Roses in the High and Dry
Recently an older woman from up the street a way stopped by while I was out in the driveway, and as she welcomed us to the neighborhood she told me "I'm the rose lady". I knew which house she meant. She never did give her name, but I know her garden from walking past it and admiring the small courtyard of roses.
I was surprised when I first started visiting the nurseries in Santa Fe to find they all sell roses. Not just a few specimens, but whole sections devoted to roses.
There would be an area marked "native plants", an area of grasses and succulents, and a woody plant section offering limited dry-loving container trees and evergreens. Then, next to these standby offerings, each nursery had a big area marked "roses" with dozens of rose selections.
Roses are big here.
The Santa Fe Botanical Garden, renowned for its native and waterwise plants, has a whole display garden of pink shrub roses mixed with lavenders, and it is lovely. They have climbers and ramblers that thrive. I realized that roses, while not native, are well suited to Santa Fe gardens.
They need amended soil and drip watering -- almost everything here does. The entire botanical garden is fully irrigated for all its plants. Roses need deep but not frequent water, and they never like overhead water on their foliage, so it suits them just fine to live where water hardly ever falls out of the sky.
Dry air keeps diseases at bay and gardeners find roses easy to grow without a lot of the pesticides and fungicides and fuss needed elsewhere, although there's a danger of powdery mildew in some varieties here if soil is allowed to get too, too dry.
Roses like a lot of sun, but they don't do well in high heat, so Santa Fe's summers are in their sweet spot. We have lots of sun but our 7,000 foot montane climate keeps summers cooler than down below.
Roses like it here. All types are grown, including lots of delicately colored pink and white and blush ones, but also, of course, lots of southwestern reds and oranges and yellows.
When we moved in to our house, the courtyard had gangly rose bushes that had not been trimmed or tended in a while. I took them all out. I'm not a rose lover, and these were old and I wanted other things in the spaces they were taking up.
I was surprised that the former owners, who didn't really garden, had been growing roses. Now it makes sense. They are undemanding, popular plants for Santa Fe gardens, easily found at all the nurseries, and despite the association in our minds with English gardens and fussy care, they love it in the high and dry.
I might plant a rose this spring.
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I was surprised when I first started visiting the nurseries in Santa Fe to find they all sell roses. Not just a few specimens, but whole sections devoted to roses.
 |
| Santa Fe Botanical Garden in summer |
There would be an area marked "native plants", an area of grasses and succulents, and a woody plant section offering limited dry-loving container trees and evergreens. Then, next to these standby offerings, each nursery had a big area marked "roses" with dozens of rose selections.
 |
| Rosa 'Golden Wings' Trouble free, and very photogenic, especially at dusk. |
Roses are big here.
The Santa Fe Botanical Garden, renowned for its native and waterwise plants, has a whole display garden of pink shrub roses mixed with lavenders, and it is lovely. They have climbers and ramblers that thrive. I realized that roses, while not native, are well suited to Santa Fe gardens.
 |
| 'New Dawn' climber at Santa Fe Botanical Garden. |
They need amended soil and drip watering -- almost everything here does. The entire botanical garden is fully irrigated for all its plants. Roses need deep but not frequent water, and they never like overhead water on their foliage, so it suits them just fine to live where water hardly ever falls out of the sky.
Dry air keeps diseases at bay and gardeners find roses easy to grow without a lot of the pesticides and fungicides and fuss needed elsewhere, although there's a danger of powdery mildew in some varieties here if soil is allowed to get too, too dry.
 |
| Rosa 'Pat Austin' An unusual bright copper color. |
Roses like a lot of sun, but they don't do well in high heat, so Santa Fe's summers are in their sweet spot. We have lots of sun but our 7,000 foot montane climate keeps summers cooler than down below.
Roses like it here. All types are grown, including lots of delicately colored pink and white and blush ones, but also, of course, lots of southwestern reds and oranges and yellows.
 |
| Rosa 'Julia Child' looks like butter. Of course it does. |
When we moved in to our house, the courtyard had gangly rose bushes that had not been trimmed or tended in a while. I took them all out. I'm not a rose lover, and these were old and I wanted other things in the spaces they were taking up.
 |
| Our kitchen courtyard when we moved in. The group of upright roses along the fence (including one that was fragrant and orange flowered) is gone now. |
I was surprised that the former owners, who didn't really garden, had been growing roses. Now it makes sense. They are undemanding, popular plants for Santa Fe gardens, easily found at all the nurseries, and despite the association in our minds with English gardens and fussy care, they love it in the high and dry.
I might plant a rose this spring.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Another surprise at the nurseries and all around town: fruit trees do really well here. Apples, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches -- lots and lots of them are planted and they seem to thrive in our dry, high elevation conditions. Further south in the state where it is reliably warmer, pecan and pistachio and other nut trees are a huge commercial enterprise. Here, in upland dry Santa Fe, apples and cherries and peaches and apricots are a thing. Fruiting, flowering trees, both for fruit and for ornamental purposes -- I did not expect that.
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