Official Summer photos of the rose garden

These will be the photos of record for 2012, which I took on June 16th.  All except two of the roses in this large bed were grown from seed.  As such, the seedlings are each one-of-a-kind rose bushes.  The two exceptions would be 'Queen Elizabeth' grandiflora roses, which I have used for their hips and seeds.

The spotted rose

I've written elsewhere in this blog about my registered rose seedling which I named 'Red Galaxy' --  see my posting of May 22, 2012 (A rose by any other name . . .) and see also the "German seedlings" tab.  This rose seedling has been gifted with spotted blooms, and is also special because it is remontant, meaning it will bloom throughout the growing season.  Other spotted roses that I have seen on the web are once-blooming and are likely to be either Gallica roses or seedlings of Gallica roses.

When you look at other photos of 'Red Galaxy' in this blog, you may detect that the rose bush has been moved.  To give it better protection from the elements, I moved it from the driveway to my back yard late last year (2011).  The rose bush responded very well, proving its toughness.  Below are some photos of the rose bush and its blooms.  I'll add more photos later this Summer (and Fall) so that we can see just how remontant it is.   The "birthday" of this seedling was February 23, 2009.

June 10, 2011

June 1, 2012

June 1, 2012

June 1, 2012

Update of July 18, 2012:    A second flush of blooms is now in progress, with the Summer heat causing the blooms to develop a very bright red-orange color and less darkness on the periphery of each bloom.  This would have to be the brightest colored seedling in my garden.  Here's some photos that I took today:

July 18, 2012

July 18, 2012

To get a preview of things to come, let's go back in time to October 2nd of 2010, when I loaded a short 22 second video to YouTube having the title: German rose seedlings along driveway.  If you stop the video at the 17 second mark, you will see the young 'Red Galaxy' seedling in bloom -- it is the 3rd rose from the right.  At the time, it was just 19 months old and in its second growing season, giving a strong indication that this was indeed a remontant rose.  Here's a link to the video:  October 2010 video

Update of August 31, 2012:    We're at that time of year when the number of rose blooms starts to slack off, but thankfully their beauty remains the same.  The photo of August 4th was taken on the hottest day of the year, when the temperature reached 102 degrees F.   The time was around 8 p.m., and the bloom showed absolutely no stress.  I couldn't resist taking another photo this evening; the three blooms formed a very nice symmetrical mini-cluster.

August 4, 2012

August 31, 2012

Moss roses

Well, maybe not exactly Moss-Roses, but rather a whole lot of moss growing at the base of my seedling rose bushes.  And, I must say, I've been encouraging it to spread -- the combination of rose seedlings and moss is seen in very few rose gardens, to be sure.  For you rose purists out there, you can see some REAL Moss-Roses by searching Google Images for "Rosa muscosa".  Otherwise, check out the photo below of my rose seedlings growing on a carpet of moss.