There some new varieties of rose bushes have made their way into the Texas Hill Country; they are the Carpet, Drift and ground cover variety roses.   These roses follow many of the same high quality performances habits of the Knock out Roses, in fact the Drift variety is from the same developer.  These roses are disease and insect resistant low maintenance in that they do not have to be deadheaded regularly (but like any flowering plant, the plants perform better when they are maintained),  The Drift rose bush blooms in a cluster of buds.  The Carpet rose from Monrovia provides some amazing colors and beautiful plants.  Backbone Valley Nursery just west of Marble Falls has a great selection of roses year round and carries a huge selection of Monrovia plants. 

2015 - I uploaded an updated picture of some of our Drift, Carpet, and Double Knock Out roses, and even a few Jackson Perkins roses are mixed in.  The Carpet and Drift roses got much larger this year than anticipated (or stated on the tags) and will require a lot more trimming than we initially thought.  Winter pruning will be a lot more significant that we did last February. 


The harsh freezing temperatures (this year) with the unusually warm days mixed in have made for a very unique challenge for central Texas gardeners.  To better help our plants it is a great practice to treat your plants with a SUPERthrive solution mix.  SUPERthrive is a beneficial plant vitamin solution that helps DE-stress your plants and provide nutrients to help them make it through the winter or even the heat of a summer. 
This SUPERthrive mix/solution has repeatedly show to will help the plants through the cold Hill Country Texas winters.  Do not add liquid fertilizer as the nitrogen ingredients that make up the fertilizer are more likely to freeze and cause capillaries in the plants to freeze and possibly burst - thus either killing or significantly damaging your plants.  Keeping plant beds moist will also be beneficial as it typically does not freeze deep into the soils as it my in northern areas. 
Plastic covers on most plants will cause more damage than benefits.  Light sheets or cloth tarps are much better in protecting the plants from the chill and allow the plants to breath vs. sweat. 

Wrap extra sensitive plants with incandescent mini-holiday (not LED) lights under tarps or without tarps as they provide some warmth and not burn the plant or the tarps. 
A good hint is to stop organic fertilizing of plants around the mid-September time frame (synthetic fertilizer should stop mid-August or earlier) and and do not begin using fertilizers again until after the potential of the last freeze.  Low nitrogen organic fertilizers can usually being treatment use after mid-March.