Winter Foliage...or Not

Living in normally evergreen Florida has ruined me for all things deciduous. I used to say that February was the ugliest month of the year in Florida, and yet the snowbirds flock here in February and love it. Last year I had to amend that statement and add January to the ugly month list. Then this past December added insult to injury with several nights in the 20's. Woe is me, three months of straw-colored lawns and trees devoid of leaves. Not very eloquent but yuck!

Not only are my roses not blooming (thanks, December), but many barely have leaves or none at all. However, for some of these leaves merely remaining attached is not much of a boast. The leaves look pretty awful, yellowish/brownish with scattered large black spots. This is what freeze damage looks like. So I thought I'd share the names of the roses that are robed in green, that is, that haven't lost much foliage and what is left is pretty healthy. Now by extension these must be the most winter hardy here in my garden in north central Florida.

Bow Bells                                        Sweet Chariot
Leonie Lamesch                               Mrs. B R Cant
Le Vesuve                                        Louis Philippe
Enchantress                                      Souv de Francois Gaulain
Nur Mahal                                       Climbing Pinkie
Alexander Hill Gray                        Full Moon Rising
Madame Antoine Rebe                    Reve d'Or
Duchesse d'Auerstadt                      Duchesse de Brabant
General Galieni                               General Schablikine
Climbing Maman Cochet                 Jaune Desprez
Clotilde Soupert                              Arcadia Louisiana Tea
Duquesa                                           Rose de Rescht
Etoile de Mai                                  Crepuscule
Quietness                                         E Veyrat Hermanos
Souv de la Malmaison                    Climbing SdlM                               
R. Fortuneana                                  Comtessa du Cayla
Martha Gonzalez                             R chinensis serratipetala


Having made the list, I'm surprised. I would have thought there were fewer which shows that my attitude just isn't very positive this time of year.

Bushes with few if any leaves
Cornelia (none)                              White Pet (none)
Red Cascade (none)                       Gruss an Aachen
Pink Gruss an Aachen                     Lamarque
Mme Scipion Cochet (HP)              Polonaise
Mlle Franziska Kruger                    Hermosa
Anda                                               Rita Sammons
Pam Tillis                                       Lady Ann Kidwell
Cal Poly (none)

Some of my roses did not make either list.  A few don't have many leaves, but that's normal. Jeri Jennings, Archduke Charles and Maman Cochet come to mind. The first two will be relocated before spring, and MC is still filling out.  A few are very young, and some I haven't looked at in a while so don't know their status. And poor Bermuda's Anna Olivier hates winter with a passion. You can clearly see that she'd rather be in balmy Bermuda. She currently has less than half of her leaves, and they look really sad. I think she's looking for a ride south, and I'm going with her.

I wish I were an early riser...

...instead of a night owl. Well, I really wish I could be both, but I'm afraid I'd collapse in a very short while. I have much to do outside, and it would be so wonderful to get an early start. There are lots of seedlings to plant. They really should have been planted in October or November, but they were so teensy then. I'm sure they wouldn't have survived, and then December got in the way. So late though they may be this is what I need to plant. White double stock (matthiola), larkspur, lots of varieties of viola and pansy, old-fashioned mustard, China asters, Foxy foxglove, nigella, echinacea (White Swan & Pink Parasol), and maybe one or two phlox and lupin have survived. Oh, and some blue convolvulus for containers.

I also have spring bulbs, Florida-style. Coral, rose and pink Rain Lily (Zephyranthes Prairie Sunset, Rosea and Grandiflora), red and pink Spider Lily (Lycoris Radiata and Squamigera), Dutch Iris Apollo and Clusiana var. Chrysantha Tulips. A total of 98 bulbs!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am very disorganized in the garden. I try very hard to be just the opposite, but I always end up going to and fro from spot to spot, forgetting this item over there, making multiple trips to that side of the garden (I only have two hands, you know) only to wind up spinning like a top, searching for something I left somewhere but where. It would probably work better if I plotted out on paper where I'm going to plant things, but really, who does that? I mean, I haven't memorized all the empty spots, large and small. Of course, I could take the pad of paper outside and place the seedlings in exactly the right spot on paper as I walk around the garden. Then I could put all the tools, amendments, seedlings, at al, on the wagon and go step by step from spot to spot. Or maybe even roll on my garden stool. No wasted steps, no desperate searching for lost whatevers. Hmmm, this might work.

Ya know, it's about time I started doing things the smart way instead of my way. Gee, I'm really liking this blogging thing.

'Tis the season to buy roses...

