January Roses

More than time to come in with the post about my roses that were blooming in January! Last month started off with a little bit of craziness weather-wise. In parts it was as hot as it is in summer here. That, of course, promotes rose blooms and I had quite a bit of roses still flowering even though it is winter. But I haven't fertilized my roses since last year October, hence the bloom quality wasn't that great and the leaves of the bushes, well, what can I say, they are more than ready to go.

It is very much a concern here in Southern California, and as a matter of fact, for the whole state of California, that we haven't had any substantial winter rains so far. The much needed rain, that everyone was hoping for also didn't come in January. I read an article in USA Today recently, which reported that the governor declared, we are having a "mega-drought" and that water restrictions are to come this year. Surprisingly, the article stated that water restriction wouldn't be reinforced in Southern California yet, which, of course, was a big relieve for me, because there simply will be no roses without water, period. Nonetheless, my husband and I try to do our best to conserve as much water as we can in the house and in the garden. One new strategy is to mulch way higher than I ever did before and I hope that will help.

January is traditionally the month where I deleave and prune most of my roses, but somehow this year I am particularly late. I am still not completely done yet, but hope to finish the task by the end of this week. Then all roses need to get fertilized and mulched. So February will continue to be a very busy month for me here in terms of rose care, but I guess the reward is near. It could very well be, that in March I will have already plenty of roses blooming, again.

Here are the best photos of roses what were flowering in my garden in January:

The first one is 'The Prince', a very beautiful dark crimson red shrub rose, bred by David Austin (United Kingdom, 1990). Besides the gorgeous color, the strongest asset of this rose is its unmatched fragrance. It is not only very strong but particularly delicious. 'The Prince' does stay relatively small for me here, maybe 3 x 2 feet by now, which is a good thing, since many of the David Austin roses get humongous in California and don't fit in small gardens very well. 'The Prince' does come with some flaws, though: It gets a bit of powdery mildew from time to time and so far it isn't very floriferous. The rose needs to be shaded from our brutally hot afternoon sun, otherwise the flowers will crisp.

The next one is 'Memorial Day', a lovely medium cool pink Hybrid Tea rose bred by Tom Carruth (United States, 2001). It comes with a very strong damask fragrance. Mine is still in a five gallon container, but the rose was putting out a lot of new buds already and I was so looking forward to them, but a rat discovered that this is a very tasty snack and is "pruning" it each night. How do I know? We set up a night vision motion camera and the culprit got captured on video! Now we are trying to trap it, but so far no success. It is really upsetting to get out each morning and see that there is less and less of the rose there each day. Grrr...

This is 'Halloween', a yellow-orange Hybrid Tea rose with very full big blooms bred by Arthur P. Howard (United States, 1962). Honestly, I don't know why I have ordered this rose, because as nice as it is being by itself, the intense yellow-orange color clashes with all the more muted, pale roses that I have in my yard. It gets even worse when 'Halloween' really shows its orange side. Right now it is still residing in a container and I don't know if I am able to integrate it into my garden. We will see! It seems to be a good rose, so I guess if I decide to part from it, there will be no problem to find a new home for it. 

Besides 'Iceberg', 'Our Lady of Guadalupe', a light pink Floribunda, bred by Keith Zary (United States, 2000) was my most floriferous rose bush last month. It just keeps the blooms coming and coming. Too bad, that it has its issues with powdery mildew, which really gets to me more and more, since I know now, that I can grow completely clean rose varieties in my no-spray organic garden. 

'Iceberg, Climbing' faithfully blooming along! It is an old standby Floribunda rose here in California. The shrub form was bred by Reimer Kordes (Germany, 1953) and the climbing sport was discovered by Cants of Colchester (United Kingdom, 1698). It is very weird that I have shrubs and climbing forms of 'Iceberg' that are completely mildew free and others mildew at times. I wonder, if this is not only due to their location in the yard (micro climates!), but also to the fact that some of them are grafted on Dr. Huey rootstock and others are growing own-roots. The 'Iceberg' roses that are grafted on that rootstock seem to be more prone to powdery mildew in my observation. I am curious to know, if there is scientific evidence to back up my theory, but so far I haven't had the time to do some research on this topic.

Bud of 'Moonstone', Hybrid Tea rose. 'Moonstone' is a white blend rose with pink edges and incredible big blooms. It was bred by Tom Carruth (United States, 1998). I brought the opening bud featured in this photo into the house and it became a huge lovely bloom, as it usually is the case with this rose, and lasted quite a while in the vase. 'Moonstone' can certainly be called a good cut rose!

'Vi's Violet', a lavender Miniature rose, seems to love to bloom in the winter. The rose suffered a bit from blackspot as it did last year at the same time. I like the small perfectly shaped blooms very much. It is supposed to be fragrant, but I can't detect any scent at all. 

