The Walkway to the House

The flower beds to the sides of the walkway leading up to our front door are one of the most prominent areas in our garden, simply because you pass them often a couple of times a day and also every visitor coming to our place is reaching our house through that area. Unfortunately in our yard this is the most challenging gardening area you can imagine. Why? Because first of all the beds are really ridiculously small. Not our fault by the way, we bought the house with the hard scape already done. Who ever laid out the front yard was for sure not thinking about how to plant this area, there is way too much concrete there in relationship to the overall space available. Therefore the plants have hardly any room to stretch their roots. Secondly in these beds grow two pigmy date palms (p. roebelenii), which provide severe root competition for any other plant, which want to make herself at home there, too. Thirdly this area is facing South-West side and it gets really hot there even in spring already not to talk about the heat of a Southern California summer. So all the plants that grow there must be very tough.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)

I have planted two 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' roses in this part of our garden, which you can see in the photo above and one 'Iceberg' rose, which is hidden by the cycad on the right side of the photo and to my big surprise roses all do well, given that I take good care of them in terms of watering, fertilizing, and mulching. My experience with roses in general is that they are much tougher than their reputation, but you have to find the right varieties that grow well in your climate. My newest addition to this part of the garden is actually not a plant, but the two blue glazed terracotta spheres underneath the pigmy date palm. In this area nothing is growing so close to the palm and I find that the spheres are a perfect way to add color and interest to that previously problematic part of the front yard. I am really in love with them!




Close-up of one of the picture perfect blooms of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe', with the blue sphere as a back ground. I love the contrast between the silvery-pink of the rose and the strong clear blue of the sphere.

The two blue pots that I had previously placed underneath the pigmy date palm (see my post about them, if you click here) moved to both sides of the front door and bringing interest and color to the entry of the house. On the photo below, you can see one of them with the 'Key Lime Pie' heuchera in bloom. The tiny flowers are a very unobtrusive light creamy-pink color and are giving the heuchera a very delicate charm.

When you walk up to the front door on the left side I have planted three more of the 'Key Lime Pie' heucheras into the ground, which are also in bloom right now (see photo below). I like the effect of the repeated use of one plant as is often recommended in garden design books more and more and feel there is really something to that advice. Somehow a plant is becoming much more impact that way and the overall atmosphere is not feeling restless especially in a small garden.




Same heucheras, but seen from the front door perspective.




Hidden behind the cycad that you can see on the right side on the photo above is an 'Iceberg' rose, which is just about to start to bloom (photo below).




The photo below shows the pigmy date palm with one of the 'Our Lady of Guadalupe roses from the other side walking towards the front door. In front of the rose are pink dianthus blooming. I had planted a couple more of them scattered into this area of the garden, but unfortunately one after the other succumbed death through a fungi, which leads the dianthus suddenly to wilt and then they dry up. Sometimes not the whole plant dies, but just part of it, unfortunately that looks so ugly that you have to remove it anyway. After the first year I decided that there is a little bit too much pink in the front yard and I am slowly trying to introduce more blue or at least lilac-blue to this area to build a nice contrast to the pink 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' roses. This year I planted salvia 'Black & Blue', which produce blue and black flowers (not seen in the pictures). Somehow the salvias have a hard time to grow in, but hopefully they will take off soon.

Top part of the 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' rose. To me it is still fascinating that this rose is able to churn out so many perfect blooms.




Close-up of the dianthus that you can see in being planted in front of the rose two photos above. By the way they smell incredible strong and lovely!




A couple of more pictures of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe blooms in different stages of opening.

The last rose that says goodbye or hello to you depending if you are leaving or approaching the front door is an 'Iceberg Climbing' rose planted to the left side by the garage. It is just starting to bloom magnificently. I like to plant pink and white roses together and think of thems the perfect planting pair. The white saves the pink roses from being to "overly sweet" and "girly" in my opinion.

