Really beautiful photos. You have a lovely home too.

Your Bleu Magenta looks really lovely and the combination of Pat Austin and gypsophilia paniculata is wonderful. The tiny white flowers together with the sumptuous orange blooms of Pat are building such a nice contrast. I am always on the hunt for exciting companion plants for roses and I think, you inspired me to try a similar combination in my garden, too.

Thanks for posting!

Chrisitna

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

You ought to post that photo of Bleu Magenta to HelpMeFind.

It's absolutely lovely. Wish I thought it could do that here.

Jeri
in Alkaline Coastal Ventura Co, SoCal

The placement of Bleu Magenta against the bluish background is absolutely inspired. I don't think you could have picked a better rose for that particular spot. So beautiful.

The combination of plants in the second photo is absolutely lovely. I hope you'll continue to post and show us more of these wonderful pictures.

Ingrid

Thank you everybody.

Jerome, I wanted my house out of the photo but I'm on a corner and unless I get in super close, I get poles, sidewalks, stuff I don't want in there. The house does look pretty on the outside, and I'm not unhappy with it being in this shot.

Christina, I was delighted to see that combo the last few days. This is the perennial gypsophilia, supposed to be the kind florists use which is what I wanted. I've grown the annual variety which is pretty but different and may self seed in the right conditions, and this perennial one can be invasive in the west but not here. The annual variety does not produce that airy, twinkly, fairy-dust look, nothing like it. A horticulturist out of school told me it wouldn't grow here but an older guy at the florist shop said he had one. I think I got the seeds from Seeds Trust, planted them about mid-to-late June in about 5 spots, dug out a small hole, filled with potting soil, sprinkled the seeds, then covered with a cut 2 liter, cap off, kept well watered. This is the only one that survived and seems to be increasing every year. I had a dickens of a time finding the right seeds, and there's supposed to be a photo at a MO botanical garden but I couldn't find it. I've grown the annual variety, too, they're nice but don't look like this and shorter. Also the foliage is kind of pretty, greenish gray. It definitely needs alkaline soil to bloom, and most of mine is acidic, so check the ph if you decide to try it. I doubt you'll find plants, maybe potted, and I read they won't tolerate xplanting because they sink a deep tap root. I'd like some more of it here and there, too. It looked so pretty with sweet peas in a T&M catalog, no description, they only sell the seeds for the sweet peas, so I took the catalog to the nursery w/a florist shop and asked what it was.

jerijen, glad you're still here, will post it at HMF later today, am registered there. This was evening because I couldn't get a morning shot with sun on it and we haven't had a whole lot yet anyway. I've got a few closer ones and will process one of the better shots, too, to post. You and Ingrid are the only names I remember.

As to wishing it could do that well, why not try it? I only watered a little the first and second year, and it just seems to want to take off after an intial slump you get with bands. A part shade spot would be good. Well it is near a spot that has no gutter and needs some work, so that may take care of the water it needs, but I'll bet it has already sunk pretty deep roots just behind the dripline of a peaked roof section of the house. I did amend the soil in that area tilling in peat and compost, but not much deeper it's clay.

ingrid_vc, you are too kind. I had to put it where I could use a box of 5 trellises I bought, leaned against the house. And the dryer vents right by there. Luckily I don't have to use it much and have the outside vent turned to minimize blowing on Bleu, was concerned about it. I suppose the old cedar shakes which my son's former gf decided needed to be blue, I was dubious, but it's worked out very well. I have in boxes two of those tuteurs/obelisks, round with big hoops on top, nobody put together for me yet, bet it would do nicely on the tallest one, too. I can put one together myself if I set my mind to it. An arbor here, maybe, one of the few that would meet from the sides and cover the top, maybe w/a clem for more bloom. The only downside is most here want repeat bloomers. The leaves are semi-shiny, and I see something has chewed on some of them. I got it at Rogue Valley. Their photo looks quite a bit different though.

At best this one gets 4, doubt 6 hours of morning sun, so what the literature says is true, performs well in part shade. Getting scruffy now from fading blooms but just went out and found about 3 huge clusters at the top.

{{gwi:275811}}

Here is a link that might be useful: Gypsophilia Paniculata at Seeds Trust $1.95

>>> As to wishing it could do that well, why not try it?

Oh no. If there's one thing I've learned, it is that there are plants which can ONLY be grown here through the use of constant supplements, designed to create an environment we simply don't have.
Been there. Done that.
Roses whose genes are heavily invested in Multiflora and/or rugosa breeding simply will not grow well in our extremely alkaline environment.

