April And May Roses

No, in case you have wondered, this is not another blog that has bitten the dust, as seem to happen to so many lately. I just have been super busy with my job and two trips in May, one to Germany and one to Santa Fe, New Mexico that I simply couldn't find the time to post. But before spring is officially over I want to show you some roses that have been blooming in my garden in the months of April and May. Sadly, even when I was at home in April and May, I often couldn't find the time to take photos, but here are some that I got of my roses.

Interestingly, because of all the rain that we got this winter and intermittently even this spring I had assumed that my roses would bloom better than for a long time, but not so much. I have a lot of rose disease this year in the garden, predominantly rose rust, but also black spot, which was almost unheard of in my garden so far. I also didn't have the time to take proper care of my roses in terms of fertilizing and that definitely results in fewer blooms, but still, I was very happy about the blooms I got despite all the odds.

Undoubtedly one of my most beautiful roses in the last two months is 'Bewitched', an older Hybrid Tea rose.

Almost all the blooms open up to perfection...

...and they have a very strong and pleasing damask scent.

The bush has struggled after it was replanted from a five pot into the ground, probably because it had been in the container for too long and was pot bound. But now, after I think two years, it is finally strutting its stuff and showing what this rose can do. 

The blooms remind me of the super big ones that you can buy for equally big bucks at the florist.

No necessity for that, if you plant 'Bewitched' in your garden. You can have your own home grown ones yourself. 

The rose has also become infected with rose rust at the end of May though, but it continues to bloom and doesn't seem to mind. 

I have often shown rosa 'Auckland Metro', one of my favorite light colored Hybrid Tea roses, on this blog. I am still in love with the blooms, but unfortunately, this rose has also become heavily infected with rose rust this year for the very first time in my garden.

Rosa 'Reine des Violettes' has admittedly small blooms, but they are exquisite and the perfume is enchanting.

I also like the informal old-fashioned flower form of this rose very much.

If you follow my blog for a while you know that I am not a fan of yellow, but rosa 'Charles Darwin's ' particular yellow tone won me over.

I have planted two bushes of this variety in my garden lately and both of them are still growing in, but so far things look very promising. Besides the gorgeous blooms, what I am the happiest about is, that both bushes haven't shown any signs of disease so far.

Love this shot of rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard'. The blooms of this rose are one of the biggest in my garden and they are jam packed with rose petals.

I think I will always be smitten with this rose.

Rosa 'Yolande d'Aragon' is a wonderful Old Garden Rose with a very strong and lovely fragrance, but in my garden, this variety has disease problems and the blooms have also trouble to withstand the strong winds that we receive on our top of the hill location. The blooms get often so damaged by the wind that they become unsightly.

Not all is rosy in a predominantly organic no spray garden. Aphids can have a feast, but usually, with a strong ray of water from the hose, I can keep them in check.

This is rosa 'Rose de Rescht, which I had grown for a long time in a five gallon container. Lately, I have removed the second of my 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' roses because of increasing problems with powdery mildew and replaced it with this variety. I am curious how 'Rose de Rescht' will fair in the same location. It is too early to say anything, though.

A scene from the front yard. To the left you see my last remaining rosa 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' and to the right rosa 'The Prince'. I am quite pleased how this part of the garden looks, especially considering the little bit shady location.

A closer look at rosa 'Our Lady of Guadalupe'. Despite an almost ongoing infestation with powdery mildew, this bush is very floriferous.

I am excited about the first bloom of this recent acquisition. This is rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent', one of the newer varieties bred by David Austin. The first bloom was huge, very full, and had an exquisite color. It is not clearly to see in the photo but is was a warm pink shade with some yellow hints at the base. Can't wait to see the next flowers.

Rosa 'White Meidiland' is really coming into her own. This rose is growing in an unsuitable area for roses, because it is so shady and the rose still manages to do well, blooms very prolifically...

...and produces nice big sprays of magnificent blooms.

My last contender for today is rosa 'Mary Rose', which you can call almost a classic by now. It is bred by David Austin and blooms very early in the season and repeats very well. It has a white sport called 'Winchester Cathedral', which I would love to grow in my garden as well.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this post about some of the roses that have been blooming in my Southern California garden in the last two months.

