Roses remain among the most popular flowering plants for gardens, but traditionally they were so much work, and really only flowered in early summer and maybe a little in the early fall. Plus, they are often tall and angular, and don’t fit into the design of your garden. Today that has all changed. Every gardener welcomes the arrival of the Drift Roses, a whole new class of rose that is disease resistant, ever-blooming and grows as spreading mounds, not as tall stems. There is a wonderful color palette among them, but if you like those delicious pinky-apricots that can only be found among some of the most outstanding roses in the world, then you will love the Apricot Drift® Rose. This billowing mound of lush foliage is constantly covered in truly beautiful flowers that are so packed with petals they have the look of classic heirloom varieties. Growing only 18 inches wide, but spreading 30 inches across, this wonderful rose is perfect at the front of your beds, spilling over a path or wall, or as a border.

Growing the Apricot Drift® Rose

Size and Appearance

The Apricot Drift® Rose is a fast-growing deciduous shrub that in a single season reaches 12 to 18 inches in height, and 24 to 30 inches across, making a broad, leafy mound of many stems. A profusion of stems rise from the base and sprout continuously from existing branches, so new growth continues all through the season. The 3-inch long glossy, dark-green leaves are divided into 5 separate leaflets, each an oval with a serrated edge and always looking lush and healthy.

Each stem carries between 3 and 12 flowers, depending on the growing conditions and season, and each bloom is 2½ inches across when it opens, lasting up to two weeks and always looking beautiful. Blooms begin to open in early summer and continue more or less continuously well into fall. This bush is always carrying many blooms and looking gorgeous. The blooms are very double, with about 50 petals in each one. The flower opens gradually, over several days, becoming looser and less tightly packed as they mature. The color of the blooms begins as a clear mid-pink, but as it matures orange tones move in, so it quickly becomes apricot, and mature flowers have yellow at the base of the open petals. The petals fall cleanly to the ground, and hips don’t usually form, so dead-heading is not needed.

Using the Apricot Drift® Rose in Your Garden

The size of this rose makes it perfect for the front of beds, and to grow in gardens of every size. Plant it spaced 2 feet apart as a continuous edge, or in groups between other plants in a less formal setting. Grow it beside paths and patios, or at the top of walls, where it softens hard surfaces with its graceful billowing look. It is also perfect in containers and planter boxes, and just the right size.

Hardiness

Without needing any winter protection, this rose is hardy all the way from zone 4 into zone 10 – you can grow it almost anywhere in the country.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Grow the Apricot Drift Rose in full sun, in ordinary soil. Roses grow best in richer, heavier clay soils, which give them more nutrients and water than light, sandy soils, but they will grow in most garden soils that are not too wet, or too dry. Dig in plenty of rich organic material before planting. A rose fertilizer used regularly will keep those gorgeous flowers coming and coming, especially when growing in containers. Any container must have drainage holes, and grow them in a mix of one part garden soil to two or three parts of potting soil.

Maintenance and Pruning

This rose is highly resistant to Black Spot, a disease that causes the leaves to fall off, and to Powdery Mildew, so it stays healthy without spraying. Its vigorous growth means pests are rarely a problem. A simple trim in spring is all the care needed, removing weak or damaged branches, and cutting back the remaining stems by about one-third, just above an outward-facing bud. On older bushes remove a few of the oldest stems at the same time, cutting low down to a younger branch.

History and Origin of the Apricot Drift® Rose

The Apricot Drift Rose is an outstanding variety among a new class of roses called Drift Roses. These are all low-growing, continuous-blooming plants, created by the famous French rose-breeding multi-generational family of Meilland. Their breeding begins with a famous old pink miniature rose that dates back to the 1930s, called ‘The Fairy’. Alain Meilland began with a climbing rose with apricot blooms created in 1969 in Germany, called Westerland (‘KORwest’), and crossed it with Yellow Sunblaze™ (‘Meiskaille’), a low-growing yellow rose he had bred and released in 2003. He took pollen from one of the seedlings that resulted and used it on ‘The Fairy’, to make hybrid seeds. Among those seedlings (each one was different) he chose the best, which he named ‘Meimirrote’, and patented it in 2013. This rose is released in America by Conard-Pyle, West Grove, Pennsylvania, as the Apricot rose in their Drift® Roses range.

Buying the Apricot Drift® Rose at the Tree Center

You will love the gorgeous blooms of this rose, but you will love its continuous blooming, toughness and low growth just as much. The Drift Roses are a wonderful addition to our gardens, with flowers of complex beauty that you can gaze at for hours – and that never stop coming. But order now, because the Drift Roses are incredibly popular, and apricot is such a beautiful color, don’t you think?