February Roses

February was the month where I had the least rose blooms ever since I am gardening in San Diego and honestly, I am glad that I got a few flowers at all. The reason for this is that I pruned all my roses planted in the ground in January and they are not able to produce new blooms by February. I also pruned a lot of the roses that are growing in containers in the same month, so they couldn't make new blooms either. That leaves it up to the roses in containers that are not pruned, yet. Due to time constraints I wasn't able to fertilize those and especially because they are growing in pots the reality seem to be, that if they don't get fed they don't have the energy to make new blooms.

What I am learning from this is, that if I want to have roses flowering throughout the year, I have to change my pruning strategy aka the pruning timing. This year my intention is that I will try to start pruning in the beginning of December and finish by the end of January and be more diligent with the fertilizing. It will be interesting to observe if I can coax more roses into blooming next February.

So there are good explanations why I had so few blooms last month, but one thing is really disappointing to me. I have a three year old Tea Rose, 'Georgetown Tea' planted in the ground and Tea Roses are supposed to flower year round here in my climate and that was the main reason why I planted this particular rose in the first place. But 'Georgetown Tea' doesn't have one bloom on it right now, not one. In contrast to all the others, this rose I watered and fertilized throughout the winter season, but that didn't convince it to bloom. Maybe I didn't water and fertilize it enough. It is also planted in between a group of four Queen Anne Palms and it might be too shady for the rose in the winter time to be able to flower. Anyway, for now I have decided that just for experimental reasons I will increase the watering and the regularity in fertilizing of 'Georgetown Tea' and see what happens.

Following are the very few brave roses that dared to bloom in February in our garden:



'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' surprised positively by giving me three flowers.

This rose is still growing only in a two gallon container together with plenty of oxalis (if you are not familiar with it, it is a really obnoxious weed here in my area). 

It wasn't fertilized or cared for in any special way and still managed to be one of my most beautiful roses in February. It certainly deserves more loving attention this year.

'Alexander Hill Gray', a very light yellow Tea Rose, was gifting me with one flower and very sickly foliage. 

The same bud of 'Alexander Hill Gray' a few days later. In this photo the rose looks somehow surreal to me. The color of the canes is really that red, contrasting very strongly with the pale yellow blooms.

Same rose flower again a few days later. The bloom was opening painfully slow, but at least it was opening and not balling and lasted a long time on the little shrub. I always think that 'Alexander Hill Gray' is a particular elegant rose.

This was the very last spray of  'Marie Pavie's' winter flush. Right now she is making good use of the fertilizer and compost that I threw at her feet and producing tons of new leaves and I assume, new flowers are soon to follow.

'Nimbus' was suffering badly from powdery mildew and even black spot last month as you can see when you look at his leaves, but that didn't prevent him from developing one of its gorgeous colored flowers. The shadings of pale pink, mauve, and tan are so subtle, they are very hard to capture with the camera properly, but at least this image gives you an impression.

Here is the same bloom, photographed from above. I like the tussled informal look that the rose flower is taking on in the winter time. I guess, it is mostly due to the low light conditions, which make it hard for the rose to open in a more organized way.

Certainly not a great photo, but I had to show it to you anyway, because I am very excited about this one. The rose that it pictured is 'Old Fashioned Girl', a miniature rose, which is the first rose that is planted into the ground that is producing a spring flower spray this year. So this is my very first "real rose bloom" in 2013! All the other rose flowers that I showed you in this post are coming from roses growing in containers with the exception of 'Marie Pavie', which was still on her winter flush.

'Old Fashioned Girl' is positioned in front of a South-West facing off white wall, which reflects a lot of heat and light and I think that does the trick so that the rose is able to flower this early. Also since it is a miniature rose I didn't prune or deleave it, so there was nothing to set back the onset of the buds this year. Interestingly though, there is a 'Pink Pet' rose growing very close to this rose, also not pruned or deleaved, which is usually a very easy going rose, but it hasn't even set buds, yet. There is always some mystery to growing roses, which you can't explain!

I am very curious to find out what will happen this March in my rose garden. Will I have more roses blooming already or will the spring flush only start in April? I hope you stay tuned and find out together with me.

See you in the garden!

Christina

... And What is Cooking in my Own Garden?

After publishing two posts about someone else's garden I feel it is time to report about my garden, again. Well, it has definitively become fall in my neck of the woods, and even though some people say we do not have four seasons in Southern California I strongly have to disagree. Things are changing here quite a bit in autumn and winter, too, even though the changes might not be as drastic as in areas where you have long cold winters.

 (you can click on the photos to enlarge)

 

Since roses still play the lead in my garden I would like to start with writing about one of my most beloved ones. It is 'Georgetown Tea', a found Tea rose, that I just planted into the ground in the beginning of August (click here to see the rose at planting time) in between a group of Queen Anne Palms. I feel the delicacy and beauty of the blooms of this rose is hard to top. What I am the most happy about is that is has grown in well and even though I am sure the underground root competition with the palm roots is quite fierce it manages to grow and bloom. I have read that Tea roses have the ability to bloom through the winter in our mild climate and I can not wait to see if I will get year round blooms from 'Georgetown Tea'.

