Tuesday, June 28, 2011

June Roses

I thought, I would have to skip the post about my roses blooming in June, because I have not been at home in the first two weeks of this month, so I could not deadhead and I also did not fertilize the roses for ages. But happily I have to say that I am wrong. Of course, the roses do not flower as prolifically as they could because of my neglect, but they bloom and they even were capable of producing some very beautiful flowers here and there.

Unfortunately I missed the very first real flush of blooms of my new yellow rose 'Charles Darwin', when I was on vacation. The bush was full of buds before I left and when I came home I only found dried up brown flowers. But when I was watering today I saw that he is making new buds, so hopefully I will be able to admire the next round of blooms soon. Going through my photos to pick some for this post I notice more and more how much I do miss the color yellow in my rose collection, so I hardly can wait until 'Charles Darwin', 'Jude the Obscure', and the 'Crocus Rose' (all three roses are bought in the winter as teeny tiny bands and none of them have flowered yet) are cranking out some blooms.

Here is a selection of the best rose flowers of the last two weeks of this month:

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)


'Yolande d'Aragon' growing in a position shaded by some of her own leaves.




Another shot of 'Yolande d'Aragon', this time the bloom is opening in full sun light. I just love this Old Garden Rose! The rose is growing on its own roots and she is very vigorous in my climate so far and reasonably healthy. Fragrance is to die for!



'Frederic Mistral' grown on its own roots. I still have not planted this rose in the ground, which is a shame. The rose is so pot bound in its five gallon container, but despite this pleasing me with flowers like this. The blooms are very fragrant and it seems to be a very vigorous Hybrid Tea in my climate. 



'William Shakespeare 2000' one of my favorite magenta colored roses in the moment. It has a great fragrance, too, but unfortunately suffers from an attack of powdery mildew badly right now. That can take out the fun, even of the most beautiful roses! I hope, that the disease resistance improves with age.



'Scepter'd Isle', a David Austin rose, growing on her own roots. I just love the delicate blooms, which are surprisingly tough in terms of heat resistance. She is just coming into her own for me.




Picture taken of the same two flowers as seen in the previous photo one or two days later. I just love the flower form, so elegant and perfect, but there is still a relaxed, cottage look about them. 



'Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux'. This Tea rose drives me crazy! I think, it is the most beautiful Tea rose that I have with flowers so elegant that it is hard to put in words. The coloration is so refined and subtle that it will wow the most picky rose connoisseur. I caught myself staring at her and just getting lost in time and space. For these moments we grow roses, don't we? She needs the warms to blooms well, but fries quickly in the heat. So the lovely bloom that you see on the photo will be toast by 12:00 or 1:00 pm at the latest. What am I going to do with her? Keeping her or not?



'Mme. Caroline Testout'. This early Hybrid Tea rose, bred 1890, is also fairly new to me. I grow her own roots like most of my roses and she only lives in a one gallon container. Even though still little she is showing now her signature beautiful, big, globular flowers with a blowsy bloom form on a regular base. What a contrast between the modern exhibition style Hybrid Tea flower form and the shape of this one. I guess, every serious rose exhibitor will run away, but I love, love, love her. Can you see the beauty in this one?



'Rose de Rescht' a very lovely Portland Rose. This beauty I really need to plant somewhere where it gets some shade, since she is struggling with the heat of summer here in Southern California and her flowers are wilting quickly. Otherwise a wonderful easy to grow Old Garden Rose with a very heavy damask perfume.



'Grandmother's Hat' hiding under her own leaves. Smart girl! It almost looks like she has produced her own sun umbrella. Lovely found rose, but she is also not particular heat resistant in terms of her flowers, they just wilt. The leaves do fine, though, and are pretty healthy. So she stays and we wait together for cooler temperatures to come back, again.




The photo above shows a bloom of 'Grandmother's Hat that grows in full sun (the photo is taken early in the morning, when the light was casting still a lot of shade). As you can see the color is a much darker pink than the blooms in the previous photo. This rose is changing quite a bit in color depending on the weather conditions, which I find interesting and charming. 'Grandmother's Hat' was certainly at her best in spring here in my garden, but she is fairly new to me and I am curious what she will do in fall and even in winter. She is supposed to almost bloom year round in my climate.