Today, we were at a nearby Native Plant nursery. While waiting to pay for an "Orchid Glow" Salvia, we listened to the guy explain to another customer why she did not need to ammend her soil to plant California natives. They EVOLVED in our miserable soil/water, and they thrive on it. They don't WANT irrigation. They don't WANT enriched soil.
So OUR companion plants have to be these tough critters.
Your Baby's Breath, of course, is a stable commercial crop here. The stuff LOVES our conditions.

So, that's a beauty, but no . . . not gonna even try it. I try to reduce my stress level whenever possible.

Jeri
(Who still casts Envious Glances At Purple Multifloras)

Wondering if you are still around, I can't stop adoring your bleu magenta and was wondering if you remember where you got that trellis? It looks sturdy and store bought. Would love to know if you don't mind sharing.

I have been hovering over the purchase button for a few weeks but I need a good trellis before I can buy her.

I'm still around. I'm having trouble with this new way around here. I don't garden any more because I can't. The trellis you see is two; one for the bleu magenta and one for the clematis next to it. It's a regular iron lattice trellis with two stakes, put in the ground and leaned against the house. Can install better if you are able. They are not overly sturdy but east to tote around. They came (changed to past tense) in a pack of 5, fairly reasonable. bestnest.com Now I went there and as you might guess they don't carry any exactly like mine any more. But if you go there and on one of the dropdown menus choose trellis metal you will see a couple others that are similar. I do like the lattice better. It could use a taller trellis. I have a couple in boxes that are pretty, not sure where I got them. Panacea giant trellis 9 feet 30 inches. Those I'm not sure where I found them. It was online, I know that, don't remember how much either, not too bad or I wouldn't have bought them. Maybe you can google that. Was going to install on my brick fireplace (2 side by side) for Veilchenbleu. These roses are not for my local as they are super aggressive, send out huge canes, hard to maintain. This one I think I will have shovel pruned when I can find someone to do it reasonably. First I should offer it to somebody in the rose club here. Being just a spring bloomer, people don't get too excited about them. Now I've got to see if my signin time has expired or if this is going to work.

The ones in boxes I saw on here, a poster I thought it was like Lindy something, she lived in KY in a gorgeous brick house. She and her husband built a deck covered by a gorgeous pergola and had New Dawn climbing from the lowest level, up the first story of the house and up and over the pergola. It was so beautiful. The trellis she had on another part of the house, on brick. There's a right way to install on brick. They are on two stakes, are metal lattice, not heavy duty, but the top has a convex curve from one side to the other. That one I thought she told me she got at Cracker Barrel or Barrel and Crate? It's been too long ago. And I don't remember which rose forum it was.

Amazon has one for $62.50 exactly like mine in the boxes. Will try a link and then go and see if I can find one like the one Bleu Magenta is on.

Panacea Giant Trellis 9 feet 30 inches

I wasn't successful in finding one like in my photo. I know I got those at bestnest pack of 5. Sorry. You would really need a bigger one anyway. That rose is hardy but protected on the east side of my house. This year I am getting that bad corner you see repaired, cannot put it off any longer; it's worse than it looks and was letting cold air into my kitchen no matter what I've done to patch and stuff insulation. I can't post photos any more either because Flickr evidently doesn't support my browser any more, will have to find another photo host site.

I love it when an old thread like this gets bumped forward. Time flies. Was sad to hear you can't garden anymore. Sending prayers your way. I don't get out in the gardens as much as I'd like anymore either - because work has just become so hectic. Best wishes to you.

Jerome

Thank you, Jerome. I lost my wonderful 42-year-old son to suicide 3 years ago. I'm used to adversity emotionally, but that and a couple stressful legal problems, resolved now thankfully, took a toll on my physical health plus inactivity due to grief and depression (shouldn't give into it and try to stay physically active). It's been an ongoing disappointment about my gardening; I enjoyed the dreaming part but not everything turned out as I had hoped. We all have that, have learned so much what not to do ;-). Thank you so much for your prayers. Not too many will remember when I posted a photo of my son's marvelous rock wall he had built in a yard off the basement entry way to his new home in 2005-2006.

Now guess what? I'm an old lady now, but the name of the woman I posted about came to me. It's linrose. I found her photos of her arbor and trellises are still up. I can hardly believe I was able to find those again. I googled linrose gardenweb and got this link. It's a long thread and about trellises and etc.; very worth perusing even though some photos have been removed; we had several wonderful ones going back then. Linrose (or her DH) put 3 of the trellises I found on amazon together in about the third photo down on this old thread. I remember the first rose she planted for the triple trellis wasn't successful, don't know if she tried something else or what. It's that deck pergola I'd almost give anything to have something like that. I'm not good at architecture, but it reminds me of the Craftsman home era; we have arbors and woodwork on older homes similar to that style. Enjoy.

Photos of linrose's arbor and trellis

I am so sorry to hear about your son and that you aren't able to garden anymore. The photos of your roses make me want to walk around and see everything outside those shots.

