Thursday, April 14, 2016

March Roses

The roses have been doing really well last month. I think they appreciated the rain that they got in March and also enjoyed the, for our climate, relatively cool temperatures. One variety after the other started to open its blooms and some reached their peak by the end of the month.



Rosa 'Chandos Beauty' was one of the most beautiful in my eyes!



I just show you some random shots of the blooms of this great Hybrid Tea rose.



It is now the third year in the garden and has reached some maturity.



The blooms are huge and...



...the fragrance is very strong.



It is also a good cut rose with long stems, if you are into something like that, and it lasts a decent time in the vase.



On the photo above you can see rosa 'Chandos Beauty' to the right and the reliable lovely rosa 'Pope John Paul II' to the left.



The flowers of  rosa 'Pope John Paul II' are always special to me.



I just can't resist the beauty of these wonderful and fragrant white roses.



Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' is also well loved in my garden. The heavy globular blooms are just so charming.



Here they are in the bud stage.



And this is one of my two bushes or 'Pierre de Ronsard'. It has gotten humongous and you can see on the photo how loaded the rose is with buds.



I am also very fond of rosa 'Auckland Metro,' growing in my White Garden Bed.



This rose is relatively healthy and I love the cream colored flowers.



The blooms of  rosa 'Reine des Violettes' are truly one of a kind! Their shades from crimson to violet are simply exquisite. The bush on the other hand is pretty scraggly one in my garden.



Close-up of 'Reine des Violettes'. Don't you just want to disappear in the silkiness of these petals? Loose yourself in the subtle refined colors?



Rosa 'Marie Pavie' reached the peak of her spring flush by the end of March. She is such a delightful, healthy and charming rose, always very willing to bloom.



A rose that also convinced with her good looks, her old-fashioned charm and her fragrance is 'Grandmother's Hat'.



Rosa 'Iceberg' always blooms her head off here in California. Two climbing varieties flank the sides of our garage. I keep the bushes relatively short, though.



Closer look at the 'Climbing Iceberg' blooms. They always look cheerful to me with their white petals and yellow stamens exposed as the blooms open fully. Bees love them, too.



Rosa 'Captain Christy', an old Hybrid Tea rose.



Even though I tried really hard (and often!) it was impossible for me to get a good shot of the white rosa 'Madame Alfred Carriere', because of the light conditions she is growing in. Parts of the rose are getting quite a bit of shade from my towering Queen Palms and a Pine Tree from my neighbor, but the tips of the canes are reaching into the sun.

The rose is in the ground for the third year and this spring she leaped. My photo does her beauty no justice at all, but at least you can see how profusely 'Madame Alfred Carriere' is blooming under the difficult light conditions she is living in and also considering the root competition from the palms and the Pine Tree.



The last beauty that I show you in this post is Rosa 'Belinda's Dream', a very carefree rose in my garden with lovely, big, full, pink blooms.

It is hard to believe, but from Thursday to Sunday we had rain on and off. Altogether a substantial amount came down, maybe about two inches, and that will carry the roses a long way this spring. I am so thankful for it. The downside is, that of course, it turned some of the rose blooms into a brown mushy blob, so lots of deadheading to do right now. I hope that I can whip the garden back into shape this weekend.

How are your roses doing? I guess, for the majority of my readers, who have a garden and grow roses, theirs are not blooming, yet, but they are well on the way to produce their first flush.  Do you think you are expecting a good spring flush? I certainly wish that for you, as I feel that there is hardly anything more lovely out there in the garden then a rose bush starting to bloom the first time in spring again, after the long winter rest. But of course, I am biased...

See you in the garden!

Christina



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25 comments:

  1. Very, very pretty. I can almost smell them from here 100 miles away. You did a nice job on the descriptions. You got TWO inches??? How fortunate! And yes, I've got mush, too, brown, balled, drooping heads; but oh, so beautiful this year, many, and large.

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    1. Thanks, Jane! I guess you really can relate how happy the rain has made me. I did a quick garden tour today and almost wanted to run inside. The thousands of rose flowers are lovely as long as they are pretty, but right now I feel quite overwhelmed by all the deadheading that is needed.

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  2. Gorgeous pinks and whites ! Your roses have thousands of flowers. Bravo !

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  3. Preciosas rosas mis más sinceras felicitaciones por tan bellas fotos. Un saludo desde Plantukis.

