Coral Drift® Rose - Tree Form

Roses continue to be hugely popular in gardens across the country – and no wonder. With the arrival of new disease-resistant varieties, that bloom continuously, roses have moved from being specialty plants to standing alongside our regular garden shrubs as easy-care and reliable ways to bring color to your garden. A unique way to use roses in your garden is by planting rose trees. These are roses where the plant is raised off the ground by grafting it to a strong trunk, creating a plant that has a tall stem topped with a shrubby rose. This way you can enjoy the rose at eye-level, without bending down, and you gain a whole new dimension for accents and specimens in your garden. Specialist growers have been expanding their ranges of tree roses to include the newer easy-care varieties, and at the Tree Center we like to keep up with the changes. That why we welcomed the arrival of the Coral Drift® Rose Tree in our stock, because this outstanding low-growing rose can now stand tall, where its great beauty is even easier to appreciate. It is perfect for specimens in garden beds, or for planting beside a doorway, or along a path. Use it in planter boxes and large pots for a terrace. Anywhere you plant this tree you will love it.

The Coral Drift Rose Tree is an upright plant with a strong single trunk topped with a spreading crown of branches. It will be between 4 and 5 feet tall, and the crown will spread 2 to 3 feet across, with a semi-cascading habit. The foliage is lush, glossy, and a rich green, with each leaf being 4 to 5 inches long, divided into 5 or 7 smaller leaflets, as is typical with roses. The foliage will stay healthy and green all summer, with none of the yellowing and leaf-drop seen on older roses. This is because the plant has been bred to have excellent resistance to all three common rose diseases – Black Spot, Mildew and Rust. No more spraying with nasty chemicals to grow a healthy bush – that’s a thing of the past.

Beginning in May you will see the first blooms, and these will be produced more or less continuously right into fall. The flowers are in clusters of 12 to 14 at the end of every new stem, and each flower begins as a tight bud, and expands into a fully double flower with around 50 petals in it. The color is a wonderful rich coral pink, with outstanding tone and depth, and the flowers are large, being almost 2 inches across when fully open. To top it off, they have a gentle spicy aroma you will love. Individual flowers last a full week on the bush, so a flower cluster lasts 2 to 3 weeks. The flowers are self-cleaning, with the petals dropping neatly as they age, leaving nothing untidy, and no need to deadhead your bush at all. No rose hips or seeds are produced, and the old flower stems simply fade away. The flowers are large enough for a flowering stem to be cut for beautiful decoration in a vase indoors, and with their continuous blooming your plant will always be there when a quick table decoration is needed.

Grow the Coral Drift Rose Tree in full sun, in ordinary garden soil, enriched with compost or manures. This tree thrives in heavier clay soils, and in light, sandy soils it will grow best with abundant organic material and regular watering. The plant is moderately drought resistant, but too much dryness will reduce blooming, so water regularly during dry periods. The use of rose fertilizers of your choice will enhance blooming. No spraying is needed for diseases, and pests are rarely a problem with such vigorous and healthy growth. An annual pruning is helpful. Remove weak or damaged stems and shorten back the main branches by one-third to one-half, cutting just above an outward-facing bud. If grown in zone 7 or warmer, no special protection is needed for the winter. In colder zones protection is needed. Dig a shallow trench from the root ball outwards and cut through the roots on the opposite side with a spade. Remove the stake and lay the tree down in the trench. Cover with peat moss and a winter garden blanket, removing it in the spring and staking the tree upright again. Plants in containers can be stored in a cool shed or laid in a trench in the way described.

The Coral Drift Rose was created by Alain Meilland, a French rose breeder, who used an older miniature spreading rose called ‘The Fairy’. He pollinated it with a seedling he had created by crossing another older variety called ‘Kormax’ with further seedlings of his own breeding. From this complex program he found a rose that he called ‘Meidrifora’, which was patented in 2008. It became one of his Drift® Roses, named Coral Drift®. Our growers took pieces of this rose and attached them to the top of a strong trunk, created from a rose bred specially for that purpose. The result is the Coral Drift® Rose Tree, and you will love it. Our stock of these plants is limited, so order now, while we still have these top-quality plants available.