Garden Tour: Roses and other Happenings...

Work has gotten the better of me, again and for that reason the blog had to be somewhat abandoned. But here I am today with a new Periscope video for you.

It is another tour through my garden and I am looking predominately at roses that were still in bloom when the video was taken about three weeks ago, but also checked on other plants that were recently planted. At the time when I shot the Periscope video, my gardener was trying to open up a clogged drain in our front yard to get our property ready for a hopefully generous El Nino (Winter rains), so you see a little bit of that, too.

Hope you enjoy having a look!

As always, thanks for watching! I would love, if you could take the time and leave a comment!

See you in the garden!

Christina


Thanks for hosting Hakan

Garden Tour: Planting a New Rose and Looking at Roses that are Blooming Now!

About two weeks ago, I recorded another video for Periscope but couldn't find the time earlier to put it up on my blog to share it with you here as well. But finally it is loaded up!

In this video I show you a newly planted hybrid tea rose named 'Bewitched' and talk about how I plant a new rose, what I have found out works well to give a rose the best possible start, so that it will grow into a beautiful specimen that will gift you with plenty of blooms.

Later on I present to you and talk about the rare tea rose 'Georgetown Tea', that I got as a gift from a dear friend many years ago and I have the pleasure to grow in my own garden ever since.

I continue to tour the garden and look at roses that are blooming right now. Your will see, besides others, flowers of 'Madame Caroline Testout, 'Neptune' and 'Heritage'. Did you get curious? Please click on the video below. I hope you enjoy the tour!

As always, thanks for stopping by and watching the video.

I am wishing everyone who celebrates it a lovely Halloween. Boo!

See you in the garden!

Christina

End of Summer

Tomorrow it will be official: Summer is over and to be quiet honest with you, I am glad about it! This year summer was a torture for the garden with in general very high temperatures, a couple of heatwaves on top of that and the toughest water restrictions since I garden here in San Diego.

Because of the heat I hardly did any gardening since the end of June, except the most necessary maintenance chores. And when I did try to plant something in the last two months, it is very likely that I have lost it again by now. Lesson learned: Avoid planting new plants in the heat of summer.

I hope that temperatures slowly will come down from now on, even though in San Diego it is very likely that we will have some very hot, arid and windy days caused by Santa Ana Winds in September and/or October.

Besides my complains above there was of course a lot of beauty happening in the garden and I would like to share some photos with you that I have taken this summer.

On the first glance you could think that this is a rose, but no, it is an exquisite gardenia 'Veitchii' bloom.

This gardenia actually seemed to welcome the heat...

...and was blooming as profusely as never before.

And the fragrance of a gardenia, what can I say, it is simply out of this world.

'Neptune' has been doing well since transplanted into a big terracotta container on the backyard terrace. 

The blooms of this rose have a beautiful lavender color and the fragrance is equally pleasant.

The agapanthus were also liking the summer or at least putting up with it...

...and some were blooming generously.

'Yolande d'Aragon' had a good second rebloom.

I somehow like this shot quite a bit of the same rose.

The beautiful blooms of 'Cymbaline', an older David Austin rose that you don't see too often, were another nice surprise to me this summer. 

The plant with the tongue twister name Plectranthus ciliatus 'Mona Lavender' had wonderful blooms, but...

...couldn't withstand the heat and sadly I pulled it out about a week ago, since I have come to the conclusion that it is unsuited for my climate.

'Chandos Beauty' is one of the few roses that really likes the heat. The blooms are always gorgeous and the rose bush itself is very healthy.

'The Prince' fries easily in the heat,...

...but who can resist those flowers?

My bearded iris 'Platinum' also surprised me positively this summer and rebloomed not just once but twice for me. 

And I almost had thrown it away because it wasn't doing anything for quite a while. Now I am so glad that I didn't!

Hardy geranium 'Rozanne' is unfazed by the heat as long as it gets some supplemental water and is fertilized. 

I am on the fence, if I should keep the Mini-Flora rose 'Moonlight Scentsation' or not. I love the off-white blooms with lavender or even brown undertones, but the rose mildews on a regular base, which really bothers me.

It is kind of the same situation with 'Captain Christy': Beautiful blooms, but ugly powdery mildew. This rose is an heirloom rose that is hardly available in the nurseries anymore, so for that reason I might give it another year.

Here is a shot of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' taken around 4th of July. This rose amazes me regularly with her profuse flushes of blooms. 

How do you feel about the end of summer? What ever your feelings are, I am definitively wishing you a lovely autumn!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Late Summer Garden Tour

Last Sunday I broadcasted another video on Periscope that I would like to share with you here as well. That day, when I taped the video, it was still boiling hot in San Diego, but Tuesday we finally got a good amount of rain and the temperatures came down a bit and instantly the whole atmosphere in the garden changed for a brief time and it felt really autumn-ish. But we are back to hot temperatures by now, again.