After all these photos of roses in muted colors I would like to finish strong with the bright red 'Mister Lincoln', caught in the perfect moment regards the opening stage of its flower. This is another rose I am going back and forth with, if I should keep it or not. Its red color is a true clear and bright red when the rose opens and "too red" for my taste at that point and it really clashes with almost all of my other roses,...



... but 'Mister Lincoln' fades to a, in my eyes, very attractive blue-ish, dark magenta red color (my camera did not get it completely, but you can see definitively a big difference in the color of this "aged" little bouquet of 'Mister Lincoln' in the photo above) and the fragrance is heavenly. This rose perfumes a room, if you take it inside of the house. For now he will stay, but I am not so sure about the future.

In the process of selecting photos for this post I thought to myself that my roses really deserve another round of fertilizer for blooming so willingly despite a very lean diet. So I started out to feed and mulch again, all 77 of them. That is quite an undertaking in this current heat! 

See you in the garden!

Christina



12 comments:

  1. Lovely pinks and purples ! I would be very happy, to have so many roses in my garden, at the end of June...

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  2. Oh my, once again your lovely, wonderful roses have me oooohing and aaaahing.

    How wonderful to have so much beauty and delightful scents surrounding you.

    FlowerLady

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  3. Dani, thanks for your comment. Even though it may sound like a paradox, because it is the beginning of summer usually this is not the best time for roses here in my garden, so yes I am very grateful to have these lovelies blooming for me this month.

    Flowerlady, you always leave the nicest comments! To me personally the fragrance of the roses almost has become as important as "their looks". It increases the pleasure of growing roses so much! I am almost inclined not to buy roses without scent anymore.

    Christina

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  4. All your pictures of gorgeous old roses didn't prepare me for a shot of Mr. Lincoln at the end:). I think it is good to have variety, especially if you also like fragrant roses, so I say keep him. Interesting that your WS2000 has mildew, mine never have it.... It could be because of the stress of being in a pot too. I hope it does better for you with some maturity. Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux is stunning!

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  5. You have some very lovely roses. But, please put Freddy in the ground! ;)

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  6. Masha, thanks for visiting again! Mister Lincoln at the end of this post is quite shocking, isn't he :-)? It calms me down that your William Shakespeare 2000 does not have powdery mildew problems. So hopefully you are right and my rose is just a little bit "pot stressed". Another one that needs to be transplanted, sigh... It makes me happy that you also think that Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux is stunning.

    Holley, thanks, I am glad that you like my roses. I will put Freddy in the ground as soon as I can, promised :-)!

    Christina

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  7. Christina, I have to say you have more beautiful roses than I do! I don't know how that happened but I need to fix that. With the exception of the new bloom of Mr. Lincoln, I really love every single rose you've featured. Your garden just keeps getting better!

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  8. Ingrid, thanks for your compliments! I am pleased that you love my roses, except that I disagree with you that my roses are nicer than yours :-)!

    Christina

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  9. What a great Welcome Home your garden gave you, Christina! Such beauties. They missed you.

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  10. Sherry, thanks for commenting. I am very grateful that my "watering girls" took such good care of the garden during my absence. I think, the water kept the garden going and the blooms coming! I would hire them again any day!

    Christina

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  11. Christina - I didn't see a way to email you, so I'll just tell you here, thank you for visiting my blog and your kind comments. We live where the tropics begin so are able to grow some great plants. Alas, though, I can't grow what all of you northern gardeners can for a true cottage garden, so I go with the flow, creating my own.

    Have a great holiday weekend ~ FlowerLady

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  12. Flowerlady, thanks for your message! I wanted to put up a possibility to e-mail me on my blog for a long time, but I just don't seem to get to it :-(.
    I love your very inspiring blog and seeing all the tropical plants that you grow that I can't, because even though it is hot it is too dry for them here in SoCa. I also like all the DIY projects that you and your husband are up to. Looking forward to your next posts!

    Christina

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