Rose, peony and clematis  

Listing last updated on Wed Apr 2025

Des Moines, Iowa 50321
United States

I consider myself an eclectic rose collector.  I am reaching almost 1000 rose separate varieties and have no desire to stop because I can't stop myself.  I am not good at shovel pruning because what if this is the year they actually do well.  I'll let nature decide who is worthy or not - and then try to replace it when nature says no.

I grow practically anything that is interesting, or not interesting, big, or small, thorny, thornless, and anything inbetween.  I like them short, and tall, bushy and climbing, reblooming and not reblooming.  My favorite ones are the ones that have colors (so yeah all of them).  The classes I grow include hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, miniatures, mini-floras, large flowered climbers, ramblers, shrubs, bourbons, hybrid perpetuals, damasks, polyanthas, rugosas and species (I am sure I missed a few)

I have started to pair clematis with climbing and taller shrub roses.  This pairing can be amazing and can extend the blooming in a single space when a once-blooming rose has a repeat or late blooming clematis with them. I plan to add more of these as well. 

I only have a handful of peonies at this time.  I am planning on expanding the number of peonies I grow so as to create a peony cutting garden. Stay tuned!

I live in Des Moines with a medium sized yard (1/4 acre) and am hopefully going to find more land soon - yes all my babies will come with me. The soil is loamy clay, but I am slowly improving that. Most of the roses are grown on their own roots so I don't have to worry about harsh winter conditions killing the bud unions on my roses. The few budded plants I do have (usually bought this way because they are not available with their own roots) are planted deeper so that the bud union is between 1 and 2 inches below the surface.  Usually they become own rooted this way.

My main concern about my roses is winter care. Winters can be quite cold and I spend each fall making sure I put my roses to sleep properly. I have employed several methods using leaves donated by my neighbors. For my tender roses I used to only mound the leaves all around each rose bush. I have since found that using cement curing blankets on the beds insulated them enough to the point where I usually do not have any winter kill.  For the ones that are not located in the mass rose beds, I wrap pieces of fiberglass insulation around the base before winter and remove them at the end.  I usually only have to remove the exposed parts of the plants.

I have tried to collect as many of the Buck and Brownell roses as I can find. This is mainly because they are what I started with when I first got into growing roses despite being advised not to. The plants were pretty pathetic when I got them, but I had them blooming on great looking plants by summer's end. I am always looking to expand my Buck and Brownell collection so if any of you out there have some of his roses that I don't have, I'm begging you to send them my way.