On this photo you can get a good glimpse of how the bush is looking right now. The blooms are much lighter in color than I know them. I assume, that is due to the relatively cool days that we were having. The rose responds immediately to changes in the temperature with color changes in the blooms. I think that makes it very interesting to look at. I have read that 'Georgetown Tea' can mildew quite a bit, but in my garden the foliage is squeaky clean right now, even though some of my other roses are suffering from powdery mildew at this time. I keep my fingers crossed that 'Georgetown Tea' stays that way.

The shot above shows the area surrounding 'Georgetown Tea'. Sorry for the quality of the photo, it is quite dark. The reason for this is that there is shade in the morning and when the sun comes around I can not photograph anymore because I am facing the sun directly.

Anyway, 'Georgetown Tea' is the rose in the middle of the group of the Queen Anne Palms with its pink flowers standing out in the little spot of sunlight. Then moving to the right there is 'Iceberg' planted in a big terracotta container, followed by 'Zephirine Drouhin', a pigmy date palm, and 'Pierre de Ronsard'. I am a little bit disappointing that 'Zephirine Drouhin' is not blooming at all and 'Pierre de Ronsard' has kind of one flower. The whole area looks a little bit plain for that reason, but at least the roses are green and have relatively healthy leaves for this time of the year.

By the way I am on my last round of fertilizing the roses for this year. I am almost done with all the roses in the ground, except three, but then I still have to get to the potted roses. Hope this will coax some roses into flowering in this autumn and early winter.

This is the bearded iris ‘Immortality'. Now that I was just thinking to pull it out it is teasing me with the one and only flower stalk this year. To be even more precise the one and only flower stalk from three different plants. Sure it is very pretty, but the performance is really unsatisfying so I think I will remove them anyway.




This is how the irises look right now. Certainly not the way they are supposed to. Contrary to their promising name they seem to be quite mortal in my garden. I really don't know why I am not able to grow irises well in my yard. If you have any ideas what the reason might be, please let me know in a comment.

This is a shot where you can see the area where the irises were supposed to grow. I planted three rhizomes and they were meant to form a half moon shape circle around the back of the white column as the lamb's ears do in the front of the column. But nope that was not working out. Actually seeing this on a photo makes it even more clear to me, that is looks plain ugly right now. Even though I am always having a hard time to get rid of a plant, there is not doubt in my mind anymore that those irises have to go.

This is what I encounter when I leave the house. In the front yard the roses are still blooming pretty strong and things are a little bit wild and overgrown, but I like it this way. Soon enough I will cut the roses back and order will be restored. 

Here is a cluster of the flowers of 'Climbing Iceberg', which you saw already in a "full body shot" on the photo above peaking around the corner of the garage. Aren't they pretty? I have to admit that my 'Iceberg' roses have started to mildew a little bit but in the face of these lovely blooms that little flaw is forgiven.

The salvia 'Black & Blue'  has conquered 'Pretty Jessica'. I feel they give quite a nice pair together. The salvia is still a food source for the hummingbirds, which visit it at least twice a day.

Yesterday we were really having lovely autumn weather. It was almost hot at lunchtime, but had already cooled down to a very comfortable temperature when I finally found the time to garden in the late afternoon. I wanted to get rid of this basil for quite a while already, which definitively had seen better times. Does that happen to you too, that potted plants are way past their prime or even dead but you don't get around to put them out of their misery? Instead of that you allow them to make a whole area in the garden look miserable. Well it happens to me from time to time. After I had tossed this one and its sister in the garbage I was ending up with two empty pots, which are also not a pretty sight. So I decided to plant some of my Miniature and Miniflora roses into them, which were still hanging in there in their small band size black plastic containers.

I could choose from these Miniature and Miniflora roses (seen from the right to the left): 'Lavender Crystal', 'Moonlight Scentsation', 'Overnight Scentsation', and 'Herbie'. By the way this is how roses look which have been in their band size containers for way too long. They are all not really happy anymore and started to get yellow and brown leaves and had even cane dieback. Really time to pot them up into bigger containers.

In the end I decided to plant 'Herbie' into one of the containers in which the basil had been growing...

... and 'Lavender Crystal' into the other.

I even made it to clean one more pot that was sitting empty in a remote corner of the garden and planted 'Moonlight Scentsation' into that one. I also trimmed of the brown canes and cleaned up yellow and brown leaves on all three roses. I hope all of them will perk up soon. 'Overnight Scentsation' unfortunately has to wait a little longer until I get around to pot it up. But I have another container with a dead herb waiting already to be replanted...

Even thought this was all I got done yesterday I was pretty happy that I took time to garden at least a little bit and enjoyed being outside in the autumn sun. And every little step towards my organic dream garden counts, right? 

I would like to finish the post with this incredible flower of 'Sweetness'. This rose managed to produce yet another flush of blooms. The flower on the photo is the first one to open of the latest flush. The cooler weather probably helped to create one of the most beautiful clear lavender/grayish blooms that I have seen on this rose so far. I just love, love, love it! It also comes with a wonderful strong fragrance. The foliage is still completely clean, which is quite unusual for a lavender Hybrid Tea rose. 'Sweetness' is certainly one of the best Hybrid Teas that I am growing in my garden. I will tremendously enjoy its last flush of this season and intend to cut many blooms for indoors. 

Wishing you all a good start into the new week!

See you in the garden!

Christina