Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise V

Because of late autumn and also due to the fact that rose pruning has started yesterday, my garden looks quite bare and is deprived of its rose blooms. I miss them already and can't wait for the spring flush next year. But I thought I could help myself out and go through my photos of Mottisfont Abbey, one of the most beautiful rose gardens that I know of. A good reason to continue my series about this great garden on my blog and write up a new post.

In this entry I am featuring some rare roses that are growing at Mottisfont, that you are not very likely to have seen ever before. So I hope I have some surprises in store even for the most knowledgeable rose enthusiasts. I am so glad that Mottisfont Abbey is preserving these beauties for the future for all of us to enjoy.

One rose beauty that I couldn't find a label of. I like the careless, frilly and playful look of the flowers.

'Lady Waterlow', a climbing Hybrid Tea rose bred by Paul Nabonnand and/or Clement Nabonnand (France, 1902). This was a rose that simply blew my mind. We must have been lucky and visited Mottisfont when 'Lady Waterlow' was at her absolute peak. Once again you can see on the photo how perfect the climbing roses are trained at Mottisfont for maximum bloom production.

Each semi-double bloom of 'Lady Waterlow' is simply gorgeous! The pink blend coloration of the flowers is so subtle, you can't help but fall in love with them. The rose is suppose to have a strong fragrance, which I can't vouch for, since I couldn't get to it.

In Mottisfont many peonies are growing together with the roses and lots of them were in bloom when we visiting Unfortunately I don't know the name of this variety.

I found the planting of the flower beds so inspiring...

... and really liked that at Mottisfont, even though the roses play the lead role...

...they are displayed together with many different companion plants.

I feel that only enhances the beauty of the roses.

Loved this combination of dark burgundy and white colored peonies and white foxgloves.

A wide shot of another flower bed.

A rose that you don't see that often is 'Gloire des Mousseux', a Moss Rose, bred in 1852 by Jean Laffay and/or M. Robert in France.

The small flowers of 'Gloire des Mousseux' are quite charming and their form is a little unusual, but...

...the real attraction of this rose is the moss on the buds. It is quite pronounced.

And another lovely peony bloom.

And one more.

A China Rose that I saw the very first time in my life is 'Mme Laurette Messimy'. The rose is assumed to be bred by Jean Baptiste Andre Guillot and/or Pierre Guillot in France, 1887. The semi double flowers are pink, but have beautiful yellow undertones. One characteristic is that the buds are unusually long.

Here is a whole bush shot of 'Mme Laurette Messimy'. I think it is a rose with a very unique appearance and charm.

Another rose that I don't have an identity of, but it reminds me of the Tea Rose 'Le Vesuve'.

An enchanting combination in my eyes! Anybody knows the white, delicate, fluffy flowering plant? Could it be Valerian? But the leaves don't look right...

At this point, I still remember even though our visit was two years ago, we were totally saturated with impressions and couldn't take in anymore.

So we headed back to the exit, passing some this wonderful rose beds again...

...and took a break at the tea room. Of course, we didn't have only tea but cake as well. I recall having a ultra delicious walnut cake. Yum!

After we had rested for a while and restored our energy and our capacity to take in more rose beauty, we headed back to the rose gardens and started to explore the third walled rose garden of Mottisfont Abbey.

The combination of lavender and white colors spoke to me in this bed.

A charming white rose that unfortunately I have no Identity of.

Close-up of an Allium head. Does anyone know what the white delicate flowering plant is in the background?

The romantic planting style of Mottisfont is hard to top.

You can't help but being in awe of the giant Allium heads. They have such a dramatic impact in this bed.

I hope you enjoyed my continuation of the tour through Mottisfont Abbey and you will be back for the next installment. I have plenty more beautiful pictures to share with you. If you don't want to wait until my next post about Mottisfont Abbey is up, here are the links to the previous ones that I already published:

Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise I
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise II
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise III
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise IV

Winter is the time to buy or order new bare root roses in the US and Europe. Maybe my post has tempted you to get some new roses for your own garden? Wouldn't that be the perfect Christmas present? I am certainly thinking about it...

