Some glamour shots

The thing about glamour shots is that they are tight, zoomed-in shots that mostly exclude. I suppose every gardener dreams of whole garden glamour shots. Someday – maybe this spring, I hope – mine will be wide, all-inclusive ones. The very thought of it makes my heart skip. However, now in the dead of winter I only have small spots of glamour scattered around the garden. I always fear that tight shots give a false impression of my garden, and that if someone actually strolled through it after seeing a post like this, they’d think I had lied and wonder where all those beautiful roses are. Well, they’re there – a couple on this bush, one on that bush, mostly few and far between, but their scarcity only makes them more precious and makes me all the more impressed with a rose that can produce such beauty when all around it others are sleeping.

'Maggie' is coming into her own a year after being planted as a tiny rooted cutting. The cane that holds this bouquet is about 3-1/2 feet tall and vertical. Her flowers have no white or light pink in them. Unfortunately, the coloring in this photo is a figment of my camera's imagination, and I can't correct it, but this is her first such bloom cluster and I simply must post it. She is fastastically fragrant, too. Can't wait to see her growth this year.

The femme fatale of my garden is, of course, 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' .

SDLM cycles quickly from flush to flush, and I wouldn't be without her even if her ugly stage does at times tempt me to reduce her numbers from three to two or maybe even one. The ugly stage only lasts a matter of days, so I buck up and wait for the beauty to reappear almost magically.

When she re-clothes herself with deep green foliage and her big, round buds appear everywhere, I say to myself, "See! What were you thinking?"

'Le Vesuve' is definitely struggling with her health, and unfortunately, this gardener hasn't much of a clue as to why, but she has two blooms on her now. Somehow I managed to get the setting sun behind me in this photo. I can't figure out where the reflection is coming from.

Here's 'Maggie' again. Her color is a deeper crimson than in this photo..

Not a great pic of 'Clotilde Soupert', the bush. These all-white blooms are more summer-like and a little puzzling. Since her foliage is a bit yellowish perhaps she's showing her need for food. She's trying to flush with our recent warm weather, and I just don't think she's got enough energy to pull it off. Soon I'll be pruning her and the January feeding will be kicking in and she'll be off to the races. Of course, I could be totally wrong in my analysis - just guessing.

Now here's 'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing' showing us more typical cool-weather blooms.

Another cluster of Climbing CS. So fragrant as well as beautiful.

'Hermosa' is a great small bush, only reaching about 3-1/2 feet tall and a couple of feet wide in my garden. I have three of them planted together. In the spring they are continuously covered with pepto pink flowers and are quite breathtaking. They have a peppery sweet fragrance courtesy of their China heritage.

'Madame Abel Chatenay' surprisingly has a single bloom on her nearly naked body and one bud. I thought I would be pruning bare canes, but she is leafing out a little. You can see why she's my Belle of the Ball.

I had to snap this pic of the first bud of  'Belinda's Dream'. Fuzzy focus in the waning light but exciting nonetheless.

Talk about exciting!! 'Rosette Delizy' is giving me palpatations. Planted last November, I think, she is really filling out and has lots of flower buds on the tips of her new canes. She's between Maggie and Madame Lombard, so I think her yellow/carmine pink combination will be lovely in this part of the front garden especially with yellow daylily 'Sherry Lane Carr' very nearby.

Here's a tall shot of the lower part of  'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing'. I like the way she blooms in the middle of herself and not just at the ends. She's only a couple of years old, so her blooming will only get better. I wonder what her spring flush will look like.

Granted it's not really black spot season, but I am so pleased with 'Hot Cocoa'. Being a grafted rose and an older plant than my typical own-root bands is making for some unexpected instant gratification. She's shooting up a nice, strong cane already.

The lovely 'Mrs B R Cant' is actually a deeper raspberry than she appears here.

