Archive for the 'Roses' Category
Our black magic rose continues to bloom into November. Black magic is one my favorite roses in terms of its looks. Its flowers develop on very long straight stems that are ideal for cutting. Although black magic roses do not have much of a fragrance, they have a near perfect rose shape. And they hold their perfect rose shape for weeks unlike many other roses that open quickly and then drop their petals. For example, the yellow rose that I blogged about a few weeks ago opens and loses its petals in less than a week.
November 08 2008 | Roses | No Comments »
The cooler weather has not stopped our roses from blooming yet. In the past week, yellow, red, white, orange, purple, and peach colored roses have been blooming in our yard. This picture shows a pink Color Magic hybrid tea rose that just started blooming again for the first time in about 2 months.
I just bought this Color Magic rose bush from a local discount home improvement store last spring for about $6.50. When I bought it, it was small, and it only had a few stubby canes. In fact, a woman who was standing next to me in line when I was waiting to purchase it told me that she would not have picked that rose based on how it looked at the time.
But I had a feeling that it had potential. I have found that roses respond well to a little TLC. And for that price, how could I go wrong? I try to buy roses that have a thick stalk and thick canes. I think that the thicker roses are more mature, and therefore more likely to grow quickly once they are transplanted into the yard.
Our Color Magic rose has grown to over 5 feet tall from about 1 foot tall in past 6 months, and its leaves are dark green and healthy looking. It has grown particularly fast since I increased the amount of water it was getting in September. I think I only fertilized it once back in early summer.
November 02 2008 | Roses | No Comments »
A few years ago, my mom and I noticed peach colored roses growing in front of a shopping mall. They had very attractive flowers. We decided that we had to know what kind of rose they were, so we got out of the car and searched for a label. We found a label on one of the bushes. It was a brandy hybrid tea rose. Since then, I have noticed Brandy roses growing in people’s gardens, at a local university, and in many other places.
I finally bought my own Brandy hybrid tea rose bush from a local nursery last summer. Although it looked good when I bought it, at first it seemed to struggle to grow and bloom. It produced a few flowers over the summer, but they were small, and they burned quickly after opening.
Over the summer, I was watering our Brandy rose using a low flow dripper. Since I replaced the dripper with a higher flow bubbler in early September, it has grown significantly. Now it has a flush of large and full blooms for the first time.
I think the unique fading peachy color of the petals is what makes this rose so appealing. The flowers also have a nice fragrance.
October 29 2008 | Roses | 3 Comments »
I have come to the conclusion that I haven’t been watering our rose bushes enough in the past, especially during the warm summer months. I once heard that a fully grown rose bush needs 7 gallons of water per week in order to flourish, but that seemed like a lot of water to me.
I was using low flow drippers to water our roses and other perennials. The drippers are fed from an automatic watering system. I was watering for about 10 minutes a day. The drippers had an output of 2 gallons per hour. That equals about 1/3 a gallon a day per dripper.
Last month, I replaced the drippers that were watering our roses and other shrubs with adjustable micro-stream bubblers that can output up to 13 gallons per hour. I also cut back on the watering to about 5 minutes per day. That equals about a gallon per day at their maximum setting, although I have most of the adjustable bubblers set to less than that depending on the size of the plant.
The bubblers send out micro-streams of water in a circle. The radius of the circle is easily adjustable up to a few feet. The bubbler design seems to be doing a better job of supplying water to the entire root system, rather than to just a portion of it.
The extra water seems to have made a big difference. Several of our roses have had very few flowers since mid-summer. Now most of our roses are full of new buds, such as the yellow hybrid tea rose in this picture. It has grown over twenty new buds just in the past 6 weeks since I put the bubblers in, after getting about 10 flowers over the entire summer. I don’t know what kind of hybrid tea rose it is, because it was growing here when I moved in.
October 27 2008 | Roses | No Comments »
This is a picture of one of our two white iceberg rose bushes. It’s blooming again for possibly the last time this year.
Iceberg roses are one of the most carefree roses we are growing. That’s probably the reason why they are planted in front of shopping malls so often. Our iceberg roses grow quickly, especially the one in this picture, and they produce a lot of flowers, even for a floribunda rose, with little fertilizer.
Another reason I like iceberg roses is that they seem to attract bees more than our other roses. Today, for example, I saw bees buzzing around the bush in this picture, and I did not see bees on any of our other roses.
However, iceberg rose flowers are quite fragile. The flowers do not last long. They typically last only a few days. Iceberg roses do not make good cut flowers in my opinion. The one time I tried to make an iceberg rose bouquet, the flowers started to lose their petals a few hours after being cut, and they had lost most of their petals after a day or two.
October 20 2008 | Roses | No Comments »
I just took this photograph of our black magic rose bush. Black magic roses are great, because each flower lasts for a long time. The flowers open slowly in a few days and then typically remain open for weeks. An individual flower can last for 2-3 weeks before losing its petals. They are the longest lasting roses we have in our garden.
Our black magic rose is shaped as a tall tree rose. It is a prolific bloomer, and it grows faster than most of our other rose bushes (except the climbing roses). The flowers grow on long stems that are great for cutting. Several times a year from spring until fall, our black magic rose is filled with deep red roses that last for weeks before fading, rather than just days. Many other roses, like Mr. Lincoln, de-petal only a few days after opening.
The petals of the black magic flowers seem to be sturdier than other roses. They don’t seem to sunburn or wilt as easily as other roses. However, black magic does not have any detectable fragrance.
October 18 2008 | Roses | No Comments »
Our Mr. Lincoln rose bush is blooming again right now, after about a two month hiatus. Mr. Lincoln is a classic red rose. Its flowers have the strong fragrance of an old-fashioned rose. It’s yet another one of my favorite roses.
The flowers of Mr. Lincoln are very large when they open up fully. Sometimes, I think that is when they look their best. One of the great things about growing one’s own rose bushes is being able to see the flowers open up completely. The commercially grown roses I have bought usually do not open up fully.
Unfortunately, Mr. Lincoln roses tend to lose their petals just a few days after opening. So it’s a real treat when numerous flowers are fully open on the same bush at the same time.
October 02 2008 | Roses | No Comments »
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