Spring continues to unfold

‘Serratipetala’ is a Found China Rose, discovered in France in 1912. Its flowers are so petite – an inch and a half across. The petals are serrated, and the blooms have a flat form that darken with age. What that means is that when I went back the next day, this flower was crimson with touches of pink. To me, it’s an incredibly interesting rose. Also incredible is the fact that it grows larger than both HMF and Vintage Gardens report. Mine is growing in a pot and not a large one, because I thought it would be a diminutive, three-feet tall rose bush. I’ve been thinking of putting ‘Serratipetala’ in the ground, but every place I consider may not be big enough. After all, if it grows to a 5x5 bush in a pot, what will it do with the blank check offered by good old terra firma? Another gardening unknown to wrestle with.



Seemingly bunches of daylilies are sporting flower buds. Oh, be still my heart. Some of them are newcomers, and I don’t even know what I’m getting excited about because I have forgotten who they are without my cheat-sheet. It’s simply hard for me to believe that spring is on the move.





‘Mrs. B R Cant’ is beautiful again. She’s not a typical delicate Tea Rose but a sturdy, robust one. Even her fragrance is strong. She has tough, pretty much disease-proof foliage, too. Beauty and brawn.




‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ has many buds and some flowers, too. This cluster was rather breathtaking to me.



A couple of days ago ‘Polonaise’ was looking like this. This evening there were two gorgeous open blooms. I went running in the house but not for the camera. I wanted DH to see these red roses. With long face and mumbled protests he came out…and enjoyed himself and the garden and the swing and the lovely cool evening in the shade of the oak tree. Some things are worth the effort. And that’s my long excuse for not having a photo of Polonaise’s first blooms.



The two big fat buds one over the other in the lower half of this photo were gloriously open today. I would suggest that you use your imagination, but you can’t even come close.



‘Richard’s Rose’ is a tiny, little bug-eaten thing, but he has a couple of new shoots and is putting up a good fight. I think I see evidence of a squirrel attack. I also think I should put up a defense perimeter around the little guy.



Right next to ‘Richard’s Rose’ is the bare-root “Pink Hollyhock” from Walmart. The other one I planted didn’t come up. I hope this is ‘Summer Carnival’ since other cultivars don’t stand much chance in Florida. This one looks like the Summer Carnivals that I’ve grown – so far.



A bud of ‘Marchesa Boccella'. I guess my hard pruning didn’t hurt her, and since she’s looking fairly bushy, I guess maybe it worked out okay. You can see her whole self in her purple pot below.




Here’s a volunteer from last year’s seed project whose name I can not remember. I think I have more in the front garden. How fitting! SDLM and Polonaise now occupy a red, white and blue bed. Well, in the heat of summer SDLM will be off-white anyway.



Now she’s gorgeous pale ‘baby pink’.



This ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ is now six feet wide, fitting from edge to edge in this bed, but she’s only about three feet tall and hardly thorny at all.



I’m really pleased with this ‘remodeled’ bed. You are free to use as much imagination as you need to picture Richard’s Rose, the hollyhocks and coreopsis, and the daylilies and purple coneflowers – in a few years – filling in between ‘Louis Philippe’ on the left and ‘Arcadia Louisiana Tea’ on the right. Packed in like sardines, aren’t they?


Referring to my cheat-sheet, this one is ‘Seductor’. Won’t be long. I’m going to try to count buds this year on the daylilies. I’m not really as compulsive as that may sound, merely curious.



‘Maman Cochet’ has a rather imperfect bud, perhaps from thrips. They’re baaaacck !! Crap-ola!



‘Maman Cochet’ (on the left) is looking much fuller already now that her new canes in the middle are taller. These bushes (‘General Schablikine’ is on the right) are about five and half feet tall, and this portion of the bed is about ten feet wide.



Here’s a close-up of the young canes in the upper left quadrant of ‘Maman Cochet’, showing flower buds already. When these flowers are spent, these canes will sprout new shoots from about two inches below these buds at the abscission point, and the rose will get taller in this way and make more flowers again at the ends of all that new growth. By the way, Maman is French for mother/mama. Monsieur Cochet was the breeder of this rose.



