Who are we?
Our Mission
The Mission of the Gwinnett Rose Society is to encourage amateur and professional rose culture, to increase the general understanding of and interest in all aspects of roses, and to promote education of the horticulture, history, and future of the genus Rose among members of the GRS and the rose growing public.
Greater Atlanta Rose Society 2023 Rose Show
Consulting Rosarians
Bet
770 561 6846
Bobbie
770 979 4237
Nancy
770 331 7308
Rani
404 754 8350
My Favorite Roses
Carefree Beauty
By Bobbie Reed, Master Rosarian
770-979-4237
We were excited thirty years ago to have purchased our first home with a real yard where we could grow roses, although we knew almost nothing about which roses to grow or how to care for them. We heard about a nursery that sold antique and low-maintenance roses and asked for a catalog. Something else we didn’t know back then was that much of what appears in nursery catalogs is fiction at best. This time, however, we lucked out.
The rose we ordered was called “Katy Road Pink”, and had been found in a yard near Houston, Texas. Since the rose was just too good to ignore, it was adopted, given a study name, and spread across Texas and beyond. Beingose was identified as actually being ‘Carefree Beauty’.
‘Carefree Beauty’ has bubblegum pink flowers that are about four inches across. The blooms have 15-20 petals and open rapidly to a flat bloom. I would describe its fragrance as light and sweet, but some may find it stronger. It blooms from spring through fall on a bush that, depending on your pruning style, maybe six feet tall and six feet across. We have found the bush to be very disease resistant; it may have a few black spots if you choose not to spray, but the bush does not seem to care.
Believing the catalog description of the size of the bush, we planted it near our mailbox. While this gave us a wonderful treat each time we collected the mail, it outgrew its anticipated size, to at least six feet tall and six feet across, full of blooms. Then one day we received a strange note in the mail. Our letter carrier announced that since C.B. was scratching the paint on the postal truck, our mail would be held hostage until she was under control. Sadly, we pruned. No mail…. So, we kept pruning until eventually, our mail reappeared. Our bush was never quite so exuberant after that experience but thrived until she was run over by a tree trunk last year. Of course, we found a replacement right away. And you will find several bushes of ‘Carefree Beauty’ in our low care rose garden at Bogan Park.
‘Carefree Beauty’ was the invention of Dr. Griffith Buck of Iowa State University in 1969. He was looking for roses that could survive on the Great Plains, with blistering summers and cold frigid winters – not those tender hybrid teas that were all that was available then. It also occurred to him that your average gardener was none too fond of all the work involved in caring for those hybrid teas, and besides, he had no budget for such. Buck roses have become synonymous with hardy, durable roses that can stand up to whatever Mother Nature throws at them.
If you do not cut off spent blooms, you will find rose hips on your bush as big as cherry tomatoes. They are often fertile; ‘Carefree Beauty’ makes a good mother. This fact was not lost on hybridizers around the world. Will Radler, the hybridizer of ‘Knock Out’, began using ‘Carefree Beauty’ as a parent long before we bought ours. In fact, ‘Carefree Beauty’ is the grandmother of ‘Knock Out’. Other hybridizers using her include Meilland in France and Mike Shoup at the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas.
‘Carefree Beauty’ was recognized as one of the EarthKind Roses in field trials by Texas A&M University, as a rose that can be grown with no chemicals, no fertilizer, no pruning, minimal watering, and very little care. That came as no surprise to us. We had been propagating roses to share with Don’s co-workers at CDC, and ‘Carefree Beauty’ was one we could heartily recommend to both gardeners and non-gardeners alike as our favorite idiot-proof rose. The American Rose Society lists her as one of the top 20 shrub roses available, with a rating of 8.7 out of 10.
Everyone agrees that ‘Carefree Beauty’ lives up to her name. But most important to us is the glow in our hearts every time we drive by the mailbox and find yet another lovely pink bloom to grace our day.
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Have any questions? We are always here. Our Consulting and Master Rosarians are certified by the American Rose Society. They are delighted to answer your rose questions