February Roses

Roses were flowering sparsely in February this year, but at least a few had produced the first new bloom of the season. Other roses have set plenty of buds, but they didn't open last month. Altogether it looks like I will be getting a great first rose flush this year and it will probably start at the end of March already. Because there were only a few blooms in February, each of them was even more dear to me. Here is what I was able to capture with my camera.

'Belinda's Dream' knocked me off my feet with her lovely first bloom.

I couldn't help, but taking photos of the different stages in the development of that flower...

...and want them share it with you.

'Belinda's Dream' is classified as a Shrub rose, but to me it looks like a very fully petaled Hybrid Tea rose. 

This rose is very healthy in my garden and really easy to grow. Definitively a rose that I would recommend at least for a similar climate like mine.

As expected 'Marie Pavie' started to bloom early this year, as she did in the previous years. This rose is also super healthy in my garden.  

Here is a bush shot of 'Grandmother's Hat'. This rose is six to seven feet (180 cm - 210 cm) high and has grown into a very nice bush. The foliage is marvelous and completely clean. You can't see it on the photo, but 'Grandmother's Hat' is loaded with buds. I am looking so much forward for them to open.  

'Climbing Devoniensis' is a rose that I seldom show, but here is a rain drenched elegant bud of it.

First bud of 'Pierre de Ronsard' reaching for the sky.

Another rose with beautiful foliage in February was 'Yolande d'Aragon'. That can not always be said of this rose since sometimes it suffers from disease problems, but so far so good. 

'Madame Alfred Carriere' is the biggest rose that I have growing in my garden. After being generously fertilized it has started to bloom again and I am in love with its flowers. It is one of my all time favorite roses.

New foliage of 'Chandos Beauty'. As you can see it is also very healthy.

Last but not least a bloom of 'Souvernir de la Malmaison', one of my newly acquired baby roses. 

We had another strong storm, which unfortunately slightly damaged the foliage of a few roses, which are planted in locations very exposed to the wind, but it brought some much needed rain. I think the developing rose buds will benefit from it and I am very excited about the March blooms, which, of course, I will share with you. I would be delighted if you would come back to have a look.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

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

Early Spring In The Front Yard

The front yard, particularly the walkway to the front door, is already looking really nice! Of course, there are always things that can be improved, but in the moment I am pretty happy with this part of the garden. Let me take you for a quick garden tour and show you around!

I am especially pleased with this little corner bed, which is closest to our front door. From the left to the right: Daylily 'Gentle Shepherd', salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue', rosa 'The Prince', Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty', Martha Washington geranium seedling, white cyclamen, variety unknown. Most of the front yard was fertilized and mulched at the end of the winter and that really made a difference in the vigor of the plants this year. Let's have a closer look at what is growing in this bed.

White flowering daylily 'Gentle Shepherd' is said to be slow to bulk up, and that is true for mine, but at least it is growing happily and has made one new fan. I can't wait to see it blooming for the first time this year. Do you notice the small plant to the left of the daylily?

Here is a close up of it. That is a paperwhite narcissus! I didn't get them in the ground before February, which is way to late to plant them according to the book, but I could either let the bulbs die or put them in the ground then and I decided to give it a try. There are about fifteen bulbs of paperwhites in the front yard. I am curious to see how many will come up and maybe even bloom.

Rosa 'The Prince' looks as good as never before. I am really hoping for a great spring flush.

I still love my hand painted Portuguese jar, but it is covered a little bit more than I would like by the Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty'. Maybe I should prop the jar up a bit, so that it is more visible. The geranium is doing great and I expect to see many blooms this year. It has a truly wonderful dark purple color.

Judging by the leaves this is another Martha Washington geranium (it is growing to the right side of the one in the photo above), but I haven't planted it. I guess it is a seedling or the Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty' has found another way to propagate itself. I am anxiously waiting to see what the bloom color will be.

My white cyclamen is blooming generously. It grows for years in this container and blooms reliably each year. A happy no fuss plant. You can't ask for more.

Opposite to the bed shown in the first photo of this post I have two other Martha Washington geraniums growing in blue containers. The name of the variety is 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor' and it is also a very lovely one.

I wasn't aware of it before I took the photos, but this one has set buds already. It only will take days for them to open and I am looking so much forward to seeing them, again.

This is an incredible narrow and therefore difficult to plant bed called "The Hell Strip" to the left side when you leave the house. It is doing well so far, too.

In the very front corner of the photo above I have planted stachys monieri 'Hummelo'. The snails are going after it like crazy and didn't give the plant a chance to grow new leaves. So I put out Sluggo (the little white kernels), an organic snail deterrent, to keep them in check.

I have a second salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' growing in the "Hell Strip Bed" opposite the salvia 'Mystics Spires Blue' in the corner bed featured in the first photo of this post. This one receives more sun and warmth and the plant is much more developed than the other one. Both salvias grow through obelisks to prevent them from flopping over later in the season.

This is a kind of miniature pelargonium, which I cut back only in February. Sorry, but I can't remember the name. Hope it will come back properly. It also lives in the "Hell Strip Bed".

The middle of the bed that runs along the walkway to the house is planted with two roses 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' to the very right and left. I had added two verbena bonariensis between the roses and the Pygmy Date Palm last year in autumn, but one died almost instantly, the other was struggling for the longest time, but seems to have grown in now.

Here you can see the verbena bonariensis more closely. I tried to find a replacement for the one which died, but so far no luck at the local nurseries. 

You walk up to this island bed as you leave the house and walk towards the street. A pretty Pygmy Date Palm lives here. At the feet of the palm is blue flowering penstemon planted. It is struggling because of the root competition with the palm,...