‘Maman Cochet’ is a huskier Tea Rose than ‘General Schablikine’ who has already had one basal break chewed off by an %^$## squirrel. These roses are three and a half years old, planted in September, 2008 and still quite juvenile in their maturity. The General definitely needs more basal breaks…and some barbed wire.



‘Maman Cochet’ is apparently an earlier bloomer than ‘General Schablikine’. Some Tea Roses definitely wait for hotter temps to start their blooming. Of course, YMMV.  he-he. Now that I know what that abbreviation means, it makes me chuckle. Your mileage may vary. Hmmm, garden mileage. It is rather variable, isn’t it? And I feel like some of us (moi?) have garden mileage envy. In reality, fast or slow our gardens should be accepted unconditionally and not judged against others. Gardens should be green…not gardeners.

Roses still sleepy but awakening

‘Clotilde Soupert’ is the early riser of the garden, up and at ‘em at the crack of dawn. Everybody else takes after the gardener for whom 8AM is really early. So it’s looking like the old clock on the garden wall is saying about 6:30, maybe quarter to seven. ‘Leonie Lamesch’ is not only awake but cheerful. She’s just off the patio, and I can see her from the back door, dotted with her small but happy red/pink/cream blossoms. She appears in the next four photos. She’s only been in the ground for about a year and only has two mature canes, so though she’s strikingly pretty, she’s not a candidate for a full bush just yet. You can guess that I love her foliage.






‘Mrs B R Cant’ is really lovely this spring compared to previous years. Being on Fortuniana rootstock, last year I followed conventional wisdom and pruned her quite hard, including removing leaves. Then last season she grew wacky with eight-foot canes sprouting from five feet high on the bush. She looked like she was trying to be a climber, but those heavy canes just flopped over and laid down on other plants. Growth was going horizontally through the bush, and she wasn’t very leafy at all. My excuse for her was that she’s growing way under two huge oaks and deprived of enough sun. So last month when I was on my pruning rounds, I could not make heads or tails of her, because she was such a jumble of confused growth. I removed most of her leaves just so I could see what was where. Then I decided to shorten all that long stuff to match the rest of the bush, remove dead stuff and downward growing stuff, and end it there. My conclusion was that last year’s pruning forced contrary growth. Of course, that’s only my observation, one admittedly influenced by my prejudice against Teas on Fortuniana.



Well, she has more leaves and is bushier this year. (She was so non-foliated last year that she was un-photographable.)  See that nearly horizontal line in the middle of the bush? That’s one of those canes I mentioned before. In my experience some Teas sprout shoots at nearly right angles from the original cane, and I believe cutting exacerbates that habit, causing multiple shoots near the cut. So I’m going to see if minimal cutting helps her. I know the pros will strongly differ with me on this, but I’m just trying to achieve some normalcy for her without a clue as to what her normal really is. By the way she's about six feet tall and close to eight feet wide.



She has a lot of buds on her but has been loathe to make any cane breaks down low. None last year or this year so far.



‘Polonaise’ is looking good after this winter’s transplant. She has a good many buds already on her few canes.



‘Mary Guthrie’ surprised me yesterday with this bright flower which is exactly true-to-life color. She was relocated, too, for the sake of these scrumptious flowers. No black spot yet, the gardener said with a wry, little chuckle. HMF says she's fragrant, but dumb gardener didn't know because she has never taken a whiff!



Happily, more bright flowers are coming as seen in this photo.



In my last post you saw the red new canes of ‘Maman Cochet’. Now about nine days later they are almost green and about four feet long. Her middle is looking nicely full.



My in-the-ground ‘Borderer’ is also blooming and filled with buds. She’s quite a small bush – maybe two feet tall and four feet across.



Here’s the full bed. From front to back, ‘Borderer’, ‘White Pet’, and ‘Leonie Lamesch’. ‘White Pet’ has buds but no flowers yet.



This is ‘Francois Juranville’, my rambler that cascades from the rebar arbor. This is his third season in the garden, and being a once-bloomer (though my fingers are crossed for some repeat here in sunny Florida), there were no flowers the first year and literally only a handful last year since he only blooms on old wood. This is the first flower I’ve seen this year. I chose this rambler for its fairly large and double flowers and for the color. It seems most ramblers are small-flowered and white, and you know how much I like color. See those shiny, healthy green leaves? Those are Wichurana leaves. They are the other reason I chose this rose. No black spot. An evergreen climber that would cover my vacant arbor was what I was seeking. Flowers almost didn’t matter. These will definitely be a bonus.



