Surrounded by Roses

Last week I took a few steps back to show you the development of our rose garden.  From that southeast corner of the house in the backyard we're going to work our way around to the front this week and then work our way around the rest of the house finishing full circle in a couple of weeks.  This section south of our house is an area about twenty four feet by forty feet and as you walk through you have roses all around you.  Here Graham Thomas is in full bloom, reaching up at the beginning of its third year.

Reine des Viollette resides of the other side of this area between Ebb Tide and Lavender Lassie.  You can see Ebb Tide's dark blossoms on the left.  Reine des Viollette is always good for a great spring showing with just a few flowers coming off and on through the summer.  I had decided several years ago that while there are many wonderful once blooming roses, I was going to focus on growing repeat flowering roses.  RDV fit least into this plan until this spring.  With my order from Rogue Valley Roses there was a rose sent that I had not ordered, Ralph Moore's Red Moss Rambler.  The good people at Rogue Valley Roses refunded the cost of the rose and asked if I would planted it if I kept it.  I said, "It's a rose - sure I will."  While not pictured and in a different area I needed to introduce him sometime.

Taken before the roses were blooming much and after a nice rain you see this area from the front yard.  On the right just in front of Jeri Jennings is my cuttings bed and on the left behind the Iris are Vineyard Song and Precious Dream.

You met our Italian Greyhound, Jack last week.  With him today is our Siberian Husky, Dusty.  She is twelve and beginning to slow down some.  In her younger days she might trample a rose or dig one up but these days she likes to lay underneath them if she can find a spot to get comfortable. 

Here is Vineyard Song and Precious Dream on the south side of the house moving to the front.  They are shaded from the worst heat of the day by the Oak tree to the west.  Remember none of these beds or plants were here when we moved in June of 2009. This section was all put in and planted in the spring of 2010.

I really like Vineyard Song's graceful shape and beautiful flowers.  Vineyard Song is classified as a Shrub but to me it fits in very nicely with the Polyantha Roses.  Its canes arch out from its center making a plant that is five or six feet wide and two to three feet tall. 

I passed over Abraham Darby which shares the fence with Graham Thomas, Pat Austin, Jeri Jennings and others but I took this really nice picture of Abe and just had to stick it in here.  After putting the Iris in last year they will need to be thinned out and spread around this year.

Just a week later this section in the backyard is really beginning to show its colors.

Making the Move

Back in January I separated two suckers from their mother plants and recently dug them up to move to the park.  The first one is Precious Dream, a Hybrid Bracteata from Ralph Moore.  It has begun to develop some nice roots.

Now the young plant of Precious Dream is making its home in the Prague Rose Garden.  I think it enjoyed the ride in my new Honda Ridgeline pictured it the background.  After 10 years in my Nissan Xterra it was time to pass it along to my son, Thomas. 

The second rose is Reine des Violettes, a Hybrid Perpetual from 1860.  Reine des Violettes is a purple rose that has a strong spring bloom and scattered blossoms in the fall. 

Both are now snuggled in to their new home in the Prague Rose Garden.  The Rose Garden has three beds.  I started working with the South bed and it is now filled with a row of The Fairy, two English Roses in the center row (St. Swithun and Abraham Darby), and a third row with Twister, Autumn Splendor, and Seattle Scentsation.  Now I am filling in the North bed and these two join an originally planted lavender Hybrid Tea, two plants of Popcorn, two Graham Thomas, and one DayDream.  I still have the front row to complete with several more minis to flank the two plants of Popcorn.

Separation Anxiety

You might remember an entry I made last year about how roses can sucker.  Suckering is when a rose sends out lateral growth underground that emerges away from the mother plant.  This growth will also send out new roots to support the plant.

Precious Dream is one of my roses that has sent out such growth.  I had been debating whether I wanted to separate this new growth from the mother plant to create a new bush and decided that I would do it this winter.  Precious Dream is in a sheltered area and in this mild winter its dormancy hasn't even caused it to loose its leaves.  To prepare the plant for this separation I have been watering it this past week to make sure it was well hydrated.

