Serena, wow you got some beautiful roses this year! It also looks like your garden is coming together as a whole nicely! My favorite roses from all the great ones that you posted are Frederic Mistral and Viking Queen. I also love your Hollyhocks.

Thanks for taking the time to post all the lovely photos!

Christina

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

Love all your roses and companions. Cute pooch too.
All your plants look lush and healthy.
You could say you have two Royal sunset plants: One hot and one cool. :> ha-ha.....

Thanks for posting.

Spectacular pics, Serena. Clementina has wonderful pastel shadings.

I, too, grow Anna de Diesbach. (have two of them...) They do seem to repeat well. Mine have remained compact, which is good for the location that they are in.

Thank you for the introduction to the heather, looks delightful in the pot.

Bee balm is fun to grow, isn't it.... interesting blooms.

Great garden and pics!

Thanks for sharing your pretty & delightful 2011 garden with us, Serena. May GOD richly bless you!!! :~D

Serena, Your roses are looking GREAT especially with all this heat that we have mine are looking poorly. I love your America and Folklore and you rose bed looks so healthy, way to go girl.
Harold

WOW......OK, let me re-aquire my tonsils after that gasp. STUNNNNNNNN-ing !!! So where to start..............?

Since the flower is not man's (or KG's as it might sometimes be) best friend, we must start with the beast. What a fine canine indeed, but then you know my affinity for all things dog ;-)

Your RS is exquisite. It is so warm and so perfectly situated on the color wheel ! I didn't have the heart to tell you my niece lost hers over the winter :-(

I typically try and steer away from all things with A-D-D but since yours is gorgeosa and AdD I can still LOVE it ;-) It appears to be close to Gertie in color which I love. I don't suppose it has the essence of raspberry as well, per chance ?

Love the DD, I don't know why but 'precocious' came to mind as in forget the distance, she's intriguing enough to get up close and personal :-)

I'm thinking that if you've seen one bee, you've seen em all (wink, wink) but boy I sure do like that CC ! Is that an Heirloom ? ( the Clement thing was my first clue ;-) I'm seeing gorgeous bouquets in your future with all these......just cuz it's Kansas don't mean you can't do it !!!

I treated some of mine to Alpa-caca this year but Bourbon is way too rich for my blood. It sure does look good on you though....Maggie is freaking gorgeous !!!

Your America is awesome, I would never whine about mine if it looked like that.

OK, I gotta stop now because I love them all and I don't want to repeat the superlatives. You've got yourself a veritable kaleidoscope there girl.....AWESOME !!!!!

Your "lumpy roses" and "lopsided garden" are Gorgeous! And I'm crazy about your hollyhocks!!

Awww, thanks so much Boxo, Krista, Christina, Harold, Inga, Dovesong, and Seil! Everyone-- Krista, Christina's and Jim's gardens have the truly spectacular healthy organics going. My garden is in the Blackspot Climate Zone of defoliated roses with chaos always right around the corner. Thank goodness for Gardenville Sea Tea or else my garden would be completely naked!

Eluane sends her puppy kisses to Boxo and Inga!

Harold, 85% of these photos were before the terrible heat wave struck. My baby bands are suffering with the exception of Anna de Diesbach. The heat is also roasting the pots of my tree roses even though they are sheltered by the porched entryway. One tree rose is almost dead but is trying to grow new leaves. Harold, my roses wish you were their gardener and protector. They are screaming Help Us, Saaaave Us, Harold! Harold, I can't imagine your Paradise of Roses ever looking poorly. Your roses are like a cascade of colorful butterflies!

Hehe, Boxo I am so much looking for your absolutely stunning and gorgeous Gertrude Jekyll. She really is the Queen complement to the King Abraham D'Arby! I purposely sought her out to smell her in Kansas because of your beautiful bouquets and I love GJ's intense raspberry scent! How truly blessed are all those people you've showered your Heavenly-fragranced bouquets with!

Scentwise Ferdinand Pichard is the rose that smells like a cross between GJ's Heavenly Raspberry and a Chrysler Imperial damask. Lincoln damask is very deep and heavy whereas CI's damask "breathes" light. Anne de Diesbach has a wonderful scent but it is sheer damask with a whallop of sugar (no honey notes, just sugary), if that makes sense, lol! Clementina Carboniera was bred in Italy by Gaetano Bonfiglioli. Isn't that cool?