As I am writing this, I am with my husband on vacation in the Cotswolds, one of the most beautiful areas of England again and the next posts will be about some of the fabulous gardens, pretty little towns and picturesque villages that we have seen here. So I would love for you to come back soon and visit with me this wonderful part of the world. It is truly a gardener's paradise.

If you want to get a glimpse of the Cotswolds see my posts from our vacation last year in the same area here:

Hidcote Manor Garden I
The beautiful village of Blockley in the Cotswolds, England I
The beautiful village of Blockley in the Cotswolds, England II
An English Afternoon Tea in Bradford on Avon, England


Warm regards,

Christina

I am linking up to
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Busy With Winter Rose Care And More...

Since my last post about my garden from the beginning of January, I have been mainly busy deleaving and pruning all my roses.

Even though my garden is small some of my roses aren't and it is quite an undertaking to accomplish this job each year. The photo above shows rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' in all her deleaved and pruned architectural glory.

The Pierre is still a little lonely in this bed, but I finally made the decision to plant rosa 'Charles Darwin' to his side. Do you see the big hole to his right lined by white irrigation pipes? That is where Charles will go and I hope these two will flower well and harmonize together

I have rosa 'Charles Darwin' already grown to a decent size. He is the rose in the big container in the middle of the picture. I hope his huge root ball will stand up to the root competition with the Queen Palms and the Strelitzia Nicolais in this bed.

But before he could be transplanted I needed to deleave and prune him, too. What you can't see on the photo is that there was plenty of oxalis, an obnoxious weed here in my neck of the woods, growing in the container as well. Boy, did I stung my fingers bloody to get this nasty stuff out of the container.

I have decided to reduce the number of roses that I grow in containers on our terrace first of all because the roses don't do so well at this location in the increased summer heat in the last couple of years. But secondly they need to be deadheaded absolutely diligently otherwise all the petals are ending up in our pool, which is close by. Because of time reasons I haven't been able to deadhead the roses daily last summer and the pool often became a mess.

On the other side of our kitchen door, which leads to the terrace, is an identical arrangement of containers and plants. My idea is to replace both roses in the biggest containers with either citrus trees or small tropical palms and switch out the miniature roses and boxwoods with herbs. I think it will be nice to have herbs handy for cooking so close to the kitchen.

So with this mind, I decided to repot rosa 'Jilly Jewel', the miniature rose in the foreground to the left, into a black plastic container and put her in the pot ghetto for now until I can decide where to place her in the garden.

Here you see rosa 'Jilly Jewel' pruned and in her new larger container.

When I was at one of the big box stores to buy more compost for the garden they had organic herbs for sale and this Spearmint jumped right into my shopping card. I assume that this will be very easy to grow and I love to pick a few leaves of mint to brew a tea or decorate a desert. 

I could literally see the Spearmint perking up under my eyes the moment it was repotted and watered. 

This is how the combo looked at the end. The fresh green of the mint is so nice but makes the suffering boxwood look even more miserable. I have to find another place for it soon. 

When I was at the big box store I also stumbled over these stock and couldn't leave them behind. Last year I have fallen in love with stock for its beautiful blooms, I especially like the double ones, and wonderful very strong fragrance. These found spots in the front yard which I will show you in my next garden post.

I am also busy like a bee going through all my potted own-root roses, deleaving, pruning, it is often actually more a very gentle shaping, and some get re-potted like these three. I forgot the names of the two to the left but I know the one to the right is rosa 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh'.

Here they got their hair cut and also have been potted up from two-gallon containers into five-gallon containers. 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' is the one in the middle now.

The view of my White Garden Bed. All rose are deleaved and pruned and some of them have started to leave out again already, even though this is hard to see in the photo.

Each year I have the tradition to order a few more own-root roses in the winter. This time I have ordered for the very first time from David Austin Roses directly. The ones of you who follow my blog know that I am a big lover of roses bred by David Austin but so far I only got his creations from other nurseries.