I have praised 'Pope John Paul II', a white blend Hybrid Tea rose with a intoxicating citrus fragrance, bred by Keith Zary (United States, before 2006) enough in previous posts, so not to bore you, here are just some photos of this phenomenal rose. It is beautiful in the bud stage...

... and perfect when in full bloom.

And almost each bloom is like that, not just the ones that I select to take photos of. As a matter of fact, I like it so much, that just today I ordered a second one. And in my small garden that says something!

Last but not least, here is 'Baronne Prevost', a Hybrid Perpetual rose of a pink color that fades nicely to a lilac shading, bred by Jean Desprez (France, 1841). To be honest, this is a somewhat unloved rose, because in my garden it looks like an accumulation of bare sticks with some leaves on top of the canes, which often get mildew. But every now and then it produces a bloom, and when it does, the flowers are lovely. I think, I only haven't let go of it by now, because of the sentimental value that it has for me to grow an Old Garden Rose like this. 

I planted two of my roses out of the pot ghetto into the ground lately and they have already set new buds. I am excited about it and hope, that in the February rose post I can show their blooms to you. From one of them I haven't spotted a flower myself, yet. It always gives me such a kick to find a rose blooming in the yard for the very first time! 

See you in the garden!

Christina

November Roses

I can't believe that another month has passed since my last blog entry. My life continued to be very busy and another trip, this time a private one to Germany to visit my eighty year old mom, left no time for blogging. It was so nice to see her, but unfortunately the whole time I was there I had a nasty cold, which was quite a bit of a drawback, since I had to rest a lot and couldn't do too much.

Since yesterday night I am back home and enjoy the mild Southern California autumn temperatures in comparison to the freezing cold in Germany. I hope that with the year coming to an end the pace of my life will become a little slower, leaving me with more time to post and also to stop by my favorite blogs and read about what is going on in other people's gardens and life.

As it has become a habit on my blog I will report in this post again about my roses from the previous month. In November the rose season was certainly winding down here in Southern California and in general the quality of the blooms wasn't that great anymore, but some rose bushes still continued to give occasionally very good blooms. Here are a few pretties from last month:

'Nimbus' has to come first in the post, since it was my very favorite rose in November.

The color is so unusual, unlike any other of my roses and even unlike any rose that I have ever seen in person. I would describe it as a mix between a smokey rose pink, brown, mauve and lavender. It is not stable but varies with the weather, which I find adds to the charm of this rose. Who doesn't like a surprise?

Unfortunately 'Nimbus' mildews like many other roses in the lavender/mauve color range, but not too bad so far and only under certain weather conditions. I hate mildew and I am slowly getting rid of roses that reliable show this fungal disease in my garden, but this one I will keep because it is so special. I even caught myself thinking about spraying it (organically of course!), which is really unusual for me, since I am a convinced no-spray gardener up to now.

This is the last bloom of 'Halloween' for this year. The rose flower is much less orange than when the temperatures are warmer and I like the more subtle coloration very much.

The flowers of the Hybrid Tea rose 'Sweetness' showed almost an ash-gray lavender in November and I think the color is to die for.




 Here is another photo of  'Sweetness'.

'Pretty Jessica' is producing reliably beautiful blooms in a very difficult and shady location in my front yard. I had a gardener trim yellow fronds of our Queen Anne Palms and one crashed right into this poor rose and broke two new strong basal canes with flower sprays. It was really upsetting! But the rose continued to bloom and hopefully will recover from this accident. 

I finally have faced the reality that I have too many roses in my pot ghetto to ever have the chance to get them planted in our garden. Our lot is way too small and on top of that in Southern California the roses get really big and therefore you have to give them space. So as hard as it is for me I decided to part from some of the roses that are still waiting in containers. This is one of them, 'Madame Melanie Willermoz', a relatively rare Tea rose. She went with a friend of a friend, who seems to love roses and plants in general and I hope that this rose will grow into a beautiful rose bush in her garden.

An open spray of 'Pink Pet'. I wasn't sure if I like this rose or not, but I have to say it has really grown on me. It is planted in a very difficult area in the front yard and blooming its heart out. No disease whatsoever on the foliage. Could become a winner in my garden!




This is 'Auckland Metro', a cream Hybrid Tea rose bred by Samuel Darragh McGredy (1987) in New Zealand, which I believe I have not shown on my blog, yet. For a Hybrid Tea rose it is remarkably healthy so far and producing very big flowers and in a nice light color. As far as I recall there is a pleasant fragrance to it, too.




'Auckland Metro', here you can see a bloom in a more open state, is another rose waiting in my pot ghetto, but for this one I have already thought of a space in the garden. It will replace one of the 'Climbing Iceberg' roses by the pool. I am really looking forward figuring out what it is able to do once it is planted into the ground.