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Rose Garden Malevik
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

November Roses

First, I would like to thank all of you who left good wishes for the health of my mom in the comments to the last post. I am happy to say that my mom is recovering relatively well from her current health issue, even though that type of problem will take time to heal.

I am sure that most of you can imagine that taking care of someone who is ill can get stressful at times and blogging is a welcome distraction and fun activity for me that contributes to keep my own spirit up. I am glad that I can do it from Germany as well.

So here comes the long overdue post about the roses that have bloomed in my garden in November. Following the "new" weather pattern in California, November was a relatively warm month, which prompted a lot of roses to develop nice flowers, even though it was already relatively late in autumn.

The most beautiful rose bloom produced 'Auckland Metro' in my eyes. I am simply in love with the ivory shade of this Hybrid Tea rose. It is such an elegant hue.

Bud of 'Auckland Metro' in the morning sun.

Unfolding bloom of 'Auckland Metro'.

'Mister Lincoln' is the only pure red rose that I am growing in my garden. The tone of red of this rose changes quite a bit with the temperatures. When the days become cooler 'Mister Lincoln' takes on a more cool, dark, wine red color, whereas when it is hot, it is more a warm medium red.

Even though 'Mister Lincoln' was already bred in 1964 by Swim & Weeks I think it is still one of the best red roses for a warm climate. The bush is vigorous and the rose comes with an extraordinary strong classic rose fragrance.

'Pretty Jessica' back lit by the sun.




As usual at this time of the year 'Pope John Paul II' is one of my most floriferous roses.

I never get tired off the lovely white blooms of this variety.

'Pope John Paul II'

'Pope John Paul II'

'Pope John Paul II' has a decent petal count and finishes up in a nice way, which can not be said of all Hybrid Tea roses. 

'Belinda's Dream' at her best.

I am still getting excited at the sight of a flower of 'Lavender Crystal'. This rose has simply a killer lavender color and I am happy that, even though planted in a difficult spot, it is producing blooms on a regular base by now.

The petticoat blooms of 'Mary Rose'. Just delightful!

Above you see 'Moonlight Scentsation', a Mini-Flora, whose flowers make themselves a bit rare in my garden.

I like the yellow center of the flowers and 'Moonlight Scentsation' can produce quite unusual lavender undertones, but...

...it suffers from powdery mildew, if the conditions are right. Unfortunately that is quite often the case in my garden. So I don't know if I will keep this rose long term, but I will give it at least another year.

Unfolding bud of 'Georgetown Tea'. I love how the softer autumn light plays with this emerging rose bloom. 

Last but not least one of my favorite roses 'Scepter'd Isle'. Sometimes the blooms look like powder puffs and I appreciate...

...how this rose shows its yellow stamens as the flowers are opening more. 

All in all a healthy, floriferous, romantic rose. What is not to love?

One more thing: Recently my blog reached 300.000 pageviews. A big thank you to everyone who stops by and takes a look at my posts. It feels so good to know that the blog is being read, your visits truly make me happy!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

Rose Garden Malevik
Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden

Roses, forcing Paperwhites and a new Project

Unfortunately my mom, who is living in Germany, has developed a serious health problem and I decided to fly to Germany on short notice to support her in these difficult times on the Thanksgiving weekend.

There is a lot to do and to organize to help my mom, who has been released from the hospital on Monday, and therefore so far I have found very little time to blog, but at least tonight I want to put up a Periscope video about my own garden that I recorded on the 19th of November.

As usual I had to show some roses ('Pope John Paul II', 'Moondance', 'Snowbird', Pretty Jessica') that were blooming at that time, I am talking a little bit about rose care and growing own root roses from bands into strong plants that can be transplanted into the garden. I also give you an update about my Paperwhites that I am forcing in Hyacinth glasses and tell you about a new garden project in the front yard that I am working on.

I hope you enjoyed watching the video. Forcing bulbs, like Paperwhites, Hyacinths and Amaryllis indoors has a long standing tradition. After I completely blew it last year, this year at least I could muster to try to get some Paperwhite bulbs to flower. I am curious: Are you forcing any bulbs indoors to overcome the winter blues or even for Christmas? Please, if you have a moment of time, let me know in your comments. Thanks!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to Rose Garden Malevik