Ann Hooper is the owner of Primary Products. She's been growing roses for more than 30 years, and has a large garden at her home in eastern Massachusetts. As a Past President of the New England Rose Society, a past regional Director for the American Rose Society, and an American Rose Society-certified Consulting Rosarian, Ann's rose culture experience and ongoing research allows her to seek out and recommend the most effective rose care products. Her rose culture advice, on the website, in the catalog, and in her Rose-E-Tips newsletter helps Primary Products customers get the very most out of their roses.

This page features some information and photos that Primary Products customers might find interesting.

Ann's Garden

So many of our customers have asked to see photos of my garden, I'm beginning to think you don't believe I really grow roses at all. So here's the proof. I warned you that I grow my roses like soldiers, in long, straight beds. It's not much in the way of landscape architecture, but the beds are raised enough to keeps the roots well away from my high water table, are straight enough to be easily covered for winter with my waferboard tents, and are high enough to keep the grassy weeds from encroaching.

The two hybrid tea beds are each 56 feet long
and 4 feet wide. This is first bloom, at peak,
on June 20, 2004.

Here's Fester, the pigeon-toed gargoyle, on the diving board. Just behind him is Gourmet Popcorn in full bloom, June 18, 2004.

 

 

 

And here, in all its glory, is my first rose arrangement of the season. Uncle Charlie is in the background. These roses are BIG, probably the biggest I've ever grown. The arrangement stands at 37 inches, from tabletop to Cary Grant at the top center. The varieties include Touch of Class, Moonstone, Veterans Honor, Olympiad, Crystalline, Tineke, Sunset Celebration, Secret, Anticipation, Deborah Beggs Montcrief, Liebeszauber, Swarthmore, The Temptations, and a few I can't name at the moment. June 20, 2004.

 

 

Ann's Garden in Winter

This is how my hybrid tea beds look in winter. Each bed is covered with tents made of two 4' x 8' sheets of waferboard (like plywood, but cheaper and lighter) with three brass door hinges at the top. Each bed is 56 feet long, so it takes seven tents to cover each bed. Then I nail a waferboard triangle at each end of the bed to keep the wind out.

Although you can't see it here, the tents are painted with aluminum-colored paint to reflect the sun away from the beds. This helps keeps the plants inside from getting too warm on sunny winter days.

The lawn guys put the tents on the beds on Thanksgiving weekend. The roses are dormant by then, and will stay so all winter. The tents come off in mid-April and the roses are pruned, sprayed, and fertilized at that time, beginning the season-long pest and disease prevention program and the fertilizing regimen.

If I don't fall down on the job, the plants stay bug and disease free all season long.

This is a shot of the front garden. It's taken me several years to find good, winter hardy roses, but the plants growing here make it through winter with no protection at all.