Wednesday, August 31, 2011

August Roses

Despite August being the hottest month of summer, this year most of my roses continued to flower, instead of stopping the bloom production and just going into survival mode until it cools down. Why is it different this year? I will never know for sure, but there are some components that might have contributed to a nice rosy August. First of all the month was not as hot as usual for our neck of the woods, even though we definitely had a couple of very hot days, where some rose flowers even fried. Also many of my roses are now planted in the ground for the third or the fourth year and I think, they have developed a fairly good root system, which gets them through the heat.  In addition to that this year I fertilized my roses not only in early spring, but after the first big rose flush was over. I really believe that did the trick. My soil seems to be so poor in nutrients that the roses simply need a second serving of fertilizer before the summer kicks in. In the following I post some photos of roses that had flowered in my garden this month.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)



'Baronne Edmund de Rothschild' is a new Hybrid Tea rose. She is growing on her own roots and is doing well so far. Do you notice the white reverse on the back of the rose petals? I think, this can become a very pretty rose once it is more mature.




'Irresistible', the famous miniature rose. It almost died on me, but now comes around and grows quite nicely. This is her first bloom. It is always very exciting for me to see the very first bloom of a new rose in my garden.



'Herbie' another new miniature rose. The first blooms looked quite promising.



'William Shakespeare 2000' is another rose that seem to love the heat. I am glad that it is not mildewing anymore. The leaves have some insect damage as you can see but in an organic, no-spray garden this is not avoidable. I can live with this usually pretty well. 



'The Prince' so far I can do what I want my camera is not capable to capture the color of this rose accurately. Imagine the bloom is much darker than my photo shows. I love this rose for the deep bluish red color, but this is one of my rose varieties that fries easily in the heat.




'Sweetness' withstands the heat very well. It pumps out one gorgeous perfect rose after the other and is still completely disease free. If it has one flaw than this is that the repeat is not as quick as I would like it to be, but it is understandable that the rose needs some time to recover after one flush of these very big beautiful blooms.



'The Crocus Rose' is also a new own root rose. It mildews like crazy, but still made it do produce its very first bloom. I like the flower a lot. Hopefully the mildew subsides!



'Bewitched'. One of my most reliable Hybrid Tea roses for providing me with very fragrant cut flowers. She is re-blooming very quickly for a Hybrid Tea rose after one flush is over.



Climbing Devoniensis. This rose is still in a container, but the blooms that it delivers are getting bigger and bigger. I love everything about this rose, the subtle elegant color, the for a Tea rose relatively strong fragrance, the floriferousness except that it is susceptible to mildew so far. 



'Georgetown Tea' another one of my Tea Roses. The elegance of the unfolding buds of this variety is hard to beat in my opinion. I love the delicate dark veining of the back of the petals.



'Mister Lincoln'. This Hybrid Tea rose continues to churn out very fragrant, red, high-quality bloom on long stems. They are really great for cutting. It is a very good Hybrid Tea rose in my climate, but I have heard that it really needs the heat to bloom well.



'Memorial Day', fully open flower.  I like the ruffled petals quite a bit, but I am sure it is not everyone's cup of tea.



'Memorial Day' at an early opening stage. This rose has an incredible strong fragrance.



My 'Icebergs' are also quite heat tolerant. You can always count on the 'Iceberg' roses here in Southern California. They may get powdery mildew at times, but their ability to bloom is not affected by that.



'Our Lady of Guadalupe' producing clusters of blooms and blooms and blooms. It is truly a great rose in my garden.

See you in the garden!

Christina



15 comments:

  1. So many roses ... Love the " Crocus Rose " ... Wonderful color and shape .

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  2. Oh my goodness Christina ~ I love all of the roses pictured in this post! My favorites though are The Prince and William Shakespeare 2000.

    I have a tad bit of rose envy going on this morning. Shame on me.

    Thank you for sharing all of this wonderful beauty from your lovely gardens.

    FlowerLady

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  3. What a wonderful assortment of roses!!!

