Welcome to the 2008/5768 Rose Season at Spotted Rose Ranch!June 6, 2008: This has been the coldest, wettest spring I can remember in Colorado, and because of this, the whole garden is two to three weeks late! The only things blooming now are Persian Yellow and a couple of found Albas. Oh well, more pictures as things develop! We have a new addition this year—a really nice lean-to greenhouse! The greenhouse has been set up right outside my dining room window so that I can look out the window onto the plants. In just over a month, I've been rewarded with, twelve open-pollinated "Fa's Marbled Moss", three of Paul Barden's 'Nightmoss', and the first flower of my OP 'Golden Celebration' offspring "Madame Ichiko" and one open-pollinated 'Golden Celebration.' Hopefully blooming for the first time this year will be two "Fa's Marbled Moss" x 'Nightmoss' crosses. I would also like to take this time to mention the passing of a very wonderful advocate of Old Roses. Mel Hulse died on 22 Jan 2008. Getting that first email from him was like getting a surprise visit from the residents of Mount Olympus. He taught me so very much and will be very, very missed. Rest in peace, Mel, and thanks! |
I became a rose addict because of my grandmother.
"Nonna-Bella's" garden was full of portulacas (the old-timey five-petalled ones) and liatris (which I called "Fourth of Julys" because that's when they bloomed) and other delights, but what really roped me in were the roses that she had. There was a 'New Dawn' climber, with canes at least thirty feet long and the most fabulous bloom every spring. It held up a fifty foot picket fence, and another fence that teed into it, all by itself. It only ever bloomed in the spring, even though every source I've seen says it's supposed to bloom more or less all summer after that first flush. But that first flush was worth it... There was a yellow whose name I don't recall (thinking back it was probably 'Eclipse'), and a 'Blaze' that was kind of spindly but didn't get much sun. There was a white rose too. But what really hooked me was one in the north-east corner of the garden, across from the day-lilies: 'Kordes Perfecta.' To me it was perfect, in every way; and all these years later, it still is. I had a truly outstanding rose garden at my old house in Boulder, with a Kordes Perfecta as its centerpiece and a nearly complete collection of winners of the James Alexander Gamble Rose Fragrance Award. Alas, I couldn't take the garden with me when we moved, and I soon found that with the water table as high was it is here I couldn't grow the roses I was used to. Now I live in Hygiene, Colorado,, a small island of Zone 5 in an otherwise Zone 4 area at an altitude of 1582 meters (5190 feet). Hygiene got its name from Hygiene House, a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients; high plains and mountain air was said to be a good treatment for the disease. The area became home to many doctors, who built large estates and planted them with the roses that were popular in the late 1860s to early 1940s. Hygiene House itself burned down in the 1940s and was never rebuilt. All the doctors have moved away. But the roses they planted in their estates and cemeteries now grow wild all over the area. Most of them have a truly spectacular fragrance. I have eight different kinds on my property, some of which I've identified, at least tentatively, and others of which have me stumped (and may even be hybrids). |
The RosesTake a Random Walk Through The Garden or visit the individual roses by clicking on their names. No new pictures yet, but I hope you enjoy what's here. Roses with a star in front of their names are "home grown" roses.
'Alain Blanchard', Provins |
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Why Old Roses? Yup, they grow into huge thickets, and they only bloom once a year. Perfect!! Firstly and foremostly, there is the fragrance. Most modern roses have little, if any, of what makes a rose a rose. But only roses will provide perfume not only for your nose, but for entire neighborhoods! Secondly, there is the matter of care. To thrive, modern roses need enormous amounts of looking after throughout the year; they suffer in Colorado's dry daytime heat and become overwhelmed with mildew over our cold, more humid nights. If the winter's dry cold doesn't get them, the warm, ultra-drying chinook winds will. But the Old Roses take it all in stride. They are drought and cold tolerant, and in July here, as insufferable as anywhere else, they simply rest after a phenomenal June to begin growing again in August, preparing for next year. A weekly watering is all they require -- if that. Thirdly there is the flower. Modern roses vary greatly in color, but in shape they are fairly uniform. Their beauty lies in the bud form, rarely in the open flower. Since the bud stage is only a short time in the life of the flower, you have only a short "window of pretty." But the old roses are magnificent every day of their appearance, and every day provides a new delight.
You can keep up with the roses here or via my LiveJournal. |
