Archive for the 'Roses' Category
As the daylight hours dwindle in autumn, so do the blooms in our garden. But a few of our plants are still managing to put on a nice show of flowers. Some of our rose bushes are producing their last bloom of the year, including our black magic roses as shown in the first picture. I pruned off most of this season’s growth from this particular rose bush back in mid-August. In just two months, it grew back rapidly and produced another flush of flowers.
Last spring, we planted cockscomb flower seeds in a pot and in our raised bed vegetable garden. They grew better in the pot. It took them 5 months to grow to full size and begin to flower, which they began to do in September. They are still looking good and holding on to their red flowers (if you can call them flowers).
October 18 2009 | Cockscomb and Roses | 2 Comments »
This is a picture of a Double Delight hybrid tea rose bush growing in our backyard. I just planted this bush last spring, and it has bloomed several times since then.
The flowers of Double Delight are white with beautiful deep pink edges. Its flowers have a strong sweet fragrance. Most of the roses in our yard have either no scent or a very subtle scent. Double Delight is one of the few roses we have with a strong scent. Mr. Lincoln also has a great fragrance, but it smells more musky than sweet.
Double Delight seems to need a lot of water like most other roses. I have been watering it every other day, and it has grown quickly ever since I planted it. Although the leaves of our Double delight are not as attractive as some of our other roses, the beauty of its flowers makes up for what it lacks in foliar beauty.
July 25 2009 | Roses | No Comments »
The top picture shows a really interesting purple and white dahlia I am growing this year. I have never had any luck growing dahlias in the ground. As soon as the dahlias sprouted in the spring time, the snails would devour them. They barely had enough time to grow one leaf before they were eaten. Putting snail poison around the dahlias bought some time, but as soon as it began to wash away, the dahlias would get eaten. I just couldn’t be bothered to reapply the snail poison every week or two. The full grown dahlias I planted in the ground didn’t fare much better.
This is the first time I have been successful growing a dahlia. It is growing in our raised bed vegetable garden, which has copper tape all around the wood borders to deter snails and slugs. The copper tape works most of the time, although occasionally one gets in.
The second picture shows our back magic tree rose, which has been in its second bloom of the season for weeks. This rose is one of my favorite roses, because it’s flowers are beautiful, and they last for so long. The third picture shows a white rose of sharon that is now in full bloom in our back yard. Our roses and rose of sharon are all growing in the ground (not in the raised beds). Our snails and slugs don’t seem to be interested in eating these plants.
July 18 2009 | Dahlias and Rose of Sharon and Roses | No Comments »
Our pole beans have now completely covered the 5-foot tall wire fence I erected for them last March. I love this fence structure, because it is strong enough to support the weight of the beans. I made the fence using two wooden posts and a steel wire frame that is used for supporting concrete in construction. But perhaps I should have made it taller. The vines are already 8-9 feet long.
This photograph is a pink climbing rose called America that I planted as a bare root a few years ago. I love this climbing rose. I have planted several climbing roses including Cecil Brunner and Blaze, but this one is my favorite. It has done really well in our yard. It produces lots of beautiful pink flowers, and it has not gotten any black spot or mildew diseases. It grows a moderate amount, but it’s not too vigorous like Cecil Brunner. I got so tried of pruning the numerous long thorny vines of Cecil Brunner, that today I pruned two of ours to the ground, and I plan on uprooting them next weekend.
May 31 2009 | Beans and Roses | No Comments »
These are more pictures of roses I am growing in our garden. The first picture shows a beautiful pink rose that I inherited from the previous owners of the house. It’s flowers are always so perfectly shaped. They almost look fake. These roses form in clusters that look like bouquets of arranged flowers. Although they don’t have any detectable smell. I don’t know what type of rose it is.
The second picture shows a Mr. Lincoln red rose. I have had this rose for about 6 years. Every year it looks more healthy and has more flowers. The flowers are very large when they are fully open, about 6-7 inches wide, and they have a wonderfully classic red rose fragrance as they are opening.
The third picture shows a new rose bush that I just planted last week. It’s a Floribunda rose called Surprise. It’s flowers are initially yellow, fading to a deep pink as they age. The flowers have an interesting candy-like smell as they are opening.
Roses are a joy to have growing in the garden. They are so beautiful, and many of them will bloom repeatedly from spring through summer and fall under the right conditions, unlike a lot of other flowering plants. They are also relatively tolerant of a variety of weather conditions. But to really flourish, they need lots of sun and lots of watering.
May 14 2009 | Roses | No Comments »
These are more pictures of flowers that are blooming in our garden this spring. The first picture is of a Cecil Brunner climbing rose. Each spring, they are filled with hundreds of cute miniature flowers for a few weeks. But they only bloom once a year. The rest of the year they grow profusely. A bit too profusely in my opinion. I stopped watering them two years ago to try to stunt their growth. But it didn’t work. They still grow dozens of new thorny vines every few months during the growing season. Pruning the new growth has only slowed them down a little. I planted them next to the fence, so they might be getting water from the neighbor’s yard. I am probably going to cut them back severely in a few weeks.
The second picture is a purple rhododendron. I have had this bush about 6 years, and it has bloomed reliably every year. I really love of the color of its flowers.
Rhododendrons like shade in warm climates, acidic soil, and lots of water. Ours is planted in partial shade, although our soil is not particularly acidic. I give it azalea/rhododendron fertilizer once a year in the spring and that has be enough to get it to flower.
The last picture is group of lavender bearded irises. These irises were here when I moved into the house. I almost never water or fertilize them, and they have produced very few blooms. This year they have more flowers than they have ever had. In our climate, we get very little rain from May through October. Bearded irises are supposed to be drought tolerant. I am not sure if they don’t bloom much because they are not getting enough water or fertilizer or both.
May 03 2009 | Flowers and Roses | 1 Comment »
Our backyard roses are at the peak of their first bloom of the 2009 season. The first bloom of the season is usually the most spectacular, because it is the only time of year when all of our roses have flowers at the same time. We have planted red, pink, white, orange, purple, lavender, and yellow roses around the edge of the backyard lawn. The orange rose in the first picture is a ginger snap, the purple rose in the second picture is an intrigue, and the rose in the third picture is a double delight, which has a nice fragrance. All three are hybrid tea roses.
After our roses finish their first bloom in about 2 weeks, I will apply a slow release all-purpose fertilizer to them to stimulate them to bloom again in the summertime. I have noticed that when I haven’t fertilized our roses after the first bloom in the past, they don’t get as many flowers in the following months. When I have fertilized them, they generated second and third sets of blooms that were as amazing as the first bloom. Last year, I gave our roses 2 or 3 applications of fertilizer, in the spring and summer, and our roses bloomed off and on until early November.
April 26 2009 | Roses | 1 Comment »
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