Oh, Boxo-- Russian sage suddenly undergoes a 1-2 month period of looking completely dead (Brown, shrively and completely dried out branches) All that "dead wood" will revive and burst into leaves. So hopefully your niece will get another Russian sage! What's interesting about Russian sage is that it presents a beautiful silver landscape in winter, then all of a sudden that one month of "yucky dead as a doornail" look, lol! It's a zone 5a plant, but some gardeners claim it is a zone 3-4 plant. Best part about it is it keeps blooming from June 1st until the first snows. I suspect it's bloom power must be just like your Hansa, Boxo. Only difference, RS is expected to do this, your Hansa on the other hand is some unearthly Superhero Rugosa haha! ;-)

Thanks Seil, it's my first time growing Hollyhocks. Thank goodness Hollyhocks are vigorous with nearly 2' leaves that can withstand the rabbit attacks, lol!

Dovesong, God Bless to you. I am so happy thrilled that Krista is feeling better and back again. Everyone, remember to keep Carol in our thoughts. Carol wrote about the liver tests- it's in Boxo's Ginger thread....Hugs, Dovesong, hugs Krista...

P.S. Jim has to get his glasses fixed/or rather completely replaced so I'm sure he will be back as soon as he gets caught up :) No way I could go even a few hours without my glasses! just thinking of it makes me wince!

The two that got me (setting aside the obvious, the dog) were your hollyhocks and your Royal Sunset comparison. Lovely, lovely rose. I am now considering it for my arbor.
I'll be back to look at your photos again!
Renee

I still don't understand why you call your garden and roses "lopsided and lumpy." Everything is quite beautiful! The roses are gorgeous, the dog is adorable, but those hollyhocks.... I am really jealous of those!! I try growing them, and get maybe one or two small blooms, and lots of bug holes! Guess they're not so suited for my climate. sigh...

Beautiful photos Serena ! My favs are of course Anna de Deisbach and Maggie . Great pots , I wish I had such beautiful pots for my lilies . BTW your lily is oriental , not asiatic :-). Ajsi sends his regards to Eluane !

Henrik

Wow! Your roses look great Serena! Eluane is hamming it...lol She loves getting her pic taken...

Hi, Renee, Henrik, Beth and Jim! Ellie Bear wags her tail and is prancing with her plush Crab squeaker toy! She sends greetings to Ajsi! Thank you everyone for your kind words and support! It helps me have hope and patience, and taking things day-by-day! With organics, I am forced to let the grass die to kill off the Japanese beetle eggs and grubs! so no more green grass! Temps are 110º and 102º the rest upper 90ºs, but the advantage is not an ounce of BS. Beth, having holes in the Hollyhocks is actually great news for me, lol! At a pretty close distance you don't even notice the holes (JBs like them)and yes, the rabbits made several leaves vanish, but they are still huge and vigorous! The Hollyhocks also keep the JBs from eating up my roses too! But no, Beth, will my roses ever be as lovely as yours or Harold's or as tidy as Jim's?? Romantic like Krista's??? no chance in HECK, lol! Not in 10,000 years. But Hopefully everything will keep improving! Hey, folks just for fun, I noticed I had some bitter aromatic deterrent...The deterrent is 5 years' old. I originally bought it for Puppy Eluane which is supposed to stop puppies from chewing stuff up, but it ended up never having to be used...I sprayed it on a couple of test blooms and it seems to help with the cucumber beetles not just the JBs, hehe! so I'm doing lots of experimental organics and have been pretty happy so far!

Henrik thanks! I actually had to look up the Asiatic versus the Oriental, lol! and wow, they look almost identical except just like you explain mine are indeed Oriental (the only way to tell is the petals do not have wavy edges and it is July bloom and not the Spring bloomtime of the Asiatic) Thank you! I learned something new and cooool!

Hi Serena and Eluane!!!

Love your Lincoln - I got one this year, and my mother-in-law said, "Now that's how a rose should look and smell!!" I really like it and bought it mainly because of how much you love yours!!

