In the beginning

NOTE:  You may click on any of the photos in this blog to enlarge them.  To return to the blog, click on the x-box in the upper right-hand corner of the photo.

When I moved to Salem in 2007, one of the first things I did was plant four 'Queen Elizabeth' roses in the back yard.  At that time, a big (and dangerous) Douglas Fir tree was occupying the area which was to become my large bed of rose seedling bushes.  So, I was forced to plant the 'QE' roses in the lawn area.  From their humble beginnings as $4 bare-root bagged roses,  these plants became the 7 and 8 foot giants pictured below.  The cluster of blooms in the second photo is typical of what a 'QE' rose bush produces if you treat it kindly.

Photo taken:  August 1,  2020

Photo taken:  July 11,  2020

Standing TALL

There's two rose bushes in my backyard that rise above the rest, each standing a stately 8 feet tall.  They were both grown from seed from the same parent rose and were "born" just 8 days apart back in 2009, which now makes them 11 years old.  The parent was one of my 'Queen Elizabeth' roses which I just let open pollinate to obtain hips and seeds.  It's highly probable that the 'QE' rose just self-pollinated, as the two seedling roses bear likenesses to their parent (and grandparents).  Surprisingly, when I looked back at the "baby photos" that I saved for the seedlings, I re-discovered that they had their very first blooms on the same day -- June 1, 2009.

The featured TALL roses are in the rear.  The other roses seen in the photo are also seedlings,  and are also "children" of 'Queen Elizabeth' --

Photo taken:  May 25,  2020

And here's what the first blooms looked like when the plants were less than 3 months old.  I positioned the two photos so that the roses would be directly underneath their "future selves" --

Seedling born on:  March 11, 2009
First bloom:  June 1, 2009

Seedling born on:  March 19, 2009
First bloom:  June 1, 2009

Evening magic

It's as if a flock of pink butterflies descended on one of my seedling rose bushes yesterday evening.  You might doubt that the parent of this rose bush seedling is the great 'Queen Elizabeth' grandiflora rose.  Where's all the missing petals?   For the answer, you're going to have to do some work --  please refer back to my post of May 31, 2012 (eight years have sure gone by fast) which I titled "Singles are nice, too".  But for now, enjoy the photos;  the blooms have a diameter of 4 inches.

Photo taken:  May 10,  2020

Photo taken:  May 10,  2020

A long wait

It's been a long 5 months since my last post, but the first open bloom of this year has me ready to go.  Just like last year, one of my "German" seedlings is the first to bloom.  The rose bush is one of several that I've grown from seed "imported" from Germany.  More precisely, the seed for this rose was from Cologne, and of course its blooms have the sweet fragrance of rose-scented cologne, and a beautiful color to match.  The rose bush is now over 11 years old -- born in September of 2008, but it first bloomed in July of 2009, and I've been enjoying it since.

The very first bloom --
July 4,  2009

Today's bloom --
May 4,  2020

Eight years, and still going strong

This blog is celebrating its 8th anniversary today.  I encourage you to scroll down to find the "Blog Archive" and then select the year 2011.  Therein you will find 12 posts, the first being recorded on December 5, 2011.  If you read the 12 posts, you will gain great insight into my rose growing history.  With that in mind, let's see where the rose garden is today.  The roses have had their light November pruning  and are thus ready for Winter.  One rose bush still had some very late blooms on it, so I left them undisturbed.  You can see it in the back, close to the garden shed.  Note also the long shadow for this time of year, even though the photo was taken around noon time.

