For Mother's Day, 2009, I was given a Climbing Pinkie Earth-Kind® Rose by my children. Now, almost a year later you can see it has grown really large! It had spots in November, but I ignored them. It wasn't bothered by the snow and temperatures in the 20s. I have not pruned it nor given it any special watering or fertilizing. I do mulch the entire bed. Now in April it is bursting out with beautiful, fragrant pink roses about 3 inches wide when fully overblown.

The Earth-Kind Rose Program was developed by Dr. Steve George and Texas A&M University. This is an excellent article about the formation and initial findings of the program, and this is a PowerPoint from A&M.

I was thinking I might need to prune it but from reading more it sounds like I don't need to, so perhaps this year I will just let it go and see what happens! It has just begun to reach the top of the fence, so hopefully my neighbor will get to enjoy them, too.

Links cited:

http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/article.phtml?cat=7&id=890

aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkind/roses/media/EKRoses.ppt