More and More Roses

And even more rose photos from my Colorado Garden, continuing from the last post...

Rose Gilardi  is a nice miniature moss that is pink with red stripes.

High Country Banshee. This isn't the same as the Banshee described by Leonie Bell, but is a rose sold by High Country Roses.  A very common graveyard rose, it's hardy and  quite fragrant.

Jean Kenneally has near perfect blooms, each one on a long straight stem.

 

Kathryn Morley is a light pink English rose.

Leda with her red tipped petals.

Little Jackie, a nice little miniature bicolor.

Little Linda is a pale yellow micro mini that is one of my hardiest reblooming roses.

Madame Hardy, a lovely white with just a touch of pink once blooming damask.

Marie Pavie, a light pink polyantha.

Even More Roses From My Colorado Garden

Continuing from my previous post...

Nymphenburg, a once blooming pink.

Mr. Nash, a large  yellow climber that is usually a once bloomer. Sometimes it'll bloom a bit more late in the summer.  Mr. Nash is the study name until it can be positively identified. So far it most likely seems to be Dubloons. Here it is as tall as the grape arbor which puts it at about eight feet tall. 

Orange Honey is a nice little mini that gets redder as the blooms age.

Rainbow's End is another miniature rose that gets redder as the bloom ages.

Ralph's Creeper is supposed to get quite big, but stays the size of a miniature for me.

Rene d'Anjou is fragrant, repeat blooming moss.

Rose de Rescht, which is a nicely shaped little shrub that blooms all summer. The blooms have a strong scent.

More Rose Photos from my Colorado Garden

And the parade of roses continues....

William Lobb - a big sprawly purplish once blooming moss rose. The cotton wood cotton is always at peak when my once blooming roses are at their peak. It gets stuck on the moss of this rose.

Scentsational - a fragrant miniature from Nor'east.

Shooting Star is one of my oldest miniature roses.

Spotty is a seedling of Alain Blanchard. Like it's parent, it has spots, but even more so.

Teddy  Bear is another Nor'East miniature with a lovely unusual color.

Tracy Wickham forms these perfect little bi-colored buds on a nice proportional plant. It's one of my favorite miniature roses.

This is an unknown once blooming rose. The blooms are nice and full and very fragrant and the bush is quite big.

Salute is such a bright red mini.

This is another unknown rose.

There are many more rose photos to come.

The Roses of 2012

This is a very strange year. The weather was unusually warm in the spring and we didn't get our usual freezes in May. Because of this the roses, which usually peak around summer solstice, peaked around June 1.
They started around May 10. The first to bloom were Father Hugo's Rose, a once bloomer with lovely tiny ferny foliage:

Also blooming this early was Austrian Copper, another once bloomer:

Fruhlingsgold has these lovely large soft yellow blooms with a unusual fragrance.

Harison's Yellow is another early once bloomer. Here it is, totally unpruned, with all the winter killed canes still there.

The Herbalist started blooming a little later. It's a nice fragrant English Rose.

Mary Rose, another English Rose, was planted up near the house which gives it an early start.

Here's a nice branch of Mary Rose:

That's enough for one post. I'll start the next post with roses blooming nearer the end of May.

Waiting for the Roses

While waiting for spring and all the flowers to bloom, I continue to go through last year's pictures and pick out some of my favorites. Here are some of my English roses that I grow. These are repeat blooming modern roses developed by David Austin, that have the look and fragrance of the old garden roses of antiquity.

The image above is of the rose Evelyn. It produces huge peach colored blooms that have a fantastic fragrance that Crabtree and Evelyn used in their soaps and perfumes of the same name. The Crabtree and Evelyn products actually smell pretty similar to the rose.

The rose pictured below is my first David Austin English rose, Mary Rose. It produces loads of medium pink blooms all summer, but I don't find it nearly as fragrant as Evelyn.


This semi-double rose is called The Herbalist. I'm guessing that they thought the rose was similar to the Apothecary Rose, which is another name for Rosa gallica var. officinalis - a very very old variety of once blooming old garden rose. I find Rosa gallica var. officinalis to be a deeper color.


This is the Alexandra Rose. While it is just a five petaled single rose, I find it to be one of the most beautiful in my garden.


I have many more English roses in my garden and hope to take some nice pictures of them this summer. The pictures above may show up as a set of cards in my TabbyToo shop.

My Spotted Old Garden Roses

I was going through some of the photographs I took of my garden last year and came across these photos I took of some of my spotted roses. These roses are once blooming old garden roses that I grew from seed about 15 years ago from the gallica Alain Blanchard. Alain Blanchard is also quite spotted and passed this characteristic on to my seedlings, although one of my roses ended up being even more spotted that Alain.

These roses behave as gallicas, they are short and sucker like crazy. They are also quite winter hardy with very little cane death even when winters go down to -20 Fahrenheit.


I really like the starry effect the spots have on this dark double bloom. The spots are quite variable - some blooms have quite a few more spots than others.

A Treasury of Old Garden Roses

I'm still pining for my gardens so I grabbed another treasury on Etsy and filled it with items that remind me of my old garden roses - those big fat smelly old fashioned roses that bloom in such abundance in June.
This treasury will be up until Friday, 8:11 am.

September Flowers in the Garden

September is a great time for color in the garden. The dahlias, hardy hibiscus and morning glories are at their peak. The above is one of my dahlias, as are the next two flowers. Once we get a freeze, I'll need to dig up the tubers and store them in the garage until next spring.


Here's one of the garden residents:


I still have some glorious poppies:


The celosia, Gentian sage, sunflowers and sweet peas are vivid annuals that are at their best right now. I'm amazed how well the sweet peas have lasted this year - it was a cooler summer than usual. The vivid pink Japanese and blue Heavenly Blue morning glories are also gorgeous as well as the bluish purple morning glories that have been reseeding for years.


The hardy hibiscus don't even start blooming until almost September. The flowers are huge and have to be seen to be believed. They are perennial, but don't poke out of the ground until the beginning of June.


And finally, the roses are in the peak of their last flush of the year. These are some of my repeat blooming old garden roses.