Next I dug up the lateral growth to make sure it in fact had developed roots and to track down where it connected to the mother plant.  I even found a new shoot coming from this same lateral growth.  The lateral was shallower than I had expected it to be. 

Then came the hard part, actually taking the shears and severing the plants from one another.  Not that it is physically hard, just the wondering if it is really ready to be on its own.  (Do I sound like a parent with two kids in college.)  This is made easier by knowing that dormancy and being well hydrated keeps the stress levels down on the plants and that now each will be able to recover more easily.  After separating the two plants I added some new soil on top of the uncovered lateral and roots, pulled the mulch back over, and then watered them again.  Now I will wait until March to move the new plant to its new location at the Prague Rose Garden. 

I also, much less delicately, separated a sucker on Reine de Violettes with a shovel placed very near the mother plant and then simple plunged the shovel all the way into the soil and withdrew the shovel without disturbing the soil.  I prepared this plant with some light pruning a week before and keeping it well watered.  It will also be moved to the park in March.  This photo was taken a week after I had separated the connection between the mother and child plants.

Wordless Wednesday: This Morning's Photos



Ebb Tide




Treasure Trail

 


Unconditional Love

 





Vineyard Song

 


Tradescant





Reine des Violettes

 


Precious Dream




Pat Austin






Gertrude Jekyll

 

Precious Dream

Precious Dream is a Hybrid Bracteata bred by Ralph Moore in 2001 that I can not say enough positive things about.  It produces beautiful old fashion formed flowers in a very pleasing modern color.  It is a prolific bloomer and very disease resistant.  Precious Dream is a third generation breeding in Ralph Moore's work with the speices rosa bracteata.

Ralph Moore is a man I have deeply admired for his work, life and faith.  Ralph Moore, at the age of 102, passed away in September of 2009 after celebrating his 72^nd year as a Rose Hybridizer.  Ralph Moore was known as the Grandfather of the Miniature Rose because in 1937 he began creating and introducing miniature roses and nearly every miniature rose you have ever seen traces itself back through at least one of his roses. 

In recent years Ralph Moore had focused some of his work on a little known species from the Philippines called rosa bracteata.  This old rose had been ignored by most breeders, but Ralph Moore, long after most have retired, saw something about it that he thought would benefit our modern gardens.  For 25 years he had been crossing this rose and it progeny to create a number of roses which he thought worthy of marketing.  When two different roses are crossed often hundreds of seed are produced and when each of these seeds is grown, it produces a different variety of rose.  Some may be similar but not the same.  Hundreds of different roses are then grown and evaluated and 4-5 will be selected to keep.  Of these one or two might be introduced to the market, and others selected for what they might offer as a parent for the next generation.  Through this process Ralph Moore developed a new line of roses in the Hybrid Bracteatas class.

Now I find several things remarkable about this.  The first is that Ralph Moore, passed the age of 100 was still creating new things and envisioning new roses.  He still had something yet to contribute.  Second is that in his eighties he decided to begin a new project by going back to a neglected and very old spieces rose.  He was going back to something very old to create something very new. 

Yet the most remarkable thing to me is that the longer Ralph Moore worked with roses the more he saw himself as a handmaid to God’s act of creation.  He could decide on particular crosses of roses, do the work, but ultimately he saw that it was God who gave life to the seeds.  And then maybe even more amazing is that God creates life in such a way that life seeks to create something new at every possible opportunity.  God chooses the option of variety and newness every time.  It is almost as if God says, “I’ve never made one exactly like this before, let’s try one.”  It seems that God not only blesses variety and distinctness, God desires it.  I find this to be an incredibly hopeful sign that God leads us into a new and delightful future. 

Sleep tight and have a Precious Dream.