'Bolero 2004' is one of my new $7 grafted modern roses that I got at Lowe's. Several flower buds offer more instant gratification if they survive the rest of our winter.

This rose may or may not be a mistake on the gardener's part. First of all, she is a bareroot grafted rose ($5.98 at Home Depot) that had already broken dormancy and was sprouting new canes which I thought was a good thing. Upon further education on the subject, I learned it may not be "productive growth", but I'm not sure what that means exactly. I bought this 'Perfume Delight' fragrant Hybrid Tea in my recent mini buying-binge of cheap fragrant modern roses, and I think 'Pink Peace' might have been a better choice, disease-wise. But I didn't want to just throw her away, so off we go on our adventure together. She's in a pot because there's no more ground available.

So I'm just going to sit back and watch what happens. Basically, "new growth" is always a good thing - in the plant and in the gardener who is spreading her wings beyond OGRs at least a for a little while. Feels like a Star Trek episode - boldly going where no man has gone before.

This is 'Heirloom', a bareroot from Aldi that to this novice seems to be a better quality plant than the Home Depot rose with more canes, less wax and no growth at time of purchase. It was inside in air conditioning whereas Home Depot's were outside under shade cloth. This new modern bed is the former fish pond. Two whites (Bolero 2004 and Pope John Paul II) and the deep lavender Heirloom will be pretty together with daylilies and a purply 'Le Baron' dahlia.

The winter shadow cast by the house is slowly moving closer to the house. Eventually, it will move several feet to the left of this photo with only two or three feet of shadow remaining and a sun-drenched patio. The cool shade is nice, but the spring sun's arrival will be most welcome.

I so enjoy this side of the back garden, but it seems it is forever in transition. There are three new roses in the bed along the fence - 'Vanity', 'The Charlatan' and 'Moondance', and poor 'Alexander Hill Gray' took a near-death spiral after I moved him a few feet last November. He's finally coming around. 'Duchesse de'Auerstadt' is on the arbor on the left with clematis 'Venosa Violacea' and 'General Gallieni' is at the far right. 'Pat Austin' still resides in the clay pot, not doing much but noticeably more vertical recently. Photos always look like an indistinct jumble, but here it is anyway.

My blogging seems to have shifted to midday. Seems like I should be outside in the garden not inside on the computer, so that’s where I’m headed now. It’s time to get out the 8-foot ladder and the long grabber, because the climbers all need to be tied up again. Oh, joy! One of my least favorite tasks that I always procrastinate on and that always seems to come un-done and need to be redone - sort of like cleaning the toilet and about as enjoyable. That's no way to end a blog post, is it? Okay, attitude adjustment coming. Gardening isn't all pretty flowers and peaceful strolling. There is also strenuous work involved which I accept easily on the ground, but eight feet in the air is another animal altogether. Suck it up, woman, and get to it. When it's done, you'll love it!!

Gardens are like vitamins

They’re good for your health, and they should be taken daily. These shots weren’t there yesterday, and they won’t be there tomorrow. The garden whispers softly, “Pay attention to me.”

'Bow Bells' by David Austin

Purple Coneflower echinacea

'Unchartered Waters'

'Sherry Lane Carr'

'Fred Ham'

'Becky Lynn'

'Maggie'

Here she is again - all two and a half feet of her! She's grown multiple upright canes recently after being a low-growing squiggly little thing planted in February. Look at all those buds. 'Kent's Favorite Two' is blooming behind her.

'Le Vesuve' starting her second flush

Another 'Fred Ham' - seems too pretty to be a guy.

'Indy Indy' - love, love, love her!

'Leda's Lover'

'Secret Splendor' and 'White Pet'

'Modern Marvel' - always double with another blooming behind

Clematis 'Venosa Violacea'

'General Gallieni', Tea rose, 1899

'Alexander Hill Gray', Tea rose, 1909

Dare I hope that 'Arcadia Louisiana Tea' will bloom in all her many-petaled splendor? She bloomed slightly early in the spring. The word flush would definitely be an overstatement, and they all balled from thrips. She normally has over 100 petals, so the heat probably - hopefully - helps.