This small plonk contained just three blooms of 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh'. It was giving me a lot of pleasure indoors.

'Charles Darwin' gifted me with a humongous soft yellow bloom. The two rose bushes of this variety that I own don't produce rose flushes at this time of the year anymore, only an occasional bloom here and there. But to make up for that these very few blooms are truly outstanding!

I can't praise 'Pope John Paul II' enough in my garden. He was giving me another full flush of rose blooms in November and the quality of the flowers was still exceptional like these two photos prove.

Since we don't have any snow where I live, I love white roses in autumn and winter because at least the color is reminding me of it. Kind of the California take on a white Christmas!

Talking about Christmas, I am wishing you all a lovely Christmas season. Hope you are able to find some down time to enjoy candles, tea, Christmas cookies, gift wrapping and what ever pleasant things you associate with this time of the year.

See you in the garden!

Christina

September Roses

September has been a tough month for the roses and all plants in general in my garden. It was hot, but sometimes it was very hot (highest temperatures peaking at 103 F/43 C). Even without taking the extremes in consideration temperatures have been too high here to fit the rose's comfort zone.

Me still being on a tight schedule and also gone on a business trip last month I was watering as much as I could and my husband did, too, when I was away. All the roses in the ground survived, but I lost or almost lost a few (time will tell) which are still growing in small containers. Very sad, but I guess it is natural that gardening comes with some losses.

That being said, some roses did remarkably well even under these difficult conditions.  Please take a look at my most beautiful rose blooms from the month of September:




This is 'The Prince', a David Austin rose, and in my opinion he won the "Most Beautiful Rose of September" - award. He comes with an incredible lovely fragrance and I expect the color of the blooms to become darker as the weather cools down, which makes this rose even more desirable. The bush is carrying quite some buds right now, so there is definitively something to look forward to.




'Moonstone', a Hybrid Tea rose, also showed some very nice flowers last month. This rose loves the heat! It never looked heat-stressed no matter how high the temperatures were rising. I truly can't say this of many of my roses.




Above you can see a bush shot of my 'Moonstone'. You might ask what is so exciting about it. Well, it is a Hybrid Tea rose growing on its own roots and it is the first one that I grew from a tiny band and planted in the ground. Hybrid Tea roses have a reputation to be finicky on their own roots, needing the support of a vigorous rootstock to be grafted on. I just planted 'Moonstone' into the White Garden Bed in the first quarter of this year and the bush has really taken off (if you want to see how the plant looked in April please click here and scroll down the post until you see the pictures of the rose bush). Right now 'Moonstone' is pretty clean, but it had its share of rust and powdery mildew.




'Charles Darwin', my most prolific producer of blooms in the month of September, even though this rose is still growing only in a container. I am seriously thinking of putting him in the ground to give him more leg room. I just have a feeling that this could be an outstanding rose in my garden.

'Stephen's Big Purple' another Hybrid Tea rose that did well in the heat. I just would have loved to see it more purple as the name indicates, but in hot weather the blooms are almost a garish deep hot pink. It is always a little bit of a gamble if you buy a rose that you have never seen in person...

This one on the other hand, 'Charles de Gaulle', which I also bought only after seeing photos of it, is a totally stunning rose in terms of the color and the fragrance. I think it is the "bluest" rose that I own. Unfortunately I might have lost it in the heat spell.

Even though I usually don't like orange roses I am in love with 'Halloween', another Hybrid Tea rose. The warm evening sun light seems to make the rose glow.




This picture of 'Halloween' was taken in the early morning light. What a difference! The perfume of this rose is very strong and delightful. I am curious to see if it will actually bloom on Halloween. The roses would be perfect to decorate the holiday table with on that day.




'Green Ice', a miniature is finally looking good! The photo shows probably the best spray that this rose ever produced in my garden. It is supposed to be healthy, but in my climate it is struggling awfully with powdery mildew. For unknown reasons it is also loved by ants. If you look more closely you see them crawling in the flowers. Yuk!

'Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux' is an incredible beautiful Tea rose, which produces one of the most elegant flowers that I have ever seen.



Here is a close-up of a single bloom of 'Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux'.

As usual I could count on 'Pierre de Ronsard' last month.

A very velvety bud of 'Mister Lincoln'.

An unfolding flower of 'Sir Henry Segrave', an older Hybrid Tea rose. I love the pale shade of yellow and the gracefully nodding blooms. Thanks Masha for talking me into this one!

After being fertilized 'Yolande d'Aragon' is responding with blooms. The legs of the rose are still n----, but the flowers are simply wonderful, so that little fault is forgiven.

