Archive for the 'Roses' Category

Pole Beans and Pink Rose

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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.

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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 | Comments Off on Pole Beans and Pink Rose

More Great Roses

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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 | Comments Off on More Great Roses

More spring flowers

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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 Irises and Rhododendron and Roses | Comments Off on More spring flowers

First Rose Bloom of the Season

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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 | Comments Off on First Rose Bloom of the Season

White Simplicity Rose

I planted this white simplicity rose in our garden about 5 years ago as a bare root rose along with yellow and pink simplicity bare root roses. The pink simplicity roses grew but never bloomed. After about 3 years without a single flower, I pulled them up. The yellow simplicity rose blooms, but it doesn’t impress visually in terms of both its leaves and flowers. It doesn’t get many flowers, and the flowers it does get lose their petals quickly. Its leaves seem to have gotten infected with some kind of fungus. I plan to pull it up this winter and replace it with a different variety.

On the other hand, the white simplicity rose has grown and bloomed beautifully. It produces a lot of flowers, and it’s flowers are nice looking, but the flowers do not have much of a fragrance. It’s blooming now in late November, even though it’s growing in a spot that receives only about 2 hours of direct but filtered sunlight this time of year. This picture was taken last weekend.

I also have two white iceberg rose bushes. Iceberg is another floribunda rose. The flowers of iceberg look very similar to simplicity. However, I prefer simplicity to iceberg, because the simplicity rose’s branches grow upright and are sturdier than iceberg. The iceberg rose grows long weak branches that extend too far outward from the center of the plant.

When rain or sprinkler water hits opened iceberg rose flowers, the branches sag down toward the ground. They often do not perk up after drying off, giving the plant an uncared for look. Iceberg roses tend to need more aggressive pruning to keep them looking manicured. I rarely prune the simplicity rose, and it still looks very well manicured even after a rain.

Also, the leaves of the simplicity rose are much larger and more attractive looking than the leaves of our iceberg roses. The simplicity rose leaves are a healthy dark glossy green color, while the leaves of our iceberg roses are a lighter green color and are much smaller.

November 23 2008 | Roses | Comments Off on White Simplicity Rose

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