Here’s FJ in February. He’s been bulking up lately, throwing thick new canes all over the place. I keep trying to tuck them in so they go vertical. If allowed to go straight out from the existing verticals, I think he’d be happy to take the whole garden.



The first flower (that I’ve seen) of ‘Duchesse de Brabant’. Only a year in the ground, she’s young and flimsy, but she has at least grown in all directions and is maybe two feet tall and almost five feet wide. She’s in a cooler location than my first DdB which I think will keep her better foliated with pinker blooms. Obviously, being a Tea Rose, heat should not be a problem, but for three years I could not keep leaves on the bush from which this plant was cut. So if she’s more comfortable out of the scorching sun, it’s fine with me.



‘Blush Noisette’ has one open flower and some buds though she’s far from covered yet. She has leafed out some since the hard pruning but not a lot.



You may remember that I love Dianthus chinensis. Summer, winter, it doesn’t matter. They’re green and blooming. This is a new color that I got this winter – in fact, two of them. I love the color! Oh, wow! It just occurred to me that this one is planted at the feet of purple Clematis ‘Venosa Violacea’. Sometimes things just work out, don’t they?



I am so excited about the new scapes on several daylilies. These are the Early Season DLs, and I must admit that I didn’t realize that early meant this  early. This particular one is Bob Carr’s ‘Inherited Wealth’. This is one that I am itching to see bloom. I chose it for its gorgeous and abundant flowers that I had seen in photos even though it supposedly does not rebloom. In my long, long growing season I love and demand rebloomers. So we’ll see about this one. I can always hope it will decide to bloom again, right?



Yesterday I blew the leaves out of the gravel paths, so the garden is tidier. I was feeling like a really low-down garden-keeper with all those oak leaves covering everything. They keep dropping – month after month. I hope they’re done, and I hope I can mulch them up with the lawn mower. So with the garden cleaned up and blooming, I’m almost a happy camper. If some little elves would come and spray the weeds in the front circle gravel with RoundUp, then I would be a full-fledged happy camper. This photo was taken way back in February (apparently when I was pruning), and since the weed is of great proportions, maybe I’ve already pulled it. Let’s hope so.

New things

These new little birdies were Christmas gifts from my dear daughter-in-law.

I can't get over how perfectly they go with my mismatched birdbath.

The beds are stuffed with plants so I put it in the crossroad.

Leaves, leaves, and more leaves! Not exactly new, but they were a new sight the next morning.

I got lots of of my favorite seeds.

Like I said...lots.

This new flat of Impatiens and two Coleus got planted last Saturday in the back shade bed.

New Purple Coneflower seedlings. Sprinkling those coneheads paid off. I walk through the garden crouched over in order to spy every new little sprout.

The driveway bed has exploded with new coneflower seedlings. I had lots of empty space around 'Mme Antoine Rebe', but not anymore. Oh, new horse manure compost, too.

New buds. 'Souvenir de St Anne's'

New Larkspur

A veritable forest of new Larkspur volunteers

New Purple Coneflower seedlings - in and out of the bed. Some have been moved to new locations in the garden.

New canes on 'Maman Cochet', Tea Rose

Three years old is pretty new for a Tea Rose. 'Maman Cochet' has had a very open structure because she just doesn't add canes very fast. So I'm delighted to see all this new growth that will help fill her middle.

New Caladiums

Like they were meant to be.

I’m taking my vitamins again.

And I’ve just decided that I can’t let not-done (no matter how wonderful) blog posts prevent me from ever posting again. Over the last few weeks of gardening there have been many events and activities that I was excited to record in this blog only to find myself way too tired to make my brain do its thing. I simply could not. The consequence of so many missed posts is an inertia that grows to huge proportions with all those topics weighing down on me and whispering “Catch up! Go back to the first one and make a start.” Well, that just became more and more impossible. Until the time changed this past weekend there didn’t seem to be any photos, and then when there were photos they were taken in the harsh light of the setting Florida sun and were awful. I can’t seem to write about what you can’t see. So just now the thought came to me to start where I am and work in the omissions where and when I can. A simple plan, and here I am.

