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Rose Midge Fly. Rose Midge Fly torture me. Even in the depth of winter when the roses are fast asleep, the Reeves turtles are nestled in their moistened sphagnum moss filled Rubbermaid container in the refrigerator set at 40°F, brumating (like hibernating, but for cold blooded creatures, like reptiles), until April's awakening, I plan my defence for the coming year.
I mull over my possible arsenal of weapons again, and again, and again, studying everything I can find about my enemy so that a better attack can be planned, one that involves the least amount of chemicals yet results in the maximum amount of blooms. You see, there is no organic method of controlling RMF, only conventional means.
If I counted the hours I spend on the RMF dilemma (and fellow rose gardeners in the Pittsburgh area are also plagued as I am), it would surely define me as being obsessed. Before you conclude that I need counseling, speak to my fellow local rosarians whose private battles against RMF have gone on much longer than mine. Their horror stories make mine look like a child's bedtime story.
So beware RMF. This year may be your last! 💀 ⚡⚡⚡
Moses
Desiree is the leader of the pack this spring! I planted her in one of my metal raised beds.
She was pruned back hard as I do all my roses so even tho she looks small she’s about 5 years old now ! She is one of my favorites of all . Her colors warm my heart on this chilly spring day . I can’t recommend her enough!!
Mystic beauty . This gal is about 4 or 5 as well and own root from roses unlimited. For some reason she is a slow growing one for me personally, so I don’t prune her back at all . I love her beautiful blooms especially against the lavender next to it .
thats all for today :)
I love gold jewelry as much as I love my roses, but that rose necklace is too much. I’ve never been a fan of McQueen’s stuff (too weird for my style & too expensive for my budget)! I do love the idea of fashion houses embracing roses in their lines. Let’s hope some others do a better job! Ha!
I like nice jewelry though I rarely buy it. I find those pieces to be awkward in scale.
Tacky. Looks cheap.
A vacation sounds lovely lol
Ah, Moses, I must say I’ve been feeling much the same. But just before I read this thread this evening, I spent a nice quiet half hour walking around my yard, listening to my fountain and smelling the lilacs blooming. I actually do have a few roses blooming as well! Not nearly all of them and Sam, I had some tips freeze back almost a week ago as well. They’ve turned all crispy now. Some of the roses seem unharmed, very random. Berrypie, I almost envy your quiet life. My life is full and schedules rule the day and I find it hard to get any quietness in my days. I do get up early, 5 am, and spend time in prayer and reading Scriptures and I walk an hour before my day gets started. That’s about all the quietness I get. But I’m grateful for a happy, healthy busy family and a garden to bring me so much joy! Here are a few shots of the garden this evening. Happy Child, Marie Ducher, Lavender Lady Lilac, Ducher
This is such a great question! Thanks, Ben for starting the discussion. And my sympathies to Emmie and those who've lost children. I agree -- 2 years is so very recent. I planted a Wollerton Old Hall two years ago, but put it on a slope, quite shaded. Didn't do much. I moved it in January and it is taking off, so now I worry it's too close to the street and a big shrub (ceanothus - more like a small tree) and will have to move it again. I'm looking forward to the flowers, though. I don't want to get to weirdly symbolic, but I think a myrhh scented rose seems appropriate for the memory of someone?
I look back at my "rose roots" and wish I had a do-over! My grandmother grew roses, and I remember her walking me through her garden a couple of times and showing me what she was happy with. I was probably 13-15 years old and just impatient and an idiot. I so wish I could go back in time and stroll with my grandmother and learn the names of her roses and hear her stories about how and why she came to love them. The only plant name I remember from those short tours is her "Dusty Miller" plants. Sheesh. My dad gardened a lot -- varied depending on the house we were in at the time -- grew some roses. Always had to have his tomatoes and peppers.
I think I resented gardening, as my job was picking snails and pulling weeds. Then I made some money as a teen doing "yard work" -- which was really mowing and raking. Not fun.
Then when I was in graduate school somehow I got a Jackson & Perkins rose catalogue in the mail. And at the time, I was enamored with the Victoria magazine and some of the Crabtree & Evelyn products (the classic scents - that I still miss). So I think all of these things at the same time made me think that I needed roses. So I bought some from J&P and it's been a love affair ever since. One of the first was Sheer Bliss -- which is lovely and such a heavenly scent. I finally got a new one of those from Heirloom last year, so this will be year 2 in the garden and I can't wait. I also grew Sterling Silver and Lagerfeld and Mr. Lincoln and climbing Cecile Bruner. I think for health and form and color and fragrance -- my favorite was Sheer Bliss. We lived in an apartment back then, but the managers let me garden in areas that were vacant -- there were some geraniums and weeds, but that was it. Then we moved to another apartment, and I tried to move some in pots, but they were in a very hot, shaded patio area (all I had), and none really survived. At my current house, I have a small area, but now have 100 roses. I swore I would never do this, but now I have about 15 in pots because I literally can't fit in any more roses.
Jacqueline -- thanks for telling your story again. What a wonderful legacy.
Thanks again, Ben. Nice to remember what got us started!
I used to say I hated roses!
I associated them with municipal plantings of ugly, gnarly, bare-legged, diseased and neglected hybrid tea lollipops. Imagine serried rows along roadsides or widely spaced on otherwise bare roundabouts, not a companion plant in sight..
So I was extremely reluctant to comply when my DH said she would love some red roses for our then new garden, some eight years ago. We had inherited two very old and ugly HT’s, which had only confirmed my prejudices. One of the first things I did was plot their demise, so I was damned if I was going to replace them with more of the bloody same!!
However, I came across some potted David Austin roses in a small local nursery. This turned out to be a freak, never to be repeated event for this nursery, but the duly purchased L.D. Braithwaite (and the subsequent gift of Darcy Bussell from some guests) became the seed of my future obsession. A whole new world was opened up to me by this one rose!
LDB was never the greatest DA and has since been relegated to her office garden, where most roses go to commence their final journey. Nevertheless, I will always have a fondness for it because of the role it played in my rose story:
@Feiy (PNWZ8b/9a) I didn't know there was a shrub version of Etoile. I rarely get basal shooting on any rose and I have never had a sucker, but all my roses are squeezed into small crannies, having to fight it out, so maybe they have no mind to sucker or shoot. Now my Etoiles are pretty established (over about five years) they repeat well through the year. I wonder if what you have is an Etoile, or if the nature of the original can be altered according to how it's managed.
I’m in the same boat! Zone 9b (northern california) and I still haven’t received my roses! I ordered last year (Yves Piaget, Francis Meilland, White O’Hara)…..really hope I receive a shipping notification soon!
BenT (NorCal 9B Sunset
How have your Yves Piaget roses done here in zone 9b?
If you follow GRF on Instagram, you'll have seen that the grafted exclusive varieties arrived from Arizona as bare roots and they were potted up recently at GRF. They're only just starting to wake up, and Gracie posted some stories yesterday (screenshotted below) in which she says they are waiting for the roots to fill up the pots. So, no matter what zone you are in, you may be waiting for a while if you ordered the grafted exclusive varieties.
They do look so much better than the own-root versions. I suspect they discovered last year that the own-roots lacked vigor and that's why they couldn't ship them out last fall. Then they potted them up two to a container for shipping this spring, to make them look slightly more robust.