Ken's garden masterpiece

A fellow Florida rose gardener has accomplished a wondrous feat on his spring break. Facing up to all the fears and trepidations that every gardener must face when embarking on a big project, he came away the victor and has a truly beautiful garden. I wanted to make sure the world knows what Ken has done. Go to his blog for the details and more photos.

No PhotoShop, no fakes, just the real 'Le Vesuve'

'Madame Lombard' - Thank you, Susan.

I have ooh-ed and aah-ed over many photos of 'Madame Lombard' aka 'Madame Lambard'. If you like the deeper shades of pink, this is the Tea rose for you. If you like light pink to white, this is the Tea rose for you. If you like reddish pink or even salmon-pink, this is the Tea rose for you. You see, 'Madame Lombard' is variable. She can present herself in so many ways that she has been quite difficult to pin down by those who do such things. The Vintage Garden Book of Roses says, "So variable is it that at one time we grew nearly a dozen collected forms of this rose which all looked different when they were found...."

As different as she can look in photo after photo, I seemed to swoon over them all. As I was selecting roses for my garden, the swoon factor was of primary importance from the beginning so she was on my list, but as the garden filled and the remaining spaces seemed to shrink smaller and smaller, the size factor became primary, and she moved off my list. In the world of Tea roses big, buxom bushes are the norm, especially in Florida. There are no small Tea rose bushes, and you'll be lucky if a medium-sized bush stays 5x5, but you're not that lucky. Sadly for me, 'Madame Lombard' is not a medium but a large Tea rose. So being prudent about my rose addiction, I was always constrained to decline the overtures of this beautiful heart-throb. She was just more than my little garden could handle.

Then, alas, poor 'Monsieur Tillier', also a large Tea rose, began to have health problems. Though everyone raves about Mons Tillier, he was not happy in my garden, suffering from many more black/dead canes than I thought was normal. So he was pruned with the shovel. Within a few weeks of his departure my dear, dear friend, Susan, said, "Ya wanna rose?" or words to that effect.  I said, "Well, as a matter of fact...what is it?" A symphony touched my ears...no, not really. The email said, "I have two ML's. Do you want one?" Yes, yes, yes.

First I had some really deep digging to do to get rid of the crappy soil (see the pile in the upper left corner?) where Mons Tillier had been. Maybe that's why he suffered so. It was replaced with some really good stuff, and the baby ML had a new home.

That's her in the middle on October 10, 2010. Looks like a preemie, doesn't she?

Then on March 4th she looked like this. It's obvious that she's bigger, don't you think? And there are flower buds on the cane to the right. Then on March 12th (at dusk, unfortunately)...

I saw my second 'Madame Lombard' bloom. Wouldn't ya know? The camera wasn't handy for the first, but I do remember that flower did not look like this flower.

On March 14th here she is from the other side, showing off her buds.

Aren't baby pictures fun? Can't wait to see what the next bloom will look like. And the next and...

'Bermuda's Anna Olivier'

This is a rose that is completely at home in Florida's heat and humidity. It is one of the found roses called "Bermuda Mystery Roses" where it grows well since the 1800's and people have lost track of the original name. Mine was planted in March, 2009 and is about 4' tall and 6' wide.  It's flowers are large and pale buttery yellow fading to buff in the heat of summer. The yellowy green foliage is wonderfully lush and healthy. BAO is one of the Teas that seems to start out growing low and wide, taking a while to build height. I'm sure if allowed this rose can grow to 6', 7', 8' tall. Who knows? Since size is not an issue yet in her location, I did not prune her this spring, choosing to give her more time to build her structure.

She is an amazing sight when covered with these big, beautiful, fat flowers. Another desirable attribute of 'Bermuda's Anna Olivier' is that her flowers do not decrease in size in the heat. She has lots and lots of petals, probably at least 80. I'll have to count them one day. She's a beauty, carefree and a favorite of mine.

This bloom was the largest I've ever seen on her. I didn't have a ruler, but it was easily 5" across and not fully open yet.

Let me ask the question, who needs finicky Hybrid Teas when this rose loves it here?

