Saturday, October 29, 2011

October Roses

This month has been yet again a good month for my roses here in San Diego. The climbing roses like 'Zephirine Drouhin' and 'Pierre de Ronsard' are already mostly done for this season and the Hybrid Perpetuals like 'Baronne Prevost', 'Yolande d'Aragon', 'Reine des Violettes', and 'Grandmother's Hat' did not repeat this autumn, but since this is their first year in the ground that may improve in one or two years. But Floribundas like 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' and 'Iceberg' are blooming their heads off as well as some of my Hybrid Tea roses like 'Pope John Paul II', 'Bewitched' or 'Sweetness'. The Tea rose 'Georgetown Tea' is also producing a full new flush. How great is that! Admittedly autumn is not my favorite season, but I love how my roses responded with better bloom shape and color to the cooler weather.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)



The opening rose of this post is 'Belinda's Dream'. I just casually plopped one bloom in my hyacinth vase and voila great beauty is achieved! The perfection of the flower blows me away each time when I look at the bloom. I also love the muted pastel-pink color of the rose. It is a good variety for hot climates and in my garden the foliage is very healthy. The rose comes with a to my nose light fragrance, which matches the light pink color and is very pleasant.



Only last year I started to grow Miniature roses. I don't know why I was not considering them earlier, because they are so beautiful and versatile to use. On the photo above you can see 'Old Fashioned Girl'. Because it got water logged at least twice in its young life the rose had a rough start in my garden, but lately it has grown enough to be planted in a nice bigger terracotta container and now it rewards me with its first "real flush" of blooms. The flowers last exceptionally long on the bush, have a lovely white color with an apricot tint. The only drawback that I found so far is that there is no fragrance, even though this rose is supposed to be very fragrant. I have read that sometimes it takes a rose three years to develop its full potential in the fragrance department, so I guess there is still hope.



This is a close-up of a bloom of 'Old Fashioned Girl'. I just wonder why this rose is not more popular. Besides the lovely flowers its foliage is very clean in my garden.



'Baronne Edmond de Rothschild' is still a young Hybrid Tea rose growing own root in a one gallon pot. So far she made it to produce some stunning flowers already. I really like the white/silverish reverse on this rose. The fragrance is lovely, too. I am looking forward to seeing this baby become more mature.



'Pierre de Ronsard'. I have two of these great French roses. One is not blooming anymore and seem to have no intentions to change this this autumn, but the other, which is in an a more shady location is still able to produce a few of those gorgeous, sumptuous blooms. Go figure!




'White Meidiland' is classified as a shrub rose. I believe this will become a very elegant rose as it matures. I can never get enough of white roses. Do you? 'White Meidiland' is supposed to be very disease resistant, but in my garden it has shown a little bit of powdery mildew. Hopefully this happened because the rose was "pot stressed" and will disappear as soon as the rose will be planted into the ground.



'Jilly Jewel' is another of my relatively new Miniature roses. It was not doing well for a while sitting too long in a too small container. But since I replanted it is has come around nicely. I love the very delicate light pink blooms. This Miniature is said to be moderately fragrant, but oddly I cannot detect any fragrance at all so far. I read that it is used in the cut flower industry, so it must be a good fast repeating rose, I guess.



Another photo of 'Belinda's Dreams' this time in the bud stage and on the bush. I found the water drops particularly pretty in this shot.



A spray of blooms of my favorite Tea rose right now: 'Georgetown Tea'. I just cannot get enough of the delicate very elegant blooms. Tea roses have very special bloom shapes and are certainly not satisfying for the "typical" Hybrid Tea exhibitor, but I happen to love them. I am really thankful that I discovered this great class of roses and consider to plant quite a few more in my garden in the future.



'Pope John Paul II' is in a full new flush right now and giving me these white gorgeous blooms that are really close to perfection. I did cut two flowers for indoors and they are sitting right next to me while I am working on this post and the fragrance is truly stunning.




'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' is also a newer David Austin rose in my garden. I bought it because it is supposed to have a very special shade of pink, but so far I have to say I am not impressed by the color. When I smelled it today I decidedly did not like the fragrance that my nose perceived. So far it is unheard of me not liking a rose fragrance. So what is up with this?