Fa La La La La La La La La.  So here's a few dozen recommendations from my Florida garden.

DEFINITE SAFE BETS

Arcadia Louisiana Tea - Tea

Bermuda's Anna Olivier - Tea

Borderer - Polyantha

Climbing Maman Cochet - Tea

Duchesse d'Auerstadt - Tea/Noisette Climber

Duquesa - Tea

Faith Whittlesey - Tea

General Schablikine - Tea

Lauren - Polyantha

La Sylphide - Tea

Leonie Lamesch - Polyantha

Le Vesuve - Tea/China

Louis Philippe - China

Madame Abel Chatenay - early Hybrid Tea

Madame Antoine Mari - Tea

Madame Antoine Rebe - Tea

Maman Cochet - Tea

Mrs B R Cant - Tea

Red Cascade - Mini Climber

Reve d'Or - Noisette Climber

Souvenir de Francois Gaulain - Tea

Souvenirde la Malmaison - Bourbon

White Pet - Polyantha

GOOD BETS

Alexander Hill Gray - Tea    Would be a safe bet except that he was just planted in November. Flowers are a beautiful shade of yellow.

Archduke Charles - China  

Blush Noisette    Going into 2nd spring, probably fine, just hasn't grown into its shape.

Capitaine Dyel de Graville - Bourbon   Only a year old but looking good.

Climbing Pinkie - Polyantha   New in my garden last September but looks good.

Clotilde Soupert - Polyantha   I love this rose. Repeatedly gets covered with with globular fragrant flowers. She does ball sometimes but not a lot.

Comtessa du Cayla - China   Being a China, she's probably fine, but she's been a slow grower and small - which isn't a bad thing.

Duchesse de Brabant - Tea  Everyone loves this rose. I'm on my second try with her. 1st one couldn't keep any leaves on her. This time she's in a cooler spot.

Enchantress - Tea   Personally, I love this rose for her beautiful, abundant, healthy foliage and magenta flowers, but she does tend to ball. Some might find that objectionable. I don't care.

Hermosa - China/Bourbon   Gorgeous lilac/pink blooms on leggy small bushes that defoliate a good bit between flushes in my garden. I will trim more this year after blooming, hoping to promote more bushiness. I have three, and they're staying.

Madame Lombard - Tea   New in my garden last October. Probably should be a Safe Bet. Good color.

Mlle Franziska Kruger - Tea   She produces a lot of veggie centers which can be appealing - or not. Only in this spot since March and a total bloom machine. Pale peachy flowers, perfect tea form.

Mystic Beauty - Bourbon   Only a year old but looking good.

Souv de Pierre Notting - Tea   I need to move her into more sun. She's probably a Safe Bet being that she's a Tea.

Sweet Chariot - Mini   Really quite a good, healthy rose. Probably should be a Safe Bet.

DEFINITELY WORTH A SHOT

Bow Bells - Austin   New in August, perfect healthy foliage even after our freezes. It looked good growing at Rose Petals Nursery, too.

Crespuscule - Tea/Noisette Climber   Very slow to take off in my garden but started to grow last fall.

Fellemberg - China/Noisette 

Etoile de Mai - Poly/Tea

General Galieni - Tea   Very slow in developing and irregular shaped blooms, but their nearly red (!), and besides, he's a Tea.

Niles Cochet  - Tea  Unbelievably slow to grow, but he's a Tea in the Cochet clan.

Polonaise - Shrub   New in September. Beautiful flowers that last and last. Quite healthy.

Quietness - Shrub   Here since October and looking good.

Happy shopping!

Generosity, thy name is Rosarian.

Have you ever noticed that rose lovers/gardeners are the nicest people around? They will give you their best advise - for free. They will give you plants - for free. I don't doubt they will even give you the shirts off their backs - for free - if there is a need. They have made me a better person and a better friend - for free. 'Thank you' is not enough to give in payment for all the 'free stuff' I have received from folks who love roses. I guess I just need to pay it forward - a lot.

Hybrid Teas are not all alike OR all bad.

Now, before anyone slugs me, let me just say, "I'm joking!!" I only have a couple of Hybrid Teas in my garden. One is a baby (too early to make judgments), and the other, 'Madame Abel Chatenay', I absolutely love. The reason I chose her is that she's an early HT from about 1894. She's not a widely grown rose, so I thought I'd put the spotlight on a season in her life.

