Blooming Roses
Hard to resist the intoxicating scent of a garden rose.
I have many, many roses - a group of my newly released Martha Stewart hybrid tea roses and a collection of climbers are planted in a cutting garden adjacent to my chickens coops, but I also have roses in my perennial flower garden, in my allée of lilacs, and in a more formal space behind my main greenhouse. It is a 68-foot by 30-foot rose garden that includes floribunda, hybrid tea, and shrub roses - all with gorgeous color, form, and fragrance.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- I planted more than 120 roses in this space. Roses offer such an abundance of blooms, it looks so beautiful when planted in large quantities.
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- I planted a variety of floribunda roses, hybrid tea roses, and shrub roses.
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- This garden is surrounded with boxwood. Large boxwood shrubs anchor the corners and mark the center footpath of the garden.
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- The smaller boxwood, which I nurtured from bare-root cuttings fill in the rest of the perimeter. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. Boxwood is native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
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- All of these roses came from rosarian Danielle Dall’Armi Hahn, the owner of Rose Story Farm in Carpinteria, California and author of “The Color of Roses,” published by Ten Speed Press.
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- Right now there are gorgeous, fragrant blooms, some as big as one’s hand.
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- Hybrid tea roses, also called large-flowered roses, usually have only one flower per stem and tend to flower in three flushes from summer to late autumn. Floribundas or cluster-flowered roses have many flowers per stem and tend to repeat-flower continuously from summer to late autumn.
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- This garden includes a variety of different colors from dark pink to apricot to lavender, yellow, and creamy white.
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- A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae. There are more than a hundred species and thousands of cultivars.
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- The leaves of the rose are described as “pinnate” – meaning there is a central rib and then leaflets off to each side, with one terminal leaflet. Rose leaves can have anywhere from two to 13 leaflets. And rose stems are often armed with sharp prickles – they aren’t thorns at all. Unlike a thorn, a prickle can be easily broken off the plant because it is really a feature of the outer layers rather than part of the wood, like a thorn.
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- Garden roses are mostly grown as ornamental plants. They are among the most popular and widely cultivated groups of flowering plants, especially in temperate climates.
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- When selecting a location, plant roses in a sunny spot where they can get at least six hours of sun and good drainage.
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- Rose roots grow deep, so also be sure there is adequate room for the roots to spread.
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- These are strong disease resistant varieties. Many roses are bred and selected to resist the most common rose problems.
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- When watering roses, give them the equivalent to one-inch of rainfall per week during the growing season.
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- And don’t forget to feed. As I often say, if you eat, so should the plants. Keep roses well-fed with a slow release formula specifically for roses.
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- When pruning in early spring, prune with the goal of opening the center of the plant or shrub to let in better light and air circulation within and between the plants.
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- As part of a yearly maintenance program, also eliminate dead, dying, and diseased plants and plant parts to help keep the garden healthy. When needed replace plants with new, healthy ones.
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- Given the right care, healthy roses can bloom through summer and all the way until early fall.
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- This rose garden is flourishing behind my berry patches in an area where guests can see them in their splendor. I am so pleased with how it is doing.
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