    Our summer was hotter than normal, but we had regular rain (for the most part) so the roses are going into fall in really good shape. As always, the Teas and Chinas are the stars of summer, but many of my climbers bloomed really well in August.

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  4. Jennifer@threedogsinagarden
    So many pretty roses! I especially like the 'Prince' and the 'William Shakespeare' roses.

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  5. These are gorgeous! That photo of Climbing Devoniensis has made me decide to put it on my list of 'must have' roses!

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  6. Dani, The 'Crocus Rose' is one of my favorites, too. I just wish she could stop to mildew!

    FlowerLady, thanks for your nice comment! Looks like we are sharing a weakness for dark blue-ish red roses with many petals. I grow 'The Prince' and 'William Shakespeare 2000' own root and they do well. I know that you have problems with nematodes in Florida, but own root roses should work for you, so you could grow them, too. That might help with the rose envy :-)!

    Connie, thanks! It is really great that you got regular rain this summer. I am sure your roses appreciate this. I hear this over and over again that Tea Roses are the best in hot summer, but so far this is not really evident in terms of the few that I grow in comparison to the roses belonging to other classes. But I only recently planted one Tea Rose in the ground ('Georgetown Tea') and the rest is waiting for that in pots. I am curious to see if there is a difference in floriferousness when they are planted into the ground and can stretch their legs! Only time will tell...

    Jennifer, thanks for visiting my blog! I am glad that you like my roses. You are the second commenter especially fond of 'The Prince' and 'William Shakespeare 2000' already. I can only agree these two roses are very lovely.

    Holley, Climbing Devoniensis has absolutely lovely bloom. The delicacy is hard to describe this rose always catches my heart when it flowers. I am glad that you put it on your 'must have' rose list.

    Christina

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  7. So beautiful, Christina, and so many. OLOG is wonderful! And I had no idea Georgetown Tea is that gorgeous shade of pink. Your red Austins are breathtaking. You must be thrilled with your blooms. Beauty and diversity. Great roses.

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  8. Sherry, thanks for your very positive and motivating comment! Actually you are right, I just realized that I am happy with my roses this August. I am very curious to see how 'Georgetown Tea' develops itself now that it is in the ground. I got my rose from Vintage Gardens and have read that they sell a clone that is definitively different from others on the (rose-)market, which are most likely 'Mme. Lombard'. For me so far the color of GT has always been a clear almost cool pink, which I love. No apricot or copper under tones.

    Christina

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  9. Hi Christina - Your roses are simply beautiful! I particularly like the Georgetown Tea and 'Sweetness'- so pretty! I'm such a novice gardener I only have icebergs at this stage. If I can manage them through the upcoming summer without any disaster then I will treat myself to another rose - something different :)

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  10. TheGardeningBlog, I am happy that you like my roses. Actually I started also with Iceberg roses many years ago (and I am still growing seven of them) and then the "rose-thingy" was getting a little bit out of hand... Be careful that can also happen to you :-)!

    Christina

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  11. What a variety! Number 6 from the top has such a 'vintage' color!

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  12. August looks wonderful in your garden. I am glad so many of your roses are doing so well. I love the Prince, I wish I had more room :). How is your MEC doing?

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  13. Tatyana, thanks for stopping by, again! Funny that you named the color of the 'Sweetness' rose 'vintage'. Would have never occurred to me, but it describes the color very well.

    Masha, so glad to see you commenting again! Yes, this August has been nice in my garden. 'The Prince' is one of my favorite roses, too. The color is just sooo... special and my photo does not do its beauty justice. My 'Mme. Ernst Calvat' rose got more and more cane die-back even after it was re-potted back into a container. At a certain point I couldn't take it anymore and throw it away. But I have another one waiting in the pot ghetto :-)!

    Christina

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  14. Wow! Your roses and foiliage are gorgeous! Late summer and fall blooms are among the best!

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  15. redneckrosarian, thanks for stopping by again and your compliment! Well, not all of my roses have good foliage right now, but despite that most of them still bloom beautifully. I agree, fall blooms can be very good and I am looking forward to more flowers.

    Christina

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