Thank you so much for sharing the information about the trellises. I truly appreciate it. I found the Panacea ones on amazon. $60 with amazon prime, that's perfect. That looks a lot sturdier than the ones I have gotten from home depot/lowes that I use for clematis, I knew those would never be sturdy enough for even a small climbing rose let alone a rambler.

I ordered Bleu Magenta and will be ordering that trellis soon and I will plan on adding an additional one if it outgrows the first. I hope mine grows to look even half as gorgeous as yours does. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me and taking the time to write me back.

Thank you for the condolence about my son. I am so so so glad I was able to contribute something really useful for someone after so long; I've had one email address since 1997. I haven't sprung for Prime yet but perhaps I should. I start filling my cart, and it sits for a month or two until I decide to check out. I am going to try gardening herbs in several window planters set on the front sidewalk or around a bed in front under the windows, as I am enjoying cooking on yt. If I can find someone to help reasonably, I will try to shape things up around here. I'm so proud of several heirloom roses I've saved, rooted myself which was a struggle, but they need weeding around and some nasty mulberry (grows fast) or similar cut out. One rose if it's not Mme. Plantier, surely looks like it.

I guess I need to tell you I have inadvertently become a monster rose lady. A man down on a nicer street close by stopped one day and offered to get some machine and dig everything out. I was open to it but thought there's little plants in there I'd want to save. There is a monster rose I rooted, never found out what it is. He looked at it with contempt lol. So he was going to check with a tractor friend, and I didn't see him again. I'm so glad because there are little things and some really nice roses scattered around. One bloomed beautifully a spring or two ago, got it at the Rose Emporium, Thomas Afleck (sp?). It was doing well in no more sunlight than it has been getting, shot out basals. It needs pruning and to be moved. If you have to hire yard work done, it's terrible what a couple of them have done to some of my prize flowers. Ruthlessly mowed in closer and closer until they were gone. Only a few things remain in what I had as a beautiful hedgerow. I was too preoccupied to be vigilant.

My neighbor offered to help; she loves to garden so maybe we can work something out. I just can't have her doing it for nothing. I still have some nice roses and interesting plants.

Of all things, I'm interested in the new yellow knockout rose. Driving through McD's last fall, I saw a grouping of them and wondered what they were. They are charming, bud and bloom yellow, then fade to white. It appears they bloom continuously; I'm guessing they are low maintenance but not no maintenance and may need some watering off and on. I think I will try to have some planted in a spot in front where some lilies petered out, have some great rose food to use up, Mills Magic, something like that. I've got piles of paper I've saved for cheap weed barrier if I can just get it down and covered with some cedar bark mulch I've had stashed on the side of the house.

I love your name BTW; it's so pretty.

You are welcome, I wish there was more I could say.

Prime is nice with the two day shipping, but my husband is going back to school and he gets it for free since he's a 'student'. Growing herbs in window planters sounds nice! You should be proud. Your roses are lovely. We are both zone 5 but probably quite far or I'd love to come help you. Do you still have your bleu magenta? I would love to see photos of your other roses someday if you come across other photos. I am new to gardening, this will only be my forth summer and technically only my third with roses since the first summer they all died, so my roses are all young and I am patiently waiting for views like yours.

I am happy it sounds like you will be able to get a little into gardening again this summer. If I was close I would love to help you. There is so much to learn from experienced gardeners, it would be a joy just to see those roses in person.

Oh wow. Some people don't get it. I'm glad he didn't dig your roses up. Most of the people in my neighborhood either don't garden at all, or plant the same boring stuff with their weed fabric. yawn. I'd take your monster roses over that stuff any day!

I hope you can take your neighbors offer and let her help you. I bet she would really enjoy it, I know I would. Maybe you could show her how to root cuttings of some of your roses as a thank you.

I saw that yellow knock out last year. I was surprised to see it was a knock out, it is very pretty. Do you grow David Austin roses at all? I've completely fallen in love with all of those. Bleu Magenta is the first Rambler I've ordered.

If you're able to get back into gardening I hope you share your photos with us. Thank you so much. And thank you again for sharing your knowledge with me. I am sure my little bleu won't be much to look at for a while but I will report back if you'd like.

My project is putting some old slides in carousels to get digitized less inexpensively than any other way. In the meantime, it wouldn't take you much time to scroll through just 3 pages of photos I've warehoused on flickr, includes some of my nice flower photos.

The stump of my huge tree, that was a serious and costly loss. I still feel sad that I had to have that cut down after a huge branch came down a few minutes after I'd come in the house, short burst of wind. Not one of the many other limbs and branches showed any signs of rot.

