Gorgeous! And congratulations on the posting of pictures! That was soooooo difficult for me to learn. Now, I need someone to help me clean up and organize the pics on my hard drive. I hear too many will really slow it down. Buff

Wow -- well, it was sure worth the effort! Thanks for the beautiful photos of your roses!

jude the obscure looks so good in that vase

I hope my JUDE looks half as good as yours...but I am unsure how to feel about the blooms not quite opening all the way. I hope I like it!

Your roses are gorgeous, you've done well with your small space!

Beautiful blooms and lovely post. Now that you are an expert on posting pictures (we all had trouble in the beginning), don't hesitate to (please) share with us more frequently. These are beautiful. Your Jude looks good enough to eat.

Whoa! Your Jude the Obscure and that vase is gorgeous!!!!

Your roses are beautiful.

Lisa

I just showed my daughter your Jude pics (all are lovely by the way!) and she can't wait. She picked Jude out to go by her bedroom window. She loved his pics in the
Austin catalog so much. He is getting ready to bloom. She is so excited about that fragrance wafting into her room. :o)

A nieghbor of mine two doors and next building over (condos which means pretty close) is looking forward to my potted pets blooming so the scent can blow her way. Jude is definitley 'shortlisted' in my books. Gotta have him!

You sure did a great job with the pictures. the first one is a winner.

Florence

Thank you EVERYONE

I would love to claim credit, but it all belongs to the flowers. All I do is cut them, and point and shoot.

Jude is an amazing rose. On a warm day, with a light breeze, I can pick up his perfume 10 feet away. So can my neighbors (they love him). He smells like peaches.

The cut flowers don't last long, maybe 3 days, but he I get 3-4 good flushes of bloom, maybe more, over the summer. Jude loves a good pruning, really seems to stimulate the blooming cycle. And he basically is pretty bullet proof when it comes to blackspot (rarely more than a few leaves)

Here is a picture from last week. I still have lots of blooms, but haven't had time to deadhead the spent blossoms

-Basil

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Basil,

Congratulations on getting the extra space to put your roses in!!! We once lived in a condo townhouse development where the paths and common areas had been landscaped in an "English cottage garden" style that basically sold us. White picket fences, roses, foxgloves, delphiniums, it was lovely. Within a year the "powers that be" removed a gorgeous bed of landscape roses that bloomed all summer and replanted the whole 10 x 12 ft area with red wax begonias ... then came the creeping junipers and it was downhill from there. So good on you for spreading the beauty for the benefit of all!!!

You will not regret planting your Souvenir DLM, it's a classic superb choice. You can always replace one Lavaglut with something else smelly, there are so many possibilities.

Thanks for the photos, perfectly delightful. I wish my garden was half as manicured as yours!!!

MayBee

Lovely roses and great pictures. Small gardens are a challenge and you have met it head on.

For me Jude smells like grapefruit, I love that rose.

If you are having trouble with photobucket look into picasa or fototime or there are many others that make posting easy.

Carol

Thank you MayBee (and everyone else)

Actually, I could use some landscaping advice

Here is a picture a bit further back, which gives a better sense of the small little space I have. The garden "strip" (for lack of a better term) wraps around the side of my end-unit townhome. Most of this is in the shade (faces north), but the front edge is a small raised bed which gets sun all afternoon. Originally, it had three ugly old azealeas (sorry azealea lovers, I find them to be very boring bushes!!). So I was just going to replace them with three roses (Iceberg is what I was originally thinking). Well, that was 4 years ago...Let's just say I have "grown" as a garderner

I wound up extending the raised bed a bit, it was about 10 feet long by 4 feet wide, now it is 15 feet long. But I cannot extend it any further. I have a lovely maple at the end of that bed, and I am already planting a bit too close to that tree as it is.

Across the sidewalk from the raised bed is a small "island", which is community property...it has the fire hydrant and the light post. Because of Jude's popularity, I got the blessing of my neighbors to pull the ugly juniper ground cover and put in roses. I have 3 Lavagluts in there (one on lifesupport, after some bad transplant shock), and now have added 3 Souvenir de la Malmaison. I have ringed all 6 of the roses with dwarf lavendar, which should fill in nicely as the summer progresses.

The full list of roses is as follows (16 in all):

Jude the Obscure: In the corner closest to the steps. He is my first rose purchase, and first love - now 4 years old. It just keeps getting better

Molineux (3 of them) They sit next to Jude. I planted them last year, they didn't do much last year, but this year I have gotten a good spring flush and they are starting to grow a bit. They have a nice tea fragrance

Jardins de Bagatelle (2 of them, view obscured by red Lavaglut roses growing in the island): These are new this year. Not much yet, but pretty blooms on the baby plants with a nice fragrance. I wanted 3, to replace 3 Ducher (China) roses, which were perfectly fine rose bushes (bullet proof), but didn't really put out nice flowers for cutting. I have a small garden, I decided I wanted more cutting roses. I could only get 2 JdB this year (Roses Unlimited), so I am holding a spot for one more of these guys for next, assuming they perform well

Crimson Bouquet (1, behind Molineux). It's 3 years old now. No fragrance, but lovely bloom, long lasting, great for cutting, and it repeats really well over the summer.