In this video I am focusing again on plants that do well in my garden despite the heat, but also on plants that really failed in my climate. Your will see a few roses: 'Our Lady of Guadalupe', 'Lavender Crystal', 'White Meidiland', 'Neptune' and a few others varieties as well. I also touch on some other plants like for example the white flowering dianthus 'Floral Lace White', the daylily 'Siloam Double Classic Pink', alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire' and dichondra sericea 'Silver Ponyfoot', a favorite ground cover of mine, and some more.

I am also talking about fertilizing roses with fish fertilizer and recommend a brand that works well for me in my garden.

I hope you enjoyed the tour and, if you are gardening in a similar climate, got some tips with regards to which plants could do well for you in your own garden and which ones may not. Thanks for watching my video!

See you in the garden!

Christina

March Roses

Overall March was a difficult month for the roses. We had already heatwaves that early in the year, which led to many roses not developing their gorgeous big spring flower shapes that I am used to see in previous years. Also many rose varieties couldn't deal with these high temperatures and their petals started to crisp.

Besides that, thrips have been a huge problem. I don't recall having so much thrip damage on the roses like this spring ever. These sucking insects are causing the rose petals to show ugly brown spots, especially on the edges. Since I am not only gardening organically, but also don't spray my roses to prevent insect damage, I just have to live with things like this and usually I am fine with that, but this year thrips really have been a nuisance.

That being said, I still had many nice roses in March and some rose varieties weren't showing hardly any problems at all. Of course, for an organic rose gardener like me it is utterly important to find the rose varieties that do well in my climate and are even able to deal with especially difficult climate situations like we had this March.

If I would have to give a price away for the best rose last month, it would go to 'Pope John Paul II'. What you see on the photo above is just one spray on a new basal cane. This rose is just gorgeous!

The same spray a little bit more open. Love it! The fragrance is heavenly, too. 

This was the very first bloom on 'Grandmother's Hat'. A very healthy Hybrid Perpetual rose with lovely matte green foliage. 

You can see 'Grandmother's Hat' to the very right with her first bloom really standing out. The other two Hybrid Perpetual roses in this bed, in the middle 'Reine des Violettes' and to the left 'Yolande d'Aragon, are very much behind 'Grandmother's Hat' in terms of their flowering time. 

The blooms of 'Grandmother's Hat' vary greatly in color. In cool weather they are a much darker pink than in warm weather, were the color of the flower fades quickly to a much lighter and paler pink. I like this rose in all color stages, though.

Here you can see that 'Grandmother's Hat' really got going and just a few days after I photographed her first bloom there were many more flowers open on the bush.

Depending in what stage you catch the flowers of 'Grandmother's Hat', they may show their warm yellow stamens, which I find quite charming.  

Here is a shot of one of the first blooms of 'Pierre de Ronsard' taken early in the morning. This rose has such a romantic quality. I am always fascinated by it.

'Old Fashioned Girl' is a very reliable, floriferous miniature rose in my garden. On this picture she just started to bloom.

This is a relatively "new to my garden" Hybrid Tea rose that I am really excited about. I love lavender colored roses, but good ones are hard to come by. I bought 'Neptune' based on positive reviews that I read on an internet rose forum and have to say I am not disappointed. I like that the rose is lavender colored, but with a cerise blending. The reverse is cerise and the petals edging can be cerise as well. This coloration makes a very interesting looking bloom. The flowers have been big, very fragrant and of good form so far.

Here is the same bloom of 'Neptune', but fully open. The flower has much faded into a more clear lavender in comparison to the previous photo. When this rose was blooming, it was very hot and if you look closely, you can see that the edges of the rose petals are slightly crisped. The rose bush is still relatively small and hasn't taken the transplant from a two gallon pot to a big terracotta container very well. I am really curious what it will be doing in the future and can't wait for the next flush of blooms.

For a comparison: This is 'Sweetness', my other lavender Hybrid Tea rose. It is always a clear lavender color and is also very pretty in my opinion.

'Our Lady of Guadalupe' is blooming her head of, heat or not. But this rose can have a very elegant flower form, which wasn't the case in this year's spring flush due to the heat.

I started this post with a white rose and will end it with another (almost) white one. This is a cluster of 'Marie Pavie' hanging into my walkway to the front door. I always love her dainty blooms.

Hope all of you have a good week ahead of you!

See you in the garden!

Christina

February Roses

February seems to be already such a long time ago, but I still want to post a recap of what happened in my garden in terms of the roses, as I do for each month. As usual for that time of the year rose blooms were sparse, but I still got some nice flowers from the roses living in containers and one rose planted into the ground, my 'Climbing Iceberg', decided February was the new spring and produced a whole, albeit mediocre rose flush.

This year I was particularly late pruning and fertilizing my roses. Normally I start these tasks in the beginning of December and I am done with them by the end of January. And even though this year I also started pruning in December, I only finished it by the end of February (our new dog takes up a lot of garden time, you know...). To be honest with you, I didn't even get to all of the roses in containers, some are still untouched, which is a shame.

