area around a pool, line a driveway or divide one garden room from another by underplanting standard roses with compact bush roses. As the rose bushes grow outwards and upward towards the standards they create a screen. If you want variety but still have a uniform effect, use one colour for the standards and different colours for the others.
Use standard roses to frame an entrance, garden gates or pathway that leads to another part of the garden. These ‘Iceberg’ produce a feeling of symmetry and capture attention with their height and flowers.
Good to know
- Standards are pruned almost the same as bush roses.
- Cut back all stems and branches to about 50 cm from the crown or bud union and then remove all the older wood and twigs. The final cutting back should leave the stems about 30 cm long.
- Miniature standards are obviously cut even shorter unless they, too, are expected to perform like a small shrub.
- Umbrella standards are also basically cleaned up by cutting off all the side stems and twigs and by shortening the arching canes to one’s liking.
For more information visit www.ludwigsroses.co.za
Article and images by Alice Coetzee.