'Pope John Paul II', another rose that I can really count on to continue to bloom in the heat.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my rose flowers from last month. Wishing you all a good start into the new week!

See you in the garden!

Christina

We Are Back!

Well, we are back home from Great Britain and have returned safely and happily to San Diego, to our home and garden. My husband and I both had a very hard time to leave England and accept the fact that our annual vacation is over already. The two weeks that we spent there just have gone by so fast. But they flew by, because we saw so much and simply had a wonderful time!

Still we both couldn't let go completely so we tried to bring a little bit of England home. Besides other things we bought a Union Jack flag, which is now proudly flapping in the wind in front of our home. Sadly we missed all the Coronation Jubilee Celebrations so we figured the least that we could do is showing our willingness to join in by getting the English flag up.

But back to gardening. As you can see on the photo above the spring flush of the 'Climbing Iceberg' rose below the flag was over when we returned. Is there a more ugly thing out there in the garden than a not deadheaded white rose, which is clinging to her brownish dried up blooms as if her life is depending on that?




As a matter of fact the spring flush was over for all of my roses planted into the ground and they were in desperate need of deadheading, all at once of course. 

Coming home and having to deadhead all the roses made me feel very overwhelmed and it doesn't help that due to other responsibilities and demands in my life I have succumbed to being a "half an hour"-weekend gardener, which neither I or my garden like. Do I have to mention that I don't get the job done?

So since a few days I have decided that I have to try to squeeze out of my busy schedule half an hour a day to tend to the gardens. Because it is very warm here already most of that time is used to water my plants in pots or in the beds were we don't have an irrigation system in place, but I also do a little bit of the deadheading each time I am out there. So hopefully slowly but surely I get the garden back in control, again. It looks a bit better now already than on the photos in this post!

By the way what actually didn't help at all with my feelings of being an overwhelmed gardener is that every one of the English gardens that we visited looked so well maintained. I simply don't get it how the Brits are doing it. 

Above you see a photo of my Hybrid Perpetual Rose Bed. From the left to the right: 'Grandmother's Hat', 'Reine des Violettes' and 'Yolande d'Aragon'. I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that all three roses are blooming already again. Of course, their second flush, if you even can call it like that, is much less floriferous than the first, but still they are repeating. Last year they just produced a spring flush and that was it.

Besides the roses being in a bit of a desolate state there were also very lovely surprises in the garden like my relatively new hydrangea 'Nikko Blue'. The hydrangea is squeezed in between a huge Queen Anne Palm on one side and a Giant Bird of Paradise, strelitzia 'Nicolai' on the other and I am sure it is fighting a battle for life because of the extreme root competition, but it still managed to bloom profusely. The blooms are even showing a light blue tint, which is so much coveted by me. 

Here is a close-up of one flower of the above mentioned 'Nikko Blue' hydrangea. Isn't the subtle play of colors in just one bloom truly delightful?

Not all roses look bad right now, though. Some of the ones, which are still living in containers do actually very well like this one. It is a Hybrid Tea rose called 'Halloween', which I got as an own root band last year from Vintage Gardens nursery. The color is absolutely stunning and so is the fragrance. The blooms are huge for such a small rose and indicate that they will be humongous, once the rose is more mature. 

I have to admit that usually I am not into hot colors especially when it comes to roses, but this one is an exception. I think it is just plain gorgeous. 'Halloween' is a descendant of the famous 'Peace' rose and has obviously inherited some of the qualities of its parent: the flower shape, big blooms, great scent. I think it has more petals than 'Peace', which I consider an advantage, since I just love the sumptuousness of many petaled roses. In my garden 'Halloween' shows a little bit of a powdery mildew infection at the moment, but it is not too bad in comparison to some of my other roses. 

My dark purple gladioli are blooming so prettily in the front yard.

Here you can see the whole gladoli patch together with 'Black & Blue' salvia and rose 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' in the foreground. I really like the color combination and the different shapes of the flowers and leaves. The gladioli corms have multiplied quite nicely from the six original ones in the last three years and now they have some true impact when they are at their peak. There is one catch though, the show is over fast, but I like the excitement that a plant delivers, which becomes the star of the garden for a short time and then goes back into the shadows until next year.

Also 'Mme Isaac Pereire' has managed to squeeze some blooms out. What can I say, this rose is one of the most beautiful roses ever bred in my opinion and the fragrance is so strong and pleasing to the nose.

Another hydrangea that is really doing well. I got it as an impulse buy at Home Depot last year. Unfortunately it came as an unnamed variety.

This is 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh', a David Austin English Rose, which I am getting more and more fond of. It has a pink flower with a lilac tint, which I was unfortunately not able to capture well with my camera. Believe me it is a truly special color in reality and in my opinion well worth growing for that reason alone. 

See you in the garden!

Christina