Coral Drift® Rose

The Coral Drift® Rose opens new and exciting doors for growing roses. No longer are roses difficult, demanding plants, that need special care, fancy pruning, elaborate fertilizer programs and lots of chemical sprays, to be able to grow them. Instead of a big flowering in early summer, and then just a few sporadic blooms, now you can have continuous blooming on easy-care and disease-resistant bushes that are just the right size to bring tons of color to the front of our border, or to fill boxes with permanent planting that flowers all summer long.

The Coral Drift® Rose grows rapidly to become a low shrub, between 12 and 18 inches tall and 24 to 30 inches across. Not only is it the perfect size for a small garden, but in larger gardens it looks fantastic planted in groups of any size, to fill large spaces with constant and colorful blooms. It makes a fabulous border at the front of large beds, and it is wonderful at the tops of walls, or along walkways, creating an enchanting look. Because it is small it will grow well in pots and planter boxes for years, blooming just as constantly as any annual flower.

Growing Coral Drift® Roses

The flowers of the Coral Drift® Rose are beautiful glowing cups of many petals, almost 2 inches across. They don’t come one to a stem, the way big roses do, but in clusters of 12 to 14 flowers on every stem, opening over several days, and so bringing flowers for a long, long time. Blooming is continuous because new shoots keep growing all summer, each one bringing more flower clusters, so the plant is always in bloom from early summer all the way into fall. The flowers are densely packed with petals, about 50 in each flower, and the look is lush and heirloom, not simple and wild-looking.

When the flowers are in bud, and as they begin to open, they are a beautiful warm deep pink. As the petals spread and the flowers open fully, they become a rich coral pink, a gorgeous and unusual shade, that is simply dynamite in the garden. It is both an heirloom color and a contemporary one, so in any garden it will look just perfect. As one flush of blooms fades, it is replaced by new ones, in a succession of rich, wonderful tones.

Planting Location

Plant the Peach Drift Rose in full sun, in ordinary soil. Roses prefer a soil that is neither always dry, nor always wet. They grow best in richer, heavier clay soils, which give them more nutrients and water than light, sandy soils. Dig into the soil plenty of rich organic material before planting and using a rose fertilizer regularly will keep those gorgeous flowers coming and coming. If you are growing these roses in planter boxes or pots, make sure they have drainage holes, and mix some of your garden soil with regular potting soil for them to grow in. About one-part soil to two-parts potting soil is about right. Use a liquid rose food regularly for the best results.

Care and Maintenance

Some simple pruning in spring, when you see the new buds beginning to swell, but before the leaves appear, will give you top-quality results, but even plants left untrimmed will grow just fine. Simply trim off most of the smallest branches, and old flower heads. Remove a few inches of the tip of the strongest branches and cut thinner branches closer to the base. Always cut just above a healthy bud. Your plants will grow rapidly in spring and before you know it, they will be back in bloom. When the last bloom in a cluster finishes, cut back to the first full-sized leaf, to encourage more and more flowers. The glossy leaves always look healthy, and they will never become unsightly, because this plant has been carefully bred to resist all the common rose diseases. Diseases like Mildew, Black Spot, and Rust will become history in your garden when you grow the Coral Drift® Rose.

History and Origins of the Coral Drift® Rose

The Coral Drift® Rose is a top pick among a new group of roses that are causing a sensation in the gardening world. Called Drift® Roses, these great plants were created by the famous French rose-breeding family Meilland. Drift Roses have been bred to grow as broad but low mounds, rather than growing upright, or spreading across the ground. The variety patented in 2008 by Alain Meilland under the name `Meidrifora’, is the rose we call Coral Drift®. It is a three-way hybrid, involving an old miniature rose from the 1930s, called ‘The Fairy’. Pollen was taken to fertilize a plant of ‘The Fairy’ from a seedling created by crossing a rose from 1879 called ‘KORmax’ but usually called Max Graf, and a seedling created from other roses by the Meillands.

Among the plants grown from this three-way cross was a superb, endlessly-flowering, disease resistant rose which we now have as Coral Drift®. The emphasis in creating this rose was on constant blooming and disease-resistance, and they succeeded in both areas. If you have grown roses in the past, and found them difficult and unreliable, now is the time to begin again, with a rose that will give you so much, and ask for so little.

We have good supplies of the Coral Drift® Rose, because we know how enormous the demand is. This is one of the most exciting of all the Drift Roses, but why not mix it with some of the others great varieties we offer? We know our stock of these plants will soon be gone, so be among the first to enjoy these plants in your garden. Order now or run the risk of missing out.