One last pictures of the blue spheres and the pink 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' roses. Looking at the pictures for this post and writing about our walkway to the front door I realized to my own surprise that in the moment I am quite happy with the way this part of the garden looks right now, despite the challenges that this area has presented to me as a gardener. Three years of tinkering around with plants, planting and replacing them if necessary has paid off for me and I really feel rewarded right now with beautiful blooms. Of course there is always room for improvement and I am working on it!

Hope you liked to walk the path up and down to our front door with me!

See you in the garden!

Christina

March Roses

We were getting plenty of rain this month for Southern California circumstances and it was relatively cold, too, but since yesterday the weather has changed and today we had 86 F! That was giving the roses a big boost and now many of them are blooming. Below I show you my most beautiful roses that flowered in the month of March in my garden.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)

'Grandmother's Hat' produced my absolute favorite bloom this month. I am totally in love with this rose!

'Reine des Violettes' just starts to open. I guess the flower is a little bit blotchy from the rain and the cold. I assume, in warmer weather it would look a little different.

'Purple Pavement' is the only Rugosa rose that I grow. The rose is still in a pot, but did not seem to like our alkaline water. Still it was able to crank out some blooms. 

Bud of 'Sutter's Gold', very elegant looking.

 

I picked the same bloom of  'Sutter's Gold' later in a more open stage for indoors before the rain ruined it and find that it has a quite interesting coloration, even though it is almost a little bit too bold for my taste.

This is the first bloom that I ever see from 'Vi's Violet', a beautiful lavender miniature rose. It almost died after being eaten by rabbits twice, and now slowly recovers. I am still very new to miniature roses, but I start to like the small delicate flowers more and more. I think, they will be very cute for small indoor bouquets.

'Vi's Violet' again in a more open stage and wet from the rain. As you can see the rose has blackspot and rust, but I hope it will grow out of it as the weather warms up and gets more dry.

 

'Sweetness', this rose you already now from my previous post, wet, but this time not from rain but the sprinklers.  The rose truly amazes me, what it endures and still being able to look so pretty.

'Bewitched' loves the heat and produced yet another one of her perfect Hybrid Tea style flowers.

Fully open bloom of 'Baronne Prevost'. The flower was measuring 4.5" in diameter. I adore the Old Garden Rose form.

'Mme. Alfred Carierre'. Another rose that just loves the heat, producing effortless one picture perfect rose bloom after the other. Here it is really a no-brainer to grow.

The last rose for today, 'William Shakespeare 2000'. This is the first rose that the one gallon rose that I got from Chamblee's is producing for me. I love the form, but would like to see the color to be a little bit darker the same way it came with blooms from Chamblee's on it. Maybe I have to put down a little bit of soil sulfur and find out, if that changes the color in the direction that I would like it to be. 

I am dedicating the roses of the month March to the people of Japan. My heart goes out to you!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Rose of the Month: 'Sweetness'

 (you can click on the photos to enlarge)

Good lavender or mauve colored roses are hard to come by, very hard to come by actually. Somehow they seemed to be more fussy to grow and disease prone than any other colored roses. On the other hand I find the color so special and striking that I am always on the hunt for a nice lavender rose. They have an appeal that is hard to resist and are also stunning in bouquets. Usually roses in this color are very fragrant, which is a big plus in my eyes. Out of the seven lavender or mauve colored roses that I have grown so far 'Sweetness' is really one of the best and therefore I would like to portrait this rose today.

General Information

'Sweetness' is classified as lavender, mauve or mauve-blend grandiflora and was bred by Dr. Keith W. Zary (United States, 2008). The rose was introduced in the United States by Jackson & Perkins in 2009 and to my knowledge is still sold exclusively by this company. 'Sweetness' was bred from 'Melody Perfumee' (seed) and 'Lagerfeld' x 'Shocking Blue' (pollen).

The rose is described by public sources to be a vigorous and healthy grower with good heat tolerance. The flowers are ovoid, pointed and high-centered, which usually occur in small clusters. The flower size is 4.5" - 5 " and has a petal count of about 30 rose petals and can be called full. The blooms have a powerful, strong citrus fragrance, which is very pleasing.