'Bewitched' has given me another full flush of her great blooms. They are so good cut flowers. I happily noticed that her foliage is healthier now. It was suffering from powdery mildew lately, again. Nonetheless it is a great rose in my opinion and I won't be without it. 



'William Shakespeare 2000' was also able to shrug of the powdery mildew and pleased me with its beautiful blooms. 


I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the rose bounty that my garden was giving me this month. 

Wishing you all a great rest of the weekend and Happy Halloween on Monday!
See you in the garden!

Christina

16 comments:

  1. Rigtig gode billeder.
    Hvor har du dog mange smukke Roser. Det er lige før man kan mærke duften.
    Tak for kigget.

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  2. Landbohaven, welcome to my blog, so nice to have someone from Denmark visiting! Thanks for your compliment, I am happy that you like my photos and my roses :-)!

    Christina

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  3. I am so very gelouse !!! So many roses, Christina, and so perfect ! I like them all ...

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  4. Dear Christina ~ Once again your beautiful roses having me turn a shade of green. You are blessed with such a wonderful variety of them, and it would be hard to have a favorite.

    'Baronne Edmond de Rothschild' is very striking, and I think 'Old Fashioned Girl' is very sweet.

    It is always a lovely treat to visit your gardens and see all of your beauties. Too bad I can take in all of their wonderful scents as well.

    Have a great week ~ FlowerLady

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  5. Oh, lovely blooms! I laughed at you not liking CRM's fragrance. I wonder what underlying scent it has that you don't like. It's a gorgeous rose. Maybe its scent will change over the three years? I've never heard that, but it makes sense. I also love your Pierre de Ronsard. Belinda's Dream is lovely!

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  6. Dani, thanks, I am glad you like my roses!

    FlowerLady, thanks again for leaving a very nice comment! I also feel blessed that I am able to grow all these lovely roses, how many people aren't? I am happy that I am able to share them over my blog with everyone who wants to see them. Have a good week, too!

    Holley, yeah, the fragrance of 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' is really wired to my nose. I will go out today and see if I can identify what exactly in the fragrance is so repelling to me. 'Pierre de Ronsard' is one of my best and most beautiful roses and 'Belinda's Dream' seems to be very good too, as to what I have seen so far of her.

    Christina

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  7. Christina, it's October, actually it is almost November, but your roses are still amazing! Great pictures! I love the blue&white balls in the first picture and the water dropes on the petals. Thank you!

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  8. Thanks for your kind comment, Tatyana! Actually here in Southern California we can get still a few good roses until the end of the year if the weather is a team player and we haven't pruned them back at that time, yet.
    The blue and white ceramic balls are a souvenir from our last trip to San Francisco. I also like them quite a bit and they hold very fond memories for me :-)!

    Christina

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  9. Christina, such beautifully vibrant autumn blooms! Wow!

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  10. redneckrosarian, thanks for your nice compliment!

    Christina

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  11. Jednak róże są piękne... uwielbiam je.
    Pozdrawiam Gabi...

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  12. Hi Gabi, welcome to my blog and thanks for becoming a follower and leaving a comment. I am happy that you like my roses :-)!

    Christina

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  13. Wow a lot of roses and how beatiful you have captured them. Are they all having a scent?
    Have a nice weekend
    Marijke

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  14. Marijke, thank you very much for your nice comment! All roses that I have shown in this post have a more or less strong fragrance except 'Jilly Jewel'. Scent is very important to me, so I am trying to select my roses other than for the color, bloom shape, and disease resistance for fragrance as well. Wishing you a nice weekend, too!

    Christina

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  15. Lovely roses, Christina! A lot of my roses are slowing down too, and I am actually looking forward to winter pruning :). I love your pictures of Belinda's Dream and White Meidiland, pure perfection.

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  16. Thanks Masha, I always feel flattered when you like pictures that I took :-)! Can't say for myself that I am looking forward to the winter pruning. Since I have many more roses now and they have grown a lot it will be a heck of a work, but of course so worth it and spring will reimburse me for any effort that I put into the roses in winter.

    Christina

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