Looking for Some Winter Reading

As winter is closing in I am longing for some good rose books to read when it is too cold to be outside working in the garden. Knowing that I have some very well read friends, I would like to ask for your suggestions.  What are the best rose books you have read recently?  I don't have a large number of rose books (you are looking at it in the picture) so most anything would be new to me.  Thanks so much.

Thanksgiving Guests

Do you have guests visiting for Thanksgiving?  My mom is staying with us this year instead of us visiting her.  She recently started the process of remodeling her kitchen with one stipulation for the contractors - have it finished before Thanksgiving.  You know what happened don't you?  Well, its almost finished, except for the oven which was delivered with no time to spare but happened to be electric instead of natural gas.  Oh well, it gives us the chance to have her with us and the kids home from college at our house.  It feels nice to have them here and my sister and her family coming this evening.
 
We recently had an unexpected guest greet us at the door when we came home one evening.  This snake must have been seeking a warmer place to settle for the evening and found what he thought was the perfect spot.

While small and not harmful, in fact I enjoy having him around in the garden, it was quite surprising to find him in the dark door frame of our house.  We hadn't expected the be out after dark so we didn't leave the porch light on.  Opening the storm door to unlock the other I couldn't figure out what was hanging beside my hand.  So I unlocked the door and turned on the lights.  Once I realized what was going on I grabbed the camera.

He had his body wedged inside the frame of the newly installed storm door (I really need to paint don't I?).  I think he was as surprised as we were.  We happily moved him along - off the porch and into the garden.

I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving guests and find that even those that surprisingly stop by offer something to the day.

Now I can't leave you without a rose picture this is one from a few weeks ago.  It is Jeri Jennings showing the more intense coloring that often shows up for us with Fall's shorter days of sun.  I love this rose and its beautiful color.

Propogating Roses

      You may have thought that I had fallen off the blogosphere.  No, I just took a break and a little longer one than I had realized.  I've not really felt much like writing.  I noticed that the beginning of my break seemed to correspond to a couple funeral services I conducted for church members.  Even though they had lived very good and long lives, there is an energy used on such occassions that changes routines and rythmns.  Then once you are out of the habit it seems hard to get back into it.  So here I am, back to the blog a couple of months later.  I hope I didn't loose too many readers in the process. 
     I had decided to do this entry (before I flaked out) about some roses that I had propogated from cuttings and planned to plant once the heat of summer broke. They had been potted up and waiting along with my order of Carlin's Rhythm and Dragon's Blood. They have since been planted and are getting established before the winter comes. They were Belinda's Dream, Popcorn, Abraham Darby, Graham Thomas, and Flower Carpet Red. I planted some here at the house and some at the the Prague Rose Garden.

     That was then.  Today I took advantage of a 77 degree day to put 32 cuttings into a propagation bed I keep.  It doesn't work for everybody but I have had good success planting cuttings in the Fall in a simple bed.  I will take cuttings in the Fall, dip them in a rooting hormone, and put them into a recently turned over flower bed.  Over the winter some of them will root and be ready to transplant in the Spring.  After they have been transplanted, I will take Spring cuttings and restock the bed.  I can't say my percentages are fabulous, but if even a third of them take I will have 10 new plants.  It really takes very little work over the winter.  I just make sure the bed stays moist and does not dry out.  I will add some compost or mulch on top of what you see pictured here. 

     My cuttings for the Fall (as always) come from some very different roses:  Red Cascade, F.J. Grootendorst, Sir Thomas Lipton, The Fairy, Popcorn, Maggie, Robin Hood, Golden Celebration, Evelyn, & Tradescant (from the healthy part of my plant that is being taken over by Rose Rosette Disease).  I don't ever label my cuttings so Angie has a good laugh at me months later when I am guessing about what rose is what.  Some are obvious while others are more difficult and you can only be sure once they flower.  It keeps it interesting. 

     I didn't get all of last Spring's cuttings transplanted.  The bed still has two Lavender Lassie's, one Heritage and one Ballerina.  They all have locations picked out for next year but I just didn't get around to transplanting them this Fall.  Too much to do.  Next Spring they will go out to their new homes with the Fall cuttings, just a little bigger.