Here's the shady lady, 'Mrs. B. R. Cant'. I can't get over her blooming in the shade.

Maybe in her day, 1901, she used a parasol.

There's no doubt that Mr. Cant, the hybridizer, was her DH.

‘General Gallieni’

I haven’t written much about ‘General Gallieni’ because, well, he’s been really, really slow to become himself. ‘General Gallieni’ is a Tea rose bred in 1899 in France. He was planted in my garden in May of 2009 and still isn’t much to look at. He took forever to get up off the ground. I think it was this last spring that I moved him a few feet over. I have suspicions about the spot he was growing in. Nothing seems to thrive in it. Now he is about four feet tall and fairly vase shaped. For a two-and-a-half-year old tea rose that’s rather diminutive, at least in Florida. I can’t say whether this is typical of the rose or peculiar only to my garden.



This evening after work I dashed out at 5:45 with flashlight in hand and noticed these striking flowers, and then I noticed more of them. The General is actually having a flush – his first! It was starting to drizzle, and the weather report mentioned 36 degrees at some point, so I decided to snap a few off.



These are the most difficult flowers to photograph, even more so in the outside light. In the summer they look exactly like stained glass and are gorgeous, but the light must glare off the General’s petals because they simply can not be captured - not by me anyway.



The substance, that is, the thickness of the ‘General Gallieni’ petals is unlike any other rose in my garden. Maybe Hybrid Teas have thick petals, but I’m not used to Teas and Polyanthas having petals this thick – at least I don’t think I am. I’ve learned that thick-petaled flowers are not fragrant flowers, and so GG is not noticeably fragrant beyond a sort of clean smell. Another characteristic of the petals is that they seem translucent. The stained glass likeness is really remarkable.



According to the authors of Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens, 'General Gallieni' may be “dark red, pink or yellow or come in combinations of these colours…the total range includes near black, purple, maroon, poppy and brick red, coppery pink, buff, orange, lemon, gold and chrome-yellow.” Whew! All in one flower!




The flower shape of ‘General Gallieni’ is something else altogether. How often do you hear of a beautiful rose having petals that are “bunched together in irregular clumps”? Again, the Australian writers of Tea Roses state that in ”one flower, the petals can be rounded, pointed, spoon-shaped (even to the handle) or sharply folded lengthwise, producing flowers that can be tufted, muddled and shaggy.”



They quote Mr. E. E. Pescott’s comments in 1928, “The blooms are very irregular and misshapen, but, somehow, the rose, the bush, the unusual shades of the flowers, always seem to appeal to the fair sex. I have known many ladies say that they must have a bush of that rose in their garden.”



Well, I sort of like being referred to as the fair sex, and I’m definitely one of the ladies that wants this rose in her garden. I have a thing for red and yellow roses and for yellow and red roses. I miss ‘Rosette Delizy’ who happens to be the General’s offspring. Oh, and then there’s ‘Leonie Lamesch’ who splashes the garden with these same colors.



Some rosarians must have fragrance in a rose for it to grow in their garden. I on the other hand am captivated by the pretty face, the striking color, the fat flower. I often don’t even remember to try a sniff anymore. These flowers are so unique and lustrous that fragrance doesn’t seem to matter much.



Speaking of fragrance, I just dipped my nose into one, and there is a scent but not the usual one. So I looked back at the Tea Roses book. Here’s what it says, “Their fragrance is a dry Tea, with carnation  and ‘disinfectant’ undertones.” I’d go along with that.




A rose with individuality is just up my alley. ‘General Gallieni’ will be staying in my garden, and I’ll be paying him better attention, watching for him to become the vigorous rose that the Australian ladies wrote about, “strong in colour, rough-hewn in shape and worthy to be named after a military man.”