According to accepted rose classification standards, the 'modern era of roses' began in 1867 (and, of course, you can probably guess that there are debates about that year) with the hybridization of 'La France'. Hybrid Teas began as crosses of Hybrid Perpetuals and Teas, and similar to people, some offspring look like one side of the family, and some look like the other. 'Madame Abel Chatenay' resembles her Tea parent in that she is twiggy, fairly round in shape and not so tall with elegant, scrolled Tea-like flowers. (For a picture of what I just said, click here to see Vintage Garden's very helpful - and treasured - website.) For my small garden MAC's size and growth habit makes her perfect. She fits in just right with the cottage-y companion plants (by Florida's definition of 'cottage-y' anyway) that I have chosen, and since I placed her close to the street, planning for the roses to be taller toward the house, being shorter is exactly my hope come true. Sometimes my planning does work out well.

Mme Chatenay's only peculiarity is that she pretty much defoliates in the winter like a deciduous tree. I've learned that it doesn't harm her in any way, but it was a little distressing at first. Here she is on November 14, 2009, 14 months in the ground, about 3' tall and quite spindly. 

 In early March, 2010 I pruned her. I don't know who was more scared, her or me, since she was my first or second pruning ever. The red flowers are an azalea.

 On April 25 she's leafed out and full of buds.

 And the first open flower.

 Her buds are quite large and rounded not pointed like a tea rose.

 Two bush shots from opposite sides on May 2nd.

On May 17th she's about 3' tall, and her spring flush is done.

On June 3rd about six and a half weeks after her first bloom she's full of buds again. I promise she was never without flowers for the rest of the season.

June 7th - Her canes are long, thin and a little zigzaggy. They tend to flop and lay down under the burden of her large, heavy blooms so I propped her up. Interestingly, even though she is in full sun all day on the south side (and our sun is quite high in the sky) she not only leans south, she grows south. She has a tall cluster of canes in what should be her middle, and every other cane grows on her south side.

Some of these photos make her flowers look very pink, but they actually have a light coral cast to them.

I can honestly say that I don't remember her fragrance, probably simply a clean, fresh scent. I am so gaga over her flowers that I rarely think about fragrance.

 The next two shots are from the end of July, and may I point out how disease free she is?

Her only foliage issue isn't her fault. The soil she's in is alkaline, and it shows on her leaves, but she's a trooper.

This photo was taken on December 19th, and the liriope and the grass in the distance testify that we've had two or three hard freezes already, but you can see in the bottom of the shot that she was still blooming until the end.

I don't spray any of my roses, and 'Madame Abel Chatenay' stays cleaner than even some teas. May I add, though, that Connie of Hartwood Roses in Virginia grows her, and there she needs fungicide (the rose not Connie).

 This is definitely a lovely rose for Florida and worth experimenting with anywhere.

Someone tell me this happens to you, too.

Sometimes I feel like when things are going well, that's when they're about to turn to poop. It was 75 degrees and lovely this afternoon, and I was preparing to set out some seedlings in the back garden. I picked up a flat of Viola seedlings from a shelf inside the greenhouse.

  I turned toward the door, took a step, heard a crack and flip! Everything in the flat, all those sweet little baby plants, were upside down on the gravel. All I could see was potting soil while some sort of blood-curdling scream was filling the air.

 The odd part was that even as I was heartbroken and delicately rescuing the cubes of soil to a rightsideup position, the thought came to my mind, "Get the camera! This will make a great blog." 

Kind of like Reality TV. My life is blog material.

The good news is that everything in the flat was saved.

Have Pittosporum and Viburnum really stolen your heart?

Descriptions of roses often include the term 'good garden rose'. My interpretation of a 'good garden rose' is one that has a handsome shape, foliage that stays healthy and abundant, and is an attractive addition to the garden in its own right. To me it is pretty much the highest praise that can be given to a rose bush. How much more can be said than that a plant is good in the garden? But when we think of shrubbery for our landscape, do we think of roses? When we want to add some privacy to our yard, does a rose bush come to mind? When we want to accent the foundation of a building, we often think of azaleas but why not Old Garden Roses? When we want to plant a hedge, do we think of a line of beautiful vase-shaped tea roses that repeat their luscious blooms over and over from spring until after frost? Are we so fond of ligustrum that we wouldn't trade it for fragrant roses? When we want to hide an old chain link fence, does the picture of a lovely climbing rose draping that fence with blooms come to mind? There is a rose, in fact, a multitude of roses that will fit the bill for each instance I just proposed. Chinas, Teas, Polyanthas, or Noisette shrubs and climbers...there are literally hundreds from which to choose of all shapes, sizes and growth habits. 

Roses aren't just for cutting, you know. A rose is a rose is a rose is a bush.