The pussywillow catkin I won an award locally; it was in the paper. Big deal. I planted that pussywillow especially so I could photograph some lol. I asked a couple people if they knew where there were any, and they didn't. Well, I have a magnificent one now. It's blooming; I should go cut some before they go to pollen.

Austins, the best is the apricot-orange, Pat Austin I think, at the top of this thread. Still have Hyde Hall, a remnant of Dark Lady I thought I shovel pruned, Geoff Hamilton I tried to sp; it's not very pretty. In front if they got some care again, I have a pair of Charlotte. One of my best photos I wish I could share with you I have a huge version of my desktop of Charlotte in her glory with C. Rooguchi in the bokeh background. I should enter it in something. I have a wonderful specimen of Harison's Yellow (not an Austin of course), had six Austins in the back, one survives. Apricot just can't think of the name of it. Crown Princess Margarita (sp?) (you can see just a little bit of it in a photo or two) in the row the mowers ruined.

I've got tons more photos. I like to do simple photo essays, but I took them down, had my own web space for awhile and would have kept it but was way underutilizing the allocated space.

Enough. Get me going and I don't stop. If you see something of interest at the link, just ask. Trust me, they aren't thumbnails but smaller versions of what I uploaded. I can look at them, can do nothing else, can't delete, can't see full size, get embed code, nothing. I don't want those browsers they are pushing is the problem.

Three short pages of diverse flower & other photos at flickr

Oh my gosh, is that your sweet autumn clematis? That is gorgeous! I just planted mine last summer.... I love seeing all of these photos. Thank you so much for sharing! You have a talent for photography, I feel like many of these could win some awards.

Is that your sweet autumn clematis on the ground? What happened??

Aliska, I really enjoyed your photos. I love whole plant natural shots. So sorry about your son. I'm sure he knew you loved him very much.

Aliska , you can post photos directly to the site. If you click the little photo icon at the bottom, you can browse thru photos you have stored on your computer, click on them, and they will post. I would love to see your pictures :), I enjoyed the ones on Flickr! I hope the spring weather is shaping up for you.

For Michaele, Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR and Dingo2001 - First an attribution for Rogue Valley from whom I purchased Bleu Magenta. Offhand I don't remember any other purchases there but thought there might be one other. Things I wanted go so fast. I can't recommend them highly enough for healthy plants, beauty of course, vigor, and hardiness. They had one that had scrambled up a tree. New Dawn will do that in warmer climates. Sorry I neglected to recommend them before and that my gardening started going downhill as I had more of their roses on my wish list.

My photos, that's kind of you, I got fairly good at and enjoyed so much. Can hardly do that any more either unless I can stand or sit. I forgot, the first year after my son died (he was the light of my life as a little boy, my only son, two daughters), as an escape I decided I'm going to trade in stocks. So I spent days day and swing trading lol. Taught myself with lots of help, got one of those cheap online brokers. I came out of it a couple thousand in the black but I don't have a feel for the market. I'm glad I learned how to do it, never had any stocks before. One photo is a google screen capture of my farm. I can't live on it, not sure I'd want to, but I imagine turning it into a rose heaven lol. Totally unrealistic and am struggling with bad grain prices.

I do appreciate the praise on my photos, I didn't do it for money but made a little here and there. There was another lady on here who had a little better camera than mine, and she took exquisite photos. She was more into perennials I think. So there are many fine photographers around here. Already people are switching to iphone for the convenience though. In good hands, they get decent photos, but most people don't know how to compensate for low light. I don't have an iphone, still on a land line.

Thank you for reminding me I could upload photos here. I don't like to flood threads with too many photos, but I'll see if I can get my nice Charlotte photo on here to share with you. She sure doesn't (they have a pair) look like that now, will try to get her pruned and revived. I have another pretty one of a Paul Barden rose, Hettie. She has been sorely neglected, would hate to lose her, had 2 out there. Hettie seems to take on different bloom forms at different times.

I was unsuccessful in getting two photos to upload. Sorry. I clicked on the camera that says Photo, navigated to the right folder, highlighted the photo, clicked on choose, nothing happened. I'll struggle with it later.

That sweet autumn clematis was gorgeous, what a tragedy that they killed it! I planted one last summer and it was quite impressive for the first year, I can't wait to see what it does this year.

I love my rooguchi clematis. I noticed you have one too! I have two growing on obelisks on either side of my front door. They actually cling to their supports, like they aren't supposed to so I don't know if I got a strange variety or what but I love them.

I never thought I would love pink as much as I do but I am definitely drawn to pink roses and especially apricot. Yellow roses are gorgeous though, you really can't go wrong with any color I think. My alchymist rose should bloom this year if nothing happens to it and I can't wait to see the peach blooms. :)

Aliska, that photo of your Blue Magenta is glorious. I am so sorry to hear about your son, too.