Sunday, November 9, 2008

Autumn Roses


In spite of frost which has cut down the annuals and other tender plants, the roses continue unscathed.


Clotilde Soupert


A flower from the shrub form of 'Devoniensis'. This rose has a fabulous
strawberry/ tea fragrance -- it's complex and sweet and hard to describe.


Georgetown Tea is new to my garden this year (as is Clotilde Soupert, Devoniensis, Archduke Charles, the shrub form of Old Blush, and Rainbow Knockout). It's a beautiful full pale pink rose, fragrant and very beautiful, found by Dr. William C. Welch in Georgetown, Texas.


Georgetown Tea with verbena, blue violets, Siberian iris, and Muhlenbergia filipes.


The rugosas set a lot of hips this year. I've been gathering those and sticking them in the fridge, saving them to raise new seedlings next year. Around January 1st I clean off the pulp and put the seeds in moist potting mix in sandwich bags in the fridge in order to finish cold stratifying. I pot them up outside April 1st and usually end up with a bunch of seedlings.


The bud of the China rose Archduke Charles is a thing of exquisite beauty.



As are the flowers once they open, confectionary pink on the inside and raspberry on the outside.


Like many other China roses, Archduke Charles darkens
as it ages, eventually turning all raspberry pink or red.


Old Blush is a parent of Archduke Charles. It's a rose with a hundred names, including Parsons' Pink China, Old Pink Daily, Old Pink Monthly, Daily Blush, and Last Rose of Summer. Old Blush is famous for its ability to continually churn out blooms, right up until winter. The flowers have the same sweet fruity fragrance as that of Climbing Old Blush. Oddly enough the flowers of Old Blush do not darken with age, so wherever other Chinas got that trait, it doesn't seem to have come from Old Blush. Either that or Old Blush doesn't express it.




4 comments:

  1. I have heard really good things about the 'pavement' roses--but who named them? Roses should have sweet, romantic names. Nowhere, nohow should any rose be named foxy pavement;)

    Anyway yours are lovely. We have had several nites were temps were 20-21F. so I think mine are done.
    Marnie

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  2. Thanks Marnie. :) I heard that the name "Pavement" comes from the fact that these roses were developed in Germany as highway plantings. I have also read that the name Pavement comes from a bad translation of the word "carpet", which could not be used here because of patents. It's probably a bit of both.

    Foxi or Foxy Pavement may be a better name than "Buffalo Gal", another name for this rose. ;)

    Oddly enough, the Pavement names have grown on me, mostly because I like the roses so much! Last year I bought Purple Pavement, aka Exception, aka Rotes Meer. I can't wait to see it bloom!

    If Foxi and Purple Pavement are any indication, the Pavement series definitely lives up to the hype. FP is intensely fragrant, a combination of damask and clove, and is actually a wafter. It's disease free and sets hips too. Repeat is excellent.

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  3. I know so very little about roses. These are so pretty!

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  4. Thank you Sue. Rugosa hybrids, if you like those sorts of flower form (single, semi-double, rather muddled double), could easily handle your zone. They're very cold hardy, and most are very fragrant. The species and many of the hybrids don't have disease either, which is a good thing, because they cannot tolerate being sprayed.

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