March Roses

In the last one and a half weeks of this month some of my roses have been starting their spring flush. It is so nice to see roses blooming in the garden again, even though there are just a few flowers open yet, but with each day they become more. We are having relatively cool weather here, which is nice since it makes the flowers last a lot longer on the rose bushes.

'Grandmother's Hat' receives the honor to open this blog post, because she was the first rose of the ones planted in the ground beginning to flower this spring. I am just in love with her blooms and the fragrance is very seducing, too. 

This rose is a found rose and its true identity is unclear, but it is supposed to grow very well almost everywhere in California. I just can agree with that for my garden. It is completely clean despite the fact that I planted it in a little bit of too much shade and it is growing like gangbusters. 

   

On the photo above you can see the whole rose bush. For a rose that is approximately a year in the ground 'Grandmother's Hat' has put on quite a bit of size. The longer I grow roses the more important the look of the rose bush itself becomes to me and therefore I like to see bush shots of a rose before I make a decision to buy it. So I have decided to incorporate more "whole body"- rose pictures in my posts for you, my dear readers, too. Hope you find it beneficial!

Another first rose of the season: 'Pope John Paul II'. This is my favorite white Hybrid Tea rose. He is three years in the ground now and has gained some maturity. It looks like I will be getting an incredible spring flush from this rose.

This is 'Baronne Prevost'. The blooms are so sumptuous and lovely but the rose bush itself is a disaster in my garden (click here to see it in my previous post).




A flower spray of 'Marie Pavie'. She has her home in my front yard and is almost non-stop blooming year round here in my garden. That is wonderful, of course, but by now I found out that she has one drawback. Even with the relatively low temperatures that we are having her flower petals fry easily in the sunlight and they are also extremely sensitive to water be it from the rain or from the sprinklers. So there is a lot of deadheading to do, if I want this rose to be looking nice.




'Yolande d'Aragon' also starts to open its first cluster of blooms. This Old Garden Rose is so charming and incredible fragrant. Certainly one of my favorite Hybrid Perpetual roses. 

You can see some rain damage on the petals of the first flower of 'Sweetness', but I think it is still very pretty. 

First bloom of  'Zephirine Drouhin'. I am not such a fan of the flower shape of this rose, but the fragrance is outstanding.




A real jewel of a rose is 'Reine des Violettes', another Hybrid Perpetual. The color of this one is unmatched by any other rose that I have ever seen so far. It is just a very special matte violet with gray undertones. The rose is a diva, just like you would expect from a queen, but so far I put up with it because of its incredible beautiful blooms.




The last rose that I want to present in this post is 'Moonstone', a Hybrid Tea rose. Just recently I planted it from a two gallon container into the ground and the rose is growing fairly well now. This was the first bloom this year and it was so heavy that the cane which holds it broke off. I took it in and was surprised to notice a very distinct, pleasant fragrance. There is some rust on the leaves right now, but hopefully the rose can shrug it off as it matures.

See you in the garden!

Christina