Harvesting Rose Seeds

With all the heat this Summer I haven't had too many good flower pictures to share.  One interesting note from the garden is that I have decided to try collecting a few rose hips this year.  With all the focus on rose flowers, it is easy to forget that roses actually produce a fruit filled with seeds.  Some people make a rose hip tea which I've never tried but maybe some day.  This year my interest is in collecting some seeds to sow in the Spring.  When I get into the Fall I will be building a cold frame for a few Winter cuttings and to sow the seeds I collect this year in the Spring.  If you have advice on cold frames I would love to hear it.   

Pictured above and below are hips from the moss rose Unconditional Love which has readily produces hips for me each year.  As the mossing matures it can make handling the hips a bit prickly, though they usually brush off easily.  None of the hips I'm collecting are the product of intentional crosses but instead are open pollinated and most likely being self pollinated (which should reveal some of the plants genetic potential).  It is also possible that bees, other insects, or even the wind could have carried pollen from one plant to another thus producing a cross without much chance of knowing the plant which contributed the pollen.

The seeds are easily collected from the rose hips by simply cutting them in half and shelling the seeds.  The number of seeds in a rose hip can vary quite a bit.  I have opened a large hip to find one seed or as many as six or seven.

So far this year I have collected open pollinated seeds from Unconditional Love, Tattooed Lady, Vineyard Song, Climbing Rainbow's End, Scentsational, Lavender Lassie, Graham Thomas, Heritage, and Gertrude Jekyll.  We will probably end up with others before the year is over.  While I hope to germinate seeds from each of these roses, I am trying to not have many expectations beyond successfully growing a few roses from seed.  If I can successfully get a few seedlings to mature I will feel like I have learned something new.  Anything beyond that in terms of quality or revealed genotype through a self-pollinated seedling will be a bonus.  Wish me luck.  

Carlin's Rhythm and Dragon's Blood

As yesterday's delivery from Rogue Vally Roses arrived the temperature was reaching 110 degrees for the 4th time this year.  Not my most well thought out plan but I can easily get these small roses full of potential to survive until they are ready to be planted in September.

The flower in the above photo is what was waiting to surprise me upon my opening the package which had just traveled halfway across the country.  Carlin's Rhythm is one of Kim Rupert's creations.  Kim runs the rose blog Pushing the Rose Envelope and has been an encourager of my budding interesting in growing a few roses from seed this coming year.  I'll tell you more about that later.  Carlin's Rhythm is a lavender single floribunda or shrub rose and is very fragrant, at least the one flower I have enjoyed.  The breeding behind Carlin's Rhythm holds some interesting possibilities as it brings several species roses in through its parents Lilac Charm x Basye's Legacy.

I will just have to dream of the other rose's flowers for now.  It is Paul Barden's dramatically colored shrub rose Dragon's Blood which I have almost ordered several times before.  You can follow the link in the previous sentence to see a few pictures of the flowers but let me also tempt you by saying that its flowers can be a smoldering fire orange/red.  You can find out more about Dragon's Blood and Paul Barden through this link. 

For now they are potted up and in the widow sill waiting for the promise of Wednesday's projected high of 98, a cool 10 degrees cooler than today.  They will live in the shade until they are ready to make their next move.  I think today makes 44 days now of 100 degrees or higher this Summer.  When we hit 50 it will be the hottest Summer on record for Oklahoma.

Dragonfly Visitors

I was inspired by Cat at The Whimsical Gardener to try and capture some dragonfly photos.  Here is the first one I was able to capture.  Can't tell you anything about its species but it did give me a couple of different angles to get its best side.

Green Ice Cooling the Heat

It has been so hot I thought maybe a few pictures of Green Ice might help cool things off.  My small plant of Green Ice has just been covered with blooms.  As you can tell this Ralph Moore miniature gets it name from the green tint its old fashion form blooms take on as they mature.  The plant architecture is nicely spreading and is always a healthy bush in my garden.  It is nearly Wednesday so let me stop here and let it be a Nearly Wordless, Nearly Wednesday.