Love your Folklore (many different looks!) and America. America has such a perfect look to it!! Maggie is sublime - the color, the stuffed look - WOW!!

I love the pink of your Frederic Mistral. I have one this year too!! The fragrance is wonderful. The blooms hang in there despite the colossol winds we've had and the hail we've had on 2 days in a row. I always want to have this rose!!

I have puprle, pink and red and dwarf bee balsm. I really like them. They're so unusual. And the bees love them (as if you didn't know LOL)!!

Thanks for the look at the beauty in your garden. Sigh - lovely!!
Carol

Carol, Eluane is doing her happy prance and happy dance for you! She sends you her love and greetings!

Awww, yes, Carol, to this very day Lincoln still is my favorite rose! such a prolific non-stop bloomer and hope he will be this way for you too! Mmmm, I disagree with Boxo. I think Boxo's America wayyyy outshines mine, hahaha! shhhh, don't tell him I violently "disagree" with him on this "delicate matter" about his Climbing America. ;-)!

Great news Carol in that at least I'm pretty confident that your Frederic Mistral and Lincoln should survive quite well for you so long as they are grafted. FM is actually pretty decent own root, but it seems that FM and L are surefire guarantees as grafts.

Uh, Carol my honeybees dislike bee balm, lol! they are extremely picky. They ignore nepata completely as well. Only Russian sage and oregano will bring in the hordes...My sedum hasn't bloomed yet (aka Boxo-inspiration), so I will have to see how mine does in attracting the infinitely picky Kansas honeybee, lol!

Yep, picky....lol

Here's a Pa. honeybee hugging a knockout bloom....lol
Not picky here...lol

{{gwi:321943}}

Haha, that is also one huge FAT Honeybee too! My honeybees are sleek Angelina Jolie's compared to your rotundo one, hehe! Lean and athletical machines! no laidback carousing honeybees but high impact, extremely skittish, on the edge, INTENSITY. Hahaha! I'm getting swarms on my Russian sage, but they are extremely active, very hard to photograph...

Folks, I forgot to update that 2011 is the Year of Camera Experiment. I used to have to wait for the perfect lighting either dawn or sunset, lol! and with certain roses they'd mushroom out and lose their spirals by then, haha! So this year I started messing with the manual settings of my Canon Rebel XSi. I sent these to Jim first to look at, lol!

The Ralph Lauren Cover Boy model for the camera is Jim's Baby Napoleon Distant Drums :D

1. Here is the default Sports setting

2. Here is the TV setting of 160 with the wrong fluorescent instead of the sunlight setting but still kind of cool

3. Here is a TV setting of 250 with sunlight setting

4. Here is my favorite TV setting of 200 with sunlight setting

I also forgot to demo my frustrations with how HTs mushroom out into moppy blooms with open stamens in the heat...

and when it gets cooler HTs start to "normalize"; not quite there but better...

I also forgot to show 2 more blooms.

Crepuscule is going to be shovel-pruned next year. It started out as a 5" band and grew to be a 6' tall rose, but after the first winter it had to be cut down to a 7" rose from which it never regained much vitality afterwards. It doesn't have quite enough scent for me to have patience. Only highly fragrant roses get coddled in my garden, lol!

Another rose, Aromatherapy. This rose is highly fragrant and the color is the perfect deeper bubblegum pink that is slower to fade. But it is highly BS vulnerable and requires a lot of Gardenville sea tea to keep it healthy- way too expensive to sustain, lol! It is coddled because of the fragrance. I may replace it in a few years with Laguna if a friend from England likes her Laguna. I would replace Aromatherapy with Belinda's Dream which is HT PERFECT in bloom form! but the pink is not the deep pink alas!

Wonderful pics, Serena. I especially like Aromatherapy. I can see why you'd be reluctant to get rid of it.

Awesome pics Serena! I still like #2 DD pic...lol

Thank you so much Krista and Jim! I'm lucky to have your DD, Jim! Your rose really brightens up the page! No matter how miserable the weather, I can always count on little Napoleon DD to CONQUER, lol! He always looks consistently wonderful!

Krista, your pinks always look so spectacular. Mine always washboard to white in Kansas blazing, bleaching sun...