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  4. Your roses are gorgeous, Christina! My own roses make a paltry show by comparison but they're doing better than the last 2 prior years. I'm glad you got more rain than we did - our total was a trivial 0.17 inches.

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  5. WOW!!!! What beauties! It must be such a delight to walk around seeing these lovely blooms. Loaded bushes waiting with many buds to fully open.

    Thank you for sharing ~ FlowerLady

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  6. Las rosas están preciosas y me encantan las de color blanco, yo las tengo de variados colores. Besitos.

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  7. Your roses all look wonderful. The Chandos is really a beauty. I miss my PJPII--crown gall, sigh. Yours looks just perfect.

    Congratulations also on getting a really good rain. We got no more than 0.1" here--there was some to the north, and some to the south, while we missed out.

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  8. Pale pink May be my favorite. No roses here in fact I'm just finished pruning...slow.

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  9. Was für ein herrlicher Traumrosengarten!
    Du kannst sogar beim Schwimmen an deinen Rosen schnuppern :-)
    Herrlich! Ganz viele liebe Frühlingsgrüße
    sendet dir die Urte :-)

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  10. It will take some time before the roses start to flower! I am glad you had a lot of precious rain. You can use that for your roses. I love the rose on the top. That pink colour is wonderful. groetjes,
    Hetty

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  11. Oh gosh, I'm jealous ... you have so many amazing Roses! I'm so happy you've had plenty of rain this year. :)

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  12. Meine Rosen treiben gerade aus, und viele sind es eh nicht mehr - drum seh ich mir so gerne deine an!

    Sigrun

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  13. It amazes me at just how good R. Iceberg looks against the pale walls Christina. Pleased to read you had some much needed rain and how good the roses look on the back of it. They are rewarding you for all the hard work you put in to their care. A real rose lovers paradise in your little corner of San Diego.

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  14. I read somewhere I think that Madame Alfred Carriere doesn't mind shade, so you have her in the right place!

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  15. When I see your bright sunny pictures with all those beautiful roses in bloom, I imagine I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face and smell the fragrance of the roses. But we may not complain, we also have sun, it's only a bit too cold, we had even a little groundfrost this morning. So good you had some rain, you need it more than we do at the moment. 'Chandos Beauty' is a real beauty, but 'Captain Christy' and 'Grandmother's Hat' have stolen my heart too.

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  16. How lovely to see all your roses again Christina, especially this year when everything is so late in my own garden – I still have no roses open, although many buds. Nice to see 'Chandos Beauty', I have it myself now, but it is very small so I am not sure if I will see more than a few flowers this year. I also had 'Madame Alfred Carriere', but yesterday I gave it away in a plant swap as I simply didn’t have any good space for such a huge rose. My Iceberg is growing well, after being planted last month – I hope it will be happy where I put it, always a bit tricky to know, is yours in a container? Hope you have a lovely Sunday in the garden!

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  17. Dear Christina:
    These are so wonderful - that rain must of done miracles. I love each one and your photos are really professional. Thanks for sharing and linking.

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  18. Hi Christina, your roses are truly impressive. Every time I visit I have a new favorite! I think today it is Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard.' But then there are 'Reine des Violettes' and 'Grandmother's Hat,' which easily steal my heart also.

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  19. What a lovely collection you have! There are no signs of flowers here in East Anglia yet, although the roses are coming into leaf. Your blooms reminded me of a lovely walk around the rose garden at Balboa Park which I enjoyed 3 year ago. Happy memories - thank you for reminding me of them!

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  20. What a beautiful roses. I love to see the colors they bring. Overhere it's to cold for the time of the year. Hail, snow, thunder looks like winter is coming in. Never mind there will come better times.
    Have a wonderful day

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  21. Christina, how are you doing? I hope everything is fine and you are just taking break from blogging.

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    1. Tatyana, thank you so much for asking! I am doing alright, but as you guessed I have to take an unplanned and unintended break from blogging. I think, I will reveal the reason soon here on my blog!

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  22. I have been thinking of you too Christina, and wondering if you are OK - and having my own situation in mind I am always mindful when fellow bloggers vanish for a while. I know I haven’t written a lot about my health issues in the past, but in my last post I actually decided to do just that – write from my heart and hope for a good response. I don’t know what’s keeping you away from us, but whatever it is I hope you are doing OK and will be back here blogging with your beautiful garden when you feel you can.

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