In prior years I pruned a rose and immediately fertilized it with organic fertilizer, but this year I gave some roses a longer time to rest before I put fertilizer down. The idea behind it was to allow the roses to rejuvenate instead of encouraging them immediately to leave out and produce new buds again, after a very tough year 2014 with all the heat and drought that the roses were going through.

I think that was a very serious mistake, since to me it looks like the organic fertilizer was not broken down by microorganisms and available to the roses when they started to leave out at their own leisure. I have the impression that in my poor soil this way the roses were starving, when they needed food to be able to produce new leaves and set buds properly. Lesson learned: Next year I am going back to my old way, again!

Let's have a look at some photos that I took last month.

As it is common each month, there was one rose that stood out with its beauty in February in my garden, was kind of the star of the crowd, and that was 'Captain Christy'.

This is a relatively rare early Hybrid Tea rose, bred by Francois Lacharme (France, 1873).

The parents of this rose are 'Victor Verdier', a Hybrid Perpetual, also bred by Lacharme in 1859 and 'Safrano', a lovely Tea rose, bred by Beauregard in 1839. Considering his parents 'Captain Christy' is a first generation Hybrid Tea rose. It is kind of exciting to me to own a rose of that era in rose breeding history.

'Captain Christy' looks very different in comparison to the modern Hybrid Tea rose from nowadays and for me certainly radiates a very special charm.

The light pink delicate large flowers with the darker pink center are of exquisite beauty. I am so happy that this rose is blooming for me again, since I almost lost it last year due to the very hot summer.

Many roses planted in the ground where already setting buds in February, which is kind of early in my garden, like for example this very healthy 'Chandos Beauty' Hybrid Tea rose.

As I mentioned in my intro to this post, 'Climbing Iceberg' was the first rose in my garden that started to produce a spring flush. The rose didn't leave out fully and the flush wasn't a profuse one, though. On top of that unfortunately the 'Climbing Iceberg' was already plagued by powdery mildew. So altogether not the most prettiest sight and I prefer to just show you one bloom and leave it at that!

Another rose growing in a container that delighted me with its blooms was 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh', an English Rose bred by David Austin, United Kingdom 1988.

I just love the cupped, old-fashioned bloom form and how the color fades to a lilac pink as the blooms gets older. This is the only rose that I know off, that does that to this extend.

'Rhodolugue Jules Gravereaux' in my eyes is an incredible beautiful Tea rose,...

...that was giving me some early blooms in February as well.

I love this rose also in the faded stage, shortly before the petals drop. 

The picture above was taken during the time when I was fertilizing my roses. The rose to the right of the pygmy date palm is 'Pierre de Ronsard' and to the very left, partly hidden by the dolly with the fertilizer bag, is 'Belinda's Dream'. The gray, yellow stuff at the feet of the roses is the fertilizer, a combination of biostart and alfalfa meal. You can see that 'Pierre de Ronsard' is leaving out sparsely, which unfortunately seems to be an ongoing theme with almost all my roses this spring.

The flower bed above, for some unknown reasons, I think I have never shown on my blog so far. It was originally inhabited by a pygmy date palm, which grew so big, that it is was obstructing the view from our family living room into the garden. The palm was removed and the stump was grinded and then I planted the shell pink 'Heritage' there, another David Austin rose. In the background I have placed some calla lilies, zantedeschia aethiopica, which have grown in nicely, but haven't bloomed much this winter. As evident on the photo, 'Heritage' also has some trouble to leave out properly.

This image shows my Hybrid Perpetual Bed, containing from the left to the right 'Yolande d'Aragon', 'Reine des Violettes' and 'Grandmother's Hat'. Obviously the first two roses have problems to leave out fully as well, only 'Grandmother's Hat looks pretty decent, almost completely clothed in new leaves.

Here I am presenting a close-up of 'Grandmother's Hat's foliage. The leaves are so healthy, for me it is a joy just to look at the foliage itself. Many roses had problems with powdery mildew and rose rust already last month, but 'Grandmother's Hat' could successful fight of the ugly fungi with bravery.

Zooming in even closer, here are the first of the many buds of 'Grandmother's Hat', showing a nice color at the time I took the photo, even though it was only February. I can already give away that 'Grandmother's Hat was the second rose to produce a spring flush in my garden. I didn't get disappointed with her like with the above mentioned 'Climbing Iceberg' rose, but this is something for another post.

A rose that also showed great promise last month was 'Auckland Metro'. Here is a cane with a bud. You can see for yourself how healthy and robust the new leaves are.

Lastly a bud of 'Neptune', a lavender Hybrid Tea rose, even though it doesn't look much lavender in the bud stage.

Here is the same bloom of 'Neptune', just a little bit further in the opening process. It continued to develop into a huge beautiful lavender colored bloom in the beginning of March, which I intend to show you when I blog next time about my March roses.

I am wishing everyone a happy spring!

See you in the garden!

Christina