...but since I have fertilized and mulched the bed, I hope I can get one more year out of the penstemon, but eventually it has to be replaced. 

Right before you leave the house you pass by this scene. To the left there is rosa 'Pretty Jessica' planted and to the right rosa 'Marie Pavie'. The latter is full of buds, even though you can't see it well on the photo, and is about to bloom very soon. The white flowering pelargonium in the container on the column looks pretty ugly with its brown leaves.

Close-up of the white pelargonium. I never could get it to look better than on this photo and I don't know the reason why it constantly is making these brown leaves. After two years of trying I am seriously thinking to get rid of it and replace it with another Martha Washington geranium 'Regal Elegance Rose Bicolor', that I still have on hand.

Looking at the middle part of the bed running along the walkway to the house from another direction. I like the height that the obelisk adds to the bed.

View from the street towards the front door. The front yard is mainly green at this time of the year, but I like it this way.

Besides the cyclamen and the white geranium, the dianthus 'Floral Lace White' is the only other plant blooming right now. I thought dianthus would be an annual, but they came through the winter like a charm and were flowering more or less prolifically since they were planted last spring. Pretty amazing!

This last shot shows the walkway to the house as you enter it from the street. Do you see the white dianthus that I just discussed blinking through the trunks of the Pygmy Date Palm?

To me it looks like the front yard is off to a very good start into the season. Now I sit back and enjoy watching things filling in more and wait for the roses and other plants to start blooming. Life is good!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to

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

End of Month View February - Front Yard Side Bed

Hard to believe for me that it is already the end of February and it is time again to participate in Helen's (The Patient Gardener) End of Month View meme. Where did this month go? I was very busy in the garden this February and yet it doesn't show much in the comparison between this month photo of the Front Yard Side Bed, the area of my garden that I have chosen for this meme, and last month photo. The reason for that is that in February my main effort is to fertilize and mulch all the roses in the garden and when that is done to fertilize and mulch all other plants in the yard. There aren't any resources for the time consuming digging to plant something new. That's being said, let's have a look at the progress, that is made in this bed in the last month.  

February 2016

The most visible changes are, that the two roses in this bed have leaved out, that the rest of the lawn to the very left was removed completely and that the bed is mulched, which gives it this nice dark look that you expect from fresh good soil. What you can't see though, is that the whole bed is fertilized, which helped the roses and the alstroemeria in the middle of the bed to gain momentum and grow vigorously and the palms to green up.

 January 2016

Here is the photo from January for a comparison.

But there was more work done that is not so obvious. The whole irrigation system in this bed was checked and sprinklers that didn't work anymore replaced and others adjusted so that the water is distributed over the bed in an optimal way. In the right front corner there is a new sprinkler installed. I started to mulch over the utility lid a little from the sides, but I think I can cover it up more to the first "real" lid. The problem is though, how to keep the mulch in place. I am thinking of trying to place bender board into the slid between the outer rim and the first inner lid and see if that could work.

One thing that makes me really happy is the sight of this rose, 'Charles Darwin'. Last month I wasn't even sure if it would survive, but now it has leaved out nicely and there is no question that it will make it. It is a truly beautiful soft yellow rose with very full and luxurious flowers. I can't wait to see it blooming in my front yard for the first time. 

The Front Yard Side Bed shown from another perspective. 

Even though not so obvious in the overview photos the alstroemeria 'Little Miss Sophie' has bulked up nicely. Unfortunately it hasn't started to bloom yet, like my other variety in the back yard. It would bring some much needed color to this bed!

Rosa 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' is a mature rose that has made the most progress in comparison to the other two plants within the last month. Since it is so established it is growing like gangbusters. It is also a very early bloomer...

...and, zooming in with the camera, you can see that it is already setting buds!

This is the area where there was still lawn last month. We are completely lawn free in our front yard now. I actually like lawn, but grass is simply not climate appropriate in our area anymore, since the climate change is to dramatic and we are in a four year drought. The other thing is that in this bed the lawn always looked out of place since my neighbor took his lawn out and replaced it with a drought tolerant landscape. My remaining strip of grass was simply too small to have a pleasing impact, which made it easier for me to let it go.

Here you see the area, where the lawn was removed from a different angle. Now the question is what to plant there. I am not decided yet, but I have given up the idea of planting one more rose to the left side of the palms also because of our drought. I am now contemplating to plant some bluish agaves around the palms, which hopefully also can keep up better with the palm root competition than a rose ever could.

My plan continues to remove the alstroemeria completely and to plant altogether three roses in this bed. I would like to place the rose nearest to the street closer to the utility lid than 'Our Lady of Guadalupe is in the moment, so that ideally it would drape elegantly over the lid and cover it partly to make it less of an eyesore. For that reason 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' needs to be either lifted and moved forward or be replaced by another variety. I have not made up my mind, yet. Stay tuned, next month most likely the decision will be made. Another thing I need to ponder is which rose variety to plant in the middle of the bed and in case I remove 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' with which rose variety to replace it. I have plenty of roses in my pot ghetto, so I have definitively enough roses to choose from. Rosa 'Charles Darwin' will stay where it is (rose closest to the palms), since it was planted in December last year already in foresight of the make over of this bed.

Do check out Helen's post about her End of the Month View and also visit the other participants of this meme (you find the links to their blogs under the comments tab of Helen's post). Many of these garden transformations are very inspiring to watch.

Wishing everyone a lovely Sunday. I will certainly be out in the yard tomorrow and enjoy myself to the max!

See you in the garden!

Christina

I am linking to 

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden