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Friday, August 12, 2011

Explosions in the Rose Factory

What is quite like a variegated rose?  Take for example Fourth of July, aptly named-

Even some very old roses can be expressive, like Rosa Mundi, sport of the Apothecary rose.  She is more of a magenta on white, or is it white on magenta.  Why do gardeners avoid that word in their color descriptions?

Then there is the scintillating Scentimental, fragrant as well as beautiful, but unfortunately not a prolific bloomer for me-

In addition there is the rose with deeper color just on the edge of the petals, I wish I could also show how the blooms of Betty Boop change color as they age but I forgot and left off her cage when I was going to weed around her and came back the next day to find the deer had stripped off all her leaves and blooms.:-(  It was almost enough to make me want to get a ferocious deer-chasing dog- Not.  But the delightful Betty Boop IS a prolific bloomer, non-stop all summer and fall.  And little wine-red new shoots are appearing amid the sticks, even some with flower buds, so it shouldn't be long for her to recover.
Betty Boop finally opened a new blossom as she valiantly recovers from being munched by a deer-
 Here is the plant which has been sprouting lots of new growth and I counted 8 new flower buds- Betty Boop has flower power, she won the AARS award for 1999, along with Fourth of July, also a Weeks rose.

Then there is my collection of miniature variegated roses, acquired when Justice Roses went out of business, that I should have had were it not for rabbits, voles, and rose diseases that lay waiting especially for the vulnerable petite rose.  A mini saved in a pot that opens with red and yellow stripes is Fall Festival-

 Another potted mini with large flat blooms is Hurdy Gurdy-

Dreamcatcher can make a fairly large bush and really pumps out the blooms-

One I bought labeled as Phesant Kobes, I can't find it in the search engines, the nearest is Pheasant Kordes which is a red- it also makes multiple clusters of blooms.  It can start out purple in the shade-
But later or in the sun it can be quite red, then fade slowly to pink then white-

The very lovely pink and red Rose Gilardi mini-
And for a finale, again the explosive Fourth of July-

Take time to smell the roses!  -Hannah

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