The main rose bed
Photo taken:  December 4,  2019

Let's take a closer look at the rose bush with the almost opened blooms.  It is a seedling of one of my 'Queen Elizabeth' roses and has blooms of 5 petals each.  The seedling was born on March 20, 2010, so it is now just 3 months away from its 10th birthday.  It took only 4 months for the seedling to show its first bloom, as seen in the second photo --

Photo taken:  December 4, 2019

First bloom
Photo taken:  July 16,  2010

November blooms

There's been less than normal rainfall so far this Autumn, and some of my late rose blooms have stayed intact for an extended amount of time.  The last time that I had decent looking blooms in November was back in 2016 -- see my post of November 2, 2016 that I titled "Rain records!" (that should pique your interest).   I chose four of the better looking blooms to show you below, after using the wonderful website Befunky.com to string them together in a horizontal "collage".  The first 3 blooms are from unnamed seedlings that I grew from a 'Queen Elizabeth' (grandiflora) parent.  The bloom on the far right is from an unnamed seedling that I grew from a 'Voodoo' (hybrid tea) parent.

Photos were taken on November 9,  2019

It happened again

It would be good for you (and me) to review the post that I wrote on August 2, 2012, wherein I described the development of a sucker arising from one of my 'Voodoo' seedlings.  The title of the post was "A garden surprise".  Back then, it was easy to tell from which rose bush the sucker originated.  Amazingly, I was fortunate to discover another sucker yesterday, but this time the sucker surfaced halfway between two other 'Voodoo' seedlings that are 18 inches apart.  Because it's so late in the growing season, I doubt that the sucker will be able to set a bloom.  I'm going to have to protect this little out-growth until next Spring, when hopefully a bloom will reveal who the lucky "parent" is.  For now, the photos below will have to suffice.

Photo taken:  October 13,  2019

Standing 2 inches tall
Photo taken:  October 13,  2019

Autumn mix

As we begin Autumn, it would be a good time to review the ground cover that spans my main rose bed.  The moss is getting greener, the liverworts persist in selected pockets, and the sagina (see Wikipedia) is turning brown and setting seed for another year.  Slime mold (you might have to check Wikipedia again) has made an appearance for the 5th year in a row, although later this year because of my changed watering pattern -- less frequent but somewhat deeper.  What would a garden be without some slime mold, like the kind seen in the second photo below.  You can also just catch a glimpse of it in the first photo -- just to the right of the sixth rose along the fence.

Early Autumn
Photo taken:  September 25,  2019

Slime mold
Photo taken:  September 25,  2019

Update of September 27, 2019:             For the first time ever, yellow slime mold has appeared in my rose garden.  It is really quite striking compared to the white variety that has visited the garden for the past 5 years.  It suddenly appeared yesterday, and was ready for a photo opportunity this morning.  It appeared close to the base of one of my 'Queen Elizabeth' seedlings which is displaying some very pretty blooms in late September, as you can see in the first photo below.  There's the yellow slime mold in the second photo, conforming to the jagged shapes of the bed of moss.

Photo taken:  September 27,  2019

Yellow slime mold
Photo taken:  September 27,  2019

Kaleidoscope roses

Sometimes I like to show my roses in a different light, and today it will be through the lens of a kaleidoscope.   I had a notion that somewhere out on the WEB was a site that allowed one to run their photos (in my case, rose photos) through some kind of magic kaleidoscope generator.  Lucky for me, I found a great site that allowed me to convert a couple of my photos.  The results were pretty decent, as you can see below.  The roses are seedlings derived from a 'Queen Elizabeth' parent.

Here's a link to the website that I used -- http://funny.pho.to/kaleidoscope-photo-effect/

Unwelcome "vacation"

It's been almost two months since I last posted something to this blog.  A prolonged illness really cut down on my ability to properly care for the 90+ rose bushes in my yard.  But I'm back now, and the roses are getting the care that they deserve.  I dusted off  my camera this morning and took a couple of photos of the indomitable roses that persisted despite a bit of neglect.   There was a pretty bloom on one of my 'Queen Elizabeth' roses today -- this rose variety has a very honest pink color and just the right number of petals.  In the background is the main rose bed populated by many rose seedlings whose maturity has helped them weather the storm.

