leene_chan | The Rose That Almost Wasn't.

Griffith Buck Rose "Prairie Sunrise." by Leenechan

Griffith Buck Rose "Prairie Sunrise.", a photo by Leenechan on Flickr.

Rescued from the jaws of death, it's Griffith Buck Rose "Prairie Sunrise!"

This rose had been giving us problems for a long time. We got it as a small band with good roots from Northland Rosarium in August 2011, along with the "Quietness" that turned out to be "Silver Shadows."

It's probably the slowest growing rose we have. Right now it's only 7 inches tall. It suffered canker in the early spring and was literally down to one cane when we decided to dig it up and give it a chance as a pot baby.

It has an impressive rootball for such a small rose!

It's attempted to bloom twice this summer, but we disbudded it in the hope of encouraging it to fill out some more. We figured we should be allowed to see one flower, though. And it is pretty. We'll probably pinch the buds that follow until it fills out the pot with growth.

It's probably no less vigorous than "Julia Child," but we started with "Julia" as a gallon. We're probably going to dig up and pot up "Julia" as well, though. If it suffers any winter dieback this year there isn't going to be anything left.