I got my first load of composted horse manure of the 2012 season last Saturday. Sunday evening I was two barrows short of having it all spread, covering the driveway bed, all of the right side of the circle, the garage wall bed and half of the ‘Le Vesuve’ bed. Compost duty is unquestionably the most unfeminine gardening job there is in my experience. Dirty, back-breaking work that could only be worse if done in August. I’m pretty sure I need two more truckloads to do the whole garden – maybe three. Oh, vitamins, I need you now!



There have been roses in the garden for about a week. No, make that rose singular. ‘Clotilde Soupert’, bush forms and climber, were the first to fully leaf out and the first to bloom. She is indeed a beauty and at moments like this is my favorite rose. I’m a sucker for her dense foliage not to mention those fat, fragrant flowers.




Today, lo and behold, ‘Le Vesuve’ has an open flower. I guess he was not going to be outdone by Miss Clotilde.



A lot has happened since I last invited you into my garden. Another post will chronicle the disappearance of ‘Bermuda’s Anna Olivier’ from this bed. Today before I could finish dispersing the last of this batch of compost into this area I had to move ‘Full Moon Rising’, a yellow modern climber that had been relegated to a spot under a tree within easy reach of the marauding squirrels. FMR has big flowers, but since it was growing straight up against a trellis, the blooms were only at the top and not many. It would get some black spot, too. So in an effort to give it a real chance to show its stuff, it had to be moved. ‘Red Cascade’s old spot seemed the best place – actually the only place, and the homemade (female-made) picket fence offered the perfect support for horizontal growing. Hopefully, the squirrels will think it died.



The little green sprout growing all too close to ‘Full Moon Rising’ is ‘Maggie’. She will be a big girl full of gorgeous, very fragrant deep pink/red Bourbon flowers and hopefully not full of black spot. I will be gritting my teeth through the first year, being very, very tolerant of her fungal weakness in order to one day see her in all of her healthy glory. One day this bed will be filled with magenta from ‘Maggie’ and ‘Enchantress’ and yellow from ‘Full Moon Rising’ and ‘Sherry Lane Carr’ daylily. Sounds yummy to me.

Below is my potted ‘Borderer’. Healthy, healthy and beautiful, but a tad more salmon that this photo shows.



The Flax Lily got divided in three tonight to fill the void left by ‘Full Moon Rising’.




The arbor at the porch entrance for ‘Clotilde Soupert, Climbing’ is in the same condition as when you last saw it. It was only urgent that weekend, something that DH doesn't quite understand. The composting moved into the urgent slot.



This is the beautiful near-white daylily, ‘Joan Senior’. At pruning time it looked like there would be room for her next to Clotilde, the bush, but I noticed today that all her foliage has suddenly and greatly added to Clotilde’s size. She is definitely pushing on Joan even more than this photo shows and will soon be hovering over her, so it is with regret that I say I need to dig up Joan to move her. Dang! I wish I had done this a month or two ago. Denial is a bad thing.



This is ‘Chrysler Imperial’ who used to grace the back patio with his voluptuous red Hybrid Tea flowers and intense damask scent. What’s that song that Judy Garland sang to Clark Gable's picture? Oh, yeah. “You made me love you; I didn’t wanna do it; I didn’t wanna do it.” I fell in love with ‘Chrysler Imperial’. Then he got too bedraggled-y, and he went bye-bye. This spring Lowe’s had them for $7. Not the prettiest things, all beat up, but gee, $7 is not much so I splurged on two. This one is right on the front sidewalk squeezed in between two lavender pink ‘Hermosa’ roses. Won’t that be gaudy?? But I wanted to put him where DH could easily see him, since they were originally bought for him despite the fact that he has no sense of smell left. Alas, reality smacked me in the face this evening when I noticed a bunch of leaves that were yellow and black spotted in his lower regions. Oh, well, I peacefully stripped them off. I may take to spraying these prima donnas to keep all the leaves looking like these, but I kinda doubt I have it in me to spray.

There is much, much to do in this garden of mine, and all I can do is keep plugging along. I have always been a slow gardener, but I have gotten maddeningly slower with age. Oh, yeah, there’s a plus side to age, and that is that I’m wiser. Ha!