The box they come in looks pretty nice, don't you think?

After opening the box I was surprised to find a rose only wrapped in a big plastic bag, Nothing to keep the roots moist.

Freeing the rose from the plastic it turns out that it has survived the travel rather well. I ordered 'Princess Alexandra of Kent', a wonderful saturated pink rose with big blooms and a great strong fragrance. I have seen this rose in English Gardens and it simply blew me away. I can only hope that it will do as well in my garden here in Southern California.

But what is that? Do you see the one cane being completely bent and almost looking like a snake? How did this happen?

I decided to cut it off at the bending part and hope that new growth will sprout from it. Wish me luck that the rose will leave out soon. Only then you know if it really survived the transport and transplant.

I am looking forward to receiving three more roses from David Austin this year. Find out which varieties I ordered soon here on the blog. They are also own-root roses, but they come planted in two-quart containers. They will be much smaller than 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' the bare root own-root rose that you see here in the photos.

After all these bare rose canes I would like to leave you with a photo of the refreshing green leaves and lovely white flowers of campanula poscharskyana 'Alba', also called the White Serbian Bellflower. I was very surprised to see it bloom so early in my garden. I wonder if there is a correlation with all the rain that we were getting this winter. 

Hope you are all enjoying a nice weekend!

See you in the garden!

Warm regards,

Christina

I am linking up to
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My Soulful Home - Sundays at Home

December Roses

All the rain that we were having here in Southern California in December brought the roses back to live after more than five years of severe drought and many were blooming beautifully again. Hence I would like to resume my habit to show you which roses have been flowering in my garden in the last month. I have to say, though, that there were more roses flowering, I just chose the ones of which I got a good photo for this post. So here they come!

I am really happy with this picture of rosa 'Auckland Metro'. I shot it while venturing outside between rain showers. The bloom is drenched in natural rain drops. I feel somehow the roses can withstand natural rain better than irrigation water. It might have to do with all the chemicals that are put in the drinking water nowadays.

Here is a bud of 'Auckland Metro'.

And another rain shot.

'Grandmother's Hat' showing a lovely, saturated, pink color in the cooler weather that we finally had in December.

The buds of rosa 'Bewitched' are particular elongated and always very elegant.

The fact that rosa 'Iceberg' is very common and easy to grow in California, doesn't diminish the beauty of 'Iceberg' in my eyes.

Another shot of 'Iceberg'.

I like how the sun back-lits the flowers of 'Iceberg' in this photo.

Certainly one of my most unusual roses is 'Nimbus'. The mauve color of this rose has a very brownish tint, which makes it quite special.

What do you think? Isn't the subtle coloration of 'Nimbus' to die for? 

The noble rosa 'Pope John Paul II'. One of my all time favorites!

Fully open flower of 'Pope John Paul II'. A little bit tattered by the rain. White roses always seem to be the most vulnerable to the exposure of water on their petals.

The Tea Rose, 'Georgetown Tea' was especially floriferous last month. 

Close-up of a bloom of 'Georgetown Tea'.

Another image of the bush of  'Georgetown Tea'.

Rosa 'Moonstone' lovely, huge flowers on a very sickly bush.

Small spray of rosa 'Piere de Ronsard'.

The same spray later with one fully open bloom. 

One rose that was absolutely outstanding last month is 'Belinda's Dream'.

I am so in love with the pale pink, perfectly formed, big blooms of this rose.

Above is a bush shot of 'Belinda's Dream'. The winter flush was almost as prolific as you would expect it to be in spring.

Some more images of 'Belinda's Dream', just because this rose is so incredible beautiful and I wanted to show you the different facets of it.

I hope seeing the photos of my December roses brought a bit of joy to you, my dear readers, but especially to those, who are suffering from a cold winter. I know how harsh the winter can be from my many years of living in Berlin, Germany, and really feel for you!

See you in the garden!

Warm regards,

Christina

I am linking up to
Life and Linda - Dishing It & Digging It
Cedar Hill Farmhouse - The Scoop
Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson - Share Your Cup
21 Rosemary Lane - Share your Style