Maggie (1, next to Crimson Bouquet on the pillar trellis). This is brand new (Antique Rose Emporium), just a baby, and not really visible. It replaced a hybrid tea (Beloved) that was constantly getting blackspot. I have high hopes for this one...already putting out new growth.

Pickerings 4 Seasons Rose - in a pot, not in the picture (further up the steps). Doing ok, but not as nice a rose as Rose du Roi. Blooms are pretty, not a heavy bloomer, but it is still young. A very lanky plant though!!

Rose du Roi (1, in a pot, next to Jude). I acquired as a happy accident last year, an apology gift from Rogue Valley Roses for sending me the wrong rose. I didn't have space, so he went in a pot. This rose is really growing on me. It produced a great, very fragrant flush last fall. That damask scent was just WONDERFUL!!!! This spring's flush has been very nice, and he is starting to fill in a bit. I may try and squeeze him in at the end of the garden later this summer, just past the space for Jardin des Bagatelles, roughly where the little white sign sits (I would have to fill in some dirt) I don't want to run a big "pot ghetto"

Souvenir de la Malmaison (3 of these on the "island" next to the light pole, on the right) - What more can I say. They are brand new, and I am already very impressed. Patrick & Lori who live in my area, love this rose. I find the fragrance subtle, soft, not a strong as Jude or Rose du Roi, but nice. The flower form cannot be beat. They seem very happy in their new bed!

Lavaglut (2 1/2, on the left side of the lightpole): They are only 1 year old, but are already 3 1/2 feet tall. They bloom non-stop all summer, and stand up INCREDIBLY well to the heat (and we have HOT, humid summers!!!). Blooms are long lasting (great cut flowers, but no fragrance), and a pretty deep red. Disease free foliage.

I wrote off one of these (now a 1/2 rose, sitting, partially obscured by the fire hydrant) that I had transplanted (to make room for SDLM). But I looked last night, and it is showing signs of life (2 live canes, and a bunch of dead ones). I will look again at him tonight, and trim the dead canes. Should I keep him or pull him?

If I pull him, I could conceivably buy & plant 2 more SDLM (on either side of the fire hydrant) and have 5 of those ringing the 2 remaining Lavagluts (and all framed by the new lavendar plants I put in). Or....

I could try and put in 2 of the SDLM sport, Capitaine Dyel de Graville (if I can find it!), to get a somewhat darker shade of pink.

Oh the choices one has to make with a small garden!! I appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts (since I am still very much a novice!!)

Basil

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Basil,

I am by no means an expert, but I think you are doing a beautiful job with your garden area. You could wait and see if Lavaglut recovers, after all in a high-visibility space it's important to avoid a "clown's pants" look (as Jim Crockett used to say). I have never had the discipline to plant multiples of the same cultivar, too curious to see what else there is, but then one has to be very careful to choose complementary plants. You seem to have enough roses already in your space, remember they will grow bigger soon. Also I find it very difficult to grow roses in pots well. After a couple of years you may need to put those in the ground somewhere.

One suggestion would be to introduce some height behind Jude. How about a narrow trellis or maybe some hooks somewhere against the brick for a clematis? I think a Viticella type would work in your climate (someone more familiar with N. Va. could correct me here). You could then introduce some dark blue or purple-blue to complement your lavender. Of the clematis I grow, Etoile Violette and Lady Betty Balfour are great favourites. Here are pictures of the respective flowers:

Lady Betty Balfour:

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Etoile Violette this year also has flowers with 6 petals:

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Only downside is clematis needs 2-3 years to establish well so you might want to consider some other climber more suitable for your space. Personally I love honeysuckle but it may become too rampant, it would smell heavenly though!!! I'll leave it there, I guess my ignorance shows! You have done beautifully already.

MayBee

Your pictures, and your roses, are beautiful! Nice job and thanks for sharing.

MayBee, Karen, Carol, Florence, Lisa (& all the other kind people on here)

I had thought about clematis, but had not done much research. I love those pictures, I will have to look and see what I can do. It's a great suggestion

I plant multiples of a cultivar,(usually 3), because I was read somewhere that it is always best to mass a particular color, so that it has maximum impact, particularly in a small space. I also read that odd number (3 or 5) are best..

You are right about letting things grow! I am an impatient gardener, but I am working to be better. I can't wait for the lavendar to fill in, with the silver and green leaves, and purple spikes, to frame everything.

I took another look at the Lavaglut on life support, and decided he probably was not going to make it. I feel terrible about that, his two brothers are covered in blooms right now (they are very thorny though!!). I decided to order 2 Souvenir de la Malmaison to replace him (from Vintage Gardens): one will go right where the dying Lavaglut is, and the second will be in front of/slight to the right of fire hydrant. SDLM is supposed to be slow growing and relatively small, but as they fill in, it should partially obscure the fire hydrant, and ring the deep red Lavaglut with big pink flowers. No more roses after this...(except for one bare spot reserved for next year for another Jardins de Bagatelle, I could only get 2 this year, so I am saving a space for next year)

Of course if the fire hydrant needs to be used, I imagine the roses there will get smashed, but somehow I think that if the hydrant needs to be used, my roses will not be the most important consideration!

-Basil

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Molineux

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Jardins de Bagatelle (still a baby!)

Replacing one damaged Lavaglut with two new Souvenir de la Malmaison ... mmmh, sounds like a fair swap to me!!!

Lovely photos, Basil, all the best.

MayBee