 

This photo of the bush was taken five days ago before the buds opened into these luscious flowers.

E. Veyrat Hermanos

Conditions must be perfect in my garden this spring, judging by this climbing rose. Planted in September, 2008, he is still young by climber standards, but you'd never know it to look at him. These 4x4 posts are ten feet apart and eight feet out of the ground. I haven't quite figured out how to tame him or display him to the best advantage. He needs a structure of some kind. Anyway, EVH is a climbing tea rose introduced in 1895 in France by Bernaix and is very vigorous with canes of at least 12'. This type of rose is humorously referred to as a house-eater, and mine is still growing. Heaven help me!

In his previous two springs he suffered from thrips and balling so I've really never seen a normal flower - until now. This year (so far) there are no thrips and no balling. Daytime temps are in the 70's and low 80's now with 50's at night, and humidity is fairly low for Florida, during the day about 45% (in summer humidity stays in the 60's) but nights range from 80% to 98% at dawn. I mention this because humidity is said to be to blame for this rose's balling (Enchantress is not balling now either, and she's never not balled.), but this is low humidity in my garden though not in California/Mediterranean or southwestern gardens. This is our dry season. And it's not hot yet either. Apparently, since this rose loves heat (as all tea roses do), cool temps are also a contributing factor to balling. Perhaps immaturity is also a factor. All this being said, I haven't a clue why EVH loves it now, but he does. So let's move on to the good part.

I have never seen so many colors in any kind of flower. This morning I cut one that was solid carmine in the middle (about 1.5" diameter) while the outer half inch was peachy pink - just astonishing. Sorry no picture. These were all taken this evening of one flower (only two are open on the whole plant).

The reverse of the outer petals is very yellow toward the center. The actual flower was much more yellow than this photo.

So many colors. Pink, carmine, apricot, peach, yellow, buff.

And so many petals, probably a contributing factor to its tendency to ball.

In hotter weather he's more apricot than carmine.

It's quite a large flower, too, at least 4" across.

And to think that this plant is covered with buds up and down its canes. If even half of them open at the same time, it will be breathtaking.

In praise of 'Duquesa'

'Duquesa' is a Tea rose that has only been in my garden since September. Yesterday I clipped off her first bloom, the one that you saw in Thursday's post, trying to start off on the right 'deadheading' foot, you know? I lifted the flower up to my nose and was amazed. Most Tea roses have a light fragrance but not 'Duquesa'! Such a strong, sweet fragrance, but I couldn't identify it. I kept sniffing but couldn't put a name to what I was smelling which is often the case for my, apparently, uneducated nose. I kept returning the flower to my sniffer until finally I remembered this rose's parentage, 'Monsieur Tillier' x 'Duchesse de Brabant'. Hmmm, was this the sweet raspberry tea fragrance I remembered from 'Duchesse de Brabant'? Not really. And besides that, DdB's fragrance was always fleeting to me, available at the first sniff and then strangely not for the second and third and so on, no matter how hard I would inhale from her petals. This 'Duquesa' flower was definitely unlike DdB in that her fragrance is 100% available, strongly available, even available the next morning in the bowl of water. Delicious and strong and sweet and long lasting, 'Duquesa' may be in a competition with 'Mrs B R Cant' for strongest and best fragrance in my garden. I am so thrilled with this rose. Beautiful flower form and fragrance! She's definitely a winner. How fortuitous that she's located in prime real estate!

She's a little bit peachier than this photo shows.

Thank you, Rose Petals Nursery!

&%#$$% Squirrels! ARRGGHH!

"Why the heck is part of this bed dry?", I wondered, "and why is the wet area only 6' in diameter instead of 12'."  Doubting that I can figure out the problem, I turned on the system to manual to watch it run and try to find the reason for less water pressure. Then... Whoa! Three geysers right next to me, and I saw THIS.

He chewed everywhere and broke through in three places. I wish the first hole had taken his head off, but I guess it didn't. I cut out the damaged tee-joint and installed a new joint this evening, buried it and put a dirt-filled pot on it. The plant died a while back - too much water, oddly enough.