The rose likes full sun and is supposed to grow well in zone 5 - 10. The width is listed to be 3' to 4' feet and the height 5'. 'Sweetness' blooms in flushes throughout the season. The bush form is medium upright and the rose has glossy, dark green, healthy foliage. 

Sweetness makes a good garden plant but also delivers nice cut flowers.

Personal Experience

My 'Sweetness' was ordered for me as a birthday present from a friend (thank you Petia!) about three years ago. The rose was sent from Jackson & Perkins as a good size own root, bare root rose, which started to leave out and grow immediately after being potted up in a five gallon container. It did not take long and it flowered nicely (see photo below).




What stands out the most about this rose in my growing experience with her is the disease resistance. This is one of the two most healthiest roses that I grow in my garden up to today out of maybe 75 roses altogether. For a lavender colored rose this is quite astounding, I think! I have never seen a speck of blackspot or powdery mildew on my 'Sweetness' so far. Sure Southern California is not exactly blackspot country, but in certain weather conditions like this spring for example we get our share, too, and we do have sometimes a lot of powdery mildew pressure. Since I garden organically and do not spray disease resistance is very important to me, especially in this color range. Just to give you a contrasting example for a lavender rose that is basically a disaster in my garden lets talk about 'Sterling Silver' for a moment. The leaves of this rose are white on the top from powdery mildew and orange from below from rust right now, yuk! I have never seen a bloom on 'Sterling Silver' so far because the rose is too sickly to produce some and barely surviving.




The blooms of  my 'Sweetness' rose get fairly big up to the size they are supposed to according to the general information available about this rose shared above in this post. The best of them besides the wonderful color is the truly strong citrus, lemon fragrance in which I easily can get lost. I simply love roses with a strong fragrance! I also like to cut the flowers for indoors where I enjoy the big, Hybrid Tea-style blooms often placed as a single flower in a vase.




'Sweetness' is easy to grow own roots, grows vigorously, and does not need to be grafted on any rootstock in my garden experience, which sadly is not always the case, even though a rose is sold own roots from the grower. My rose stayed smaller than the official descriptions say. I just went out and measured it: height is 3' and width 3', too. That is basically the same measurement that the rose reached last year. I do not complain that my 'Sweetness' stays smaller than it is supposed too, since many roses especially the Hybrid Tea roses become here very tall, leggy and bare legged, whereas the bush of 'Sweetness' is almost round and full as you can see on the picture below. The bush would even be more dense, if the rabbits did not attack it so badly when it was just leaving out and making new canes. I suspect that the root competition with yet another Queen Anne Palm keeps the rose from being taller or it could also be that the rose is still too young and therefore has not reached her mature size. It is just about two years in the ground.




I also find that this rose is really heat tolerant, in fact, it seems to love the heat of summer here and thrives in it if watered well, of course. The blooms also do not crisp easily, which is a big advantage for those living in Southern California, only when it is so very hot that almost all flowers of my roses start to burn. On the other side I just found out this spring where we had plenty of rain for our area, that the rose can also take rain without balling or the color of the blooms being ruined or the petals getting brown and mushy. The photo below taken yesterday just shows the first bloom of 'Sweetness' this year after a couple of days of rain and just enough sunshine that day for the flower to open. Out of all my roses, it is the second rose to flower, so it seems to be an early bloomer, which is another plus in my eyes.




If this rose has one small flaw I would say it is that it does not repeat as quickly as I would like it to do. The spring flush is always nice, but after that it takes time to repeat, longer than is common for this type of rose class. Also the amount of blooms seem to shrink from flush to flush over one growing season. I am wondering if this also has something to do with the age of my rose and the root competition with the palm. This year I intend to fertilize is more repeatedly and see if this makes a difference. But as always you can not have it all and 'Sweetness' has enough positive attributes that I dearly love it. It is truly one of my best lavender roses!

Since the rose is not that long in commerce I would love to hear about your experience with Sweetness, if you grow this rose!

See you in the garden!

Christina