Photo taken:  August 17,  2019
A 'Queen Elizabeth' bloom

Photo taken:  August 17,  2019
The 'QE' bloom is in the foreground

A new "underdog" rose bush award

I'm sorry that last year didn't provide a 3rd annual underdog award candidate, but at least I have a stellar performer this year.  This rose bush, born on Jan 29, 2010, is finally showing signs of life in its 10th growing season.  Not only that, but I had to upgrade its bloom status from double (17 - 25 petals) to very full (41 or more petals).  Based on a couple of photos that I took yesterday morning, see if you agree with my assessment --

Photo taken:  June 21,  2019

Photo taken:  June 21,  2019

Morning and Evening

The roses are beginning to really look good here in late May.   Just this morning I spotted a pretty dragonfly still asleep in his safe haven.  The day wouldn't be complete without a photo of a peaceful rose bed in the evening light -- I stood on a bench to get a better vantage point to see over the tops of roses that are reaching for the sky.

9:26 am     May 29,  2019

8:36 pm    May 29,  2019

Update of June 11,  2019:     I  couldn't resist taking another "evening  photo" today.   Even though this rose has blooms of just 5 petals, I consider it one of my prettiest.  The bloom shown below in particular has a diameter of 3½ inches.  The sun is setting much later this time of the year, so there is still plenty of light to accentuate the whiteness.

8:03 pm     June 11,  2019

The "Rose Year" begins

The "rose year" begins a bit late this year, with one of my German seedlings offering the first open bloom.  The lateness means that blooms will span approximately 6 months in my garden, but I'll take whatever I can get.  There's a photo of the pretty bloom below, as well as a background photo of its immediate surroundings.

Photo taken:  May 8,  2019

Photo taken:  May 8,  2019

You might be wondering why I call this rose bush one of my "German" seedlings.  You might also be curious about all the taller roses which I have also grown from seed.  What about the interesting "ground cover".  And, is that a suspended CD in the first photo ?  For some answers, my friends, please continue reading my blog.

The year begins

Happy New Year !     This is the first year that I have added a post on DAY 1.  I've crafted a special treat for you, a collage which features one of my prettiest rose seedlings.  You may have seen it in some of my earlier posts, but it deserves to be honored again.  It is a seedling resulting from self-pollination of one of my 'Queen Elizabeth' roses, and is my only seedling with perfectly tipped petals.  For their help in making the collage below, I am deeply indebted to 2 wonderful web sites --  photofuneditor.com   and  befunky.com.

Happy New Year !

7th Anniversary

It's been exactly seven years since I began this blog.  I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it.

For the past couple of weeks,  there's been a new look out there in the garden --  it has both artistic and practical aspects.  Let's start with a couple of photos and see if you can detect the new feature(s).

Photo taken:  December 4, 2018

Photo taken:  December 4, 2018

The moss and liverworts have really established themselves and the roses are pruned (I do light pruning) and waiting for a new year.  The new feature is the rather basic "kinetic art" -- the CDs swaying in even the slightest of breezes.  Each CD is suspended from its own artful stake so that the roses themselves aren't disturbed.  There's a very practical reason for their deployment:  I'm hoping they'll deter the robins that love digging around in the moss in search of crane fly larvae.  Special thanks to imgflip.com/gif-maker for constructing the GIF.

Photo taken:  December 4, 2018

CDs swaying in the breeze

Update of September 25, 2019:      The robins prevail;  the motion and reflected light didn't bother them at all.  The "kinetic art" has been removed so that I'll have easier access to the roses.  A revised watering frequency will hopefully make the rose bed less appealing to crane flies, which will reduce the number of larvae, which will make the robins go somewhere else (I hope).

Rose bed reclassified

Today I am re-naming my REHAB rose bed, because the six 'Voodoo' rose seedlings exiled there have made a sterling recovery.  From now on, I'll just call it my "Auxiliary Rose Bed #1".   To recap, I grew these roses from seed, and for years they had stunted growth, probably because of tree root competition in their previous locations.  Their parent rose was the hybrid tea rose named 'Voodoo', which I just let be open pollinated to obtain seeds.

It turns out that the REHAB bed also was (and still is) plagued by tree roots, namely from the big cedar tree on adjacent property.  Again, the seedlings failed to show any vigor.  Then around 3 months ago I gave the bed a good ration of Milorganite and then followed up the last 1½ months with a once-a-day foliar spraying of SUPERthrive (at twice the suggested dosage), and the results have been impressive, to say the least.

This is how the "Auxiliary Rose Bed #1" looked today, shown from two perspectives:

Photo taken:  October 3,  2018

Photo taken:  October 3,  2018

These rose bushes are definitely on the road to recovery.  Below are photo-pairs for each of the six seedling roses.  You can tell from their "birthdays" that we are talking about 7 to 10 year-old roses here.  Many thanks to the generous folks at befunky.com for their collage making tools.  I chose the most elementary "collage" format for the side-by-side presentations.

Photos taken:  August 17,  2018
Birthday:  May 18,  2008

Photos taken:  September 28,  2018
Birthday:  May 25,  2008

Photos taken:  September 19,  2018
Birthday:  January 30,  2011

Photos taken:  October 2,  2018
Birthday:  March 18,  2011

Photos taken:  September 28,  2018
Birthday:  April 26,  2011

Photos taken:  August 30,  2018
Birthday:  April 29,  2011

The layered look

A 3-tiered display of rose blooms caught my attention today.  First were the red blooms from my 'Red Galaxy'  rose bush at a height all the way up to 4 feet.  Spreading above them were the white (slightly pink) blooms of one of my unnamed 'Queen Elizabeth' rose seedlings rising to 5½ feet.  Towering above all of them were the pure pink blooms of a 'Queen Elizabeth' rose bush topping off at 7½ feet.

They were deserving of two photographic approaches.  Below to the left I stitched 2 horizontal photos together one on top of the other; to the right is a regular vertical photo.  Enjoy the display.

Stitched photos
Photos taken:  September 17,  2018

Photo taken:  September 17,  2018

Mutation

If you keep growing roses long enough, and you try stimulating their growth in a variety of ways, something extraordinary might just happen.  Such is the case with one of my rose seedlings, which has been receiving, along with around 20 of my other slower growing seedlings, a daily (for the last 30 days) foliar spraying of a solution of SUPERthrive, which I have mixed at double the suggested strength.   On a newly developed cane, this particular rose bush has produced a mutant bloom having 12 petals (with a bloom diameter of 3 inches).  The norm for this seedling has been, and still is, blooms of 5 to 6 petals (with bloom diameter of 2 inches).

Below are three photos that I took today.  The first photo shows the entire seedling rose bush, with a normal bloom on a taller cane.  The mutant bloom is on a newly formed separate cane, and is the lower bloom in the same photo.  The second and third photos show close-ups of the individual blooms.  There is also a fourth photo, one that I took exactly 2 years ago of the seedling when it was producing "normal" blooms exclusively.  I did a post back then which featured this seedling -- look for the post titled The "underdog" rose bush.

An otherwise normal rose bush
Photo taken:  September 10, 2018

The mutant bloom
Photo taken:  September 10, 2018

A normal bloom
Photo taken:  September 10, 2018

Two years ago
Photo taken:  September 10, 2016

Update of November 20,  2018:          There was some doubt whether this small rose bush would produce more blooms before Winter set in.  Fortunately, the "mutant cane" developed another flower,  but I had to assist it by holding the bloom open for this photo shot, because the weather is too cold.  As you can see, the "mutation" appears to be a "one off" event, as there's been a reversion back to five petals.  I'll do another update next year if things change again.   The bloom is shown in both photos below, and so are some CD's (??).  I'll explain when I write another post next month (December 5th to be exact).

Photo taken:  November 20, 2018

Photo taken:  November 20, 2018