Moss revisited -- "worts" and all

Late last year, in my posting of December 1st, I introduced you to the back yard moss.  The moss has become such an integral part of my "gardening experience" here, I thought it would be fitting to revisit it one year later.

The native heavy clay soil here in the Willamette valley can be very bothersome (muddy) when it's wet, sticking to shoes and making a general mess.  In late August of 2010, I covered the big rose bed with a mixture of compost-sand-topsoil.  This not only remedied the mud problem, but it had some unintended consequences.  The new top cover and the generally moist valley weather were a perfect combination for the proliferation of moss.  You can see the moss taking over in the time series of photos below.

Interestingly enough, the moss itself has become a substrate for a different kind of ground cover, namely liverworts.  For people who grow smaller plants, liverworts may be a nuisance.  In the case of my rose bed, I find it to be a very pleasant cover.  The darker regions in the photo below are areas of liverworts, and I do believe that they will eventually take over the entire bed.

The Rose & Moss Garden ("worts" and all)
December 1, 2013

For those of you that have become fans of my chicken, I stitched up a WIDE photo above, because today he's under the eaves and out of the rain.   The chicken really gets around -- he can also be seen in the strip of 3 photos above (hint: in 2012 he is way back there by the shed).

Don't worry that the roses aren't being properly fertilized because I can't work fertilizer into the soil.  I do regular foliar feeding with my trusty one gallon spray container.

Rose seedlings along driveway

I did some minor rose shuffling the last two days.  A couple of my 'Voodoo' seedlings along the driveway had become rather zombie-like¹ and needed to be replaced, so I moved some roses from the backyard rose bed to the driveway.  Together with some additional internal moves in the backyard bed, I've gained easier access to the roses all around.  Changes are reflected in my garden map -- see my post of January 17, 2013.

After changing the map, it dawned on me that I have yet to show you a photo of the driveway roses.  Not many blooms are in the photo because it's getting late in the season, plus the remnants of an Asian typhoon² blew through here last week, dropping 5 inches of rain in 4 days and powered by 2 solid days of high wind.  So, here are the survivors along the driveway:

¹   Having used the words voodoo and zombie in the same blog, I might attract some web searchers who are in serious need of some rose therapy!
²   According to my sources, the typhoon's name was Usagi.

Interesting comparison

Today I will be comparing two roses, one that I grew from seed and one that I am currently growing from a cutting.  Out of my 75+ rose seedlings, the one shown below in the photo on the left was the quickest to exhibit an open bloom.  The seed for this rose was planted on December 1st of 2008, and was obtained from open pollination of the 'Queen Elizabeth' rose.  The seedling sprouted on March 4th of 2009 and had its first bloom on May 31, 2009.  So, exactly 6 months elapsed for nature to work its magic.

The  two roses shown in the photo on the right are being grown from cuttings that I took from my 'Red Galaxy' rose bush.  The cuttings were taken on June 1, 2013 and the red bloom that you see opened today, August 20th, for an elapsed time of 2⅔ months.  Rather remarkable!  If you enlarge the second photo, you will see "notches" on the earlier (darker) new foliage of both cuttings.  This was caused by an old nemesis, a root weevil.  After about four nights of visitations with my flashlight, I was able to find and dispatch the bad bug, so the newer foliage is perfect.

'Queen Elizabeth' seedling of 3/04/2009
Photo taken:  5/31/2009

'Red Galaxy' clones (from cuttings)
Photo taken:  8/20/2013

When the HEAT'S ON !

The weather can get uncomfortably hot around here in the Summer, and the watering and deadheading of the roses is best done in the mornings and evenings.  So, when the HEAT'S ON,  a good way to spend  mid-day time is to re-visit the User Guide for my Canon camera and see what interesting things can be learned and applied, especially since I have so many willing subjects (rose bushes) wishing to be photographed.

With the assistance of the PhotoStitch computer software supplied by Canon, I tried my hand at stitching up a "panoramic" (sort of) photo of my big rose bed.  The composite photo came out very nicely, aided by the early morning sun of August 8th.

MOST of the rose bushes in this photo were grown from seed

Update of August 9, 2013:    I tried my hand at another photo today, but from a different vantage point and with some different light of an overcast morning.  Remember that you may click on either of these photos to enlarge them.

MOST of the rose bushes in this photo were grown from seed

Update of August 22, 2013:   Summertime experimentation continues!  The following "assemblage" of photos didn't use stitching, but it did entail usage of a couple of utilities on my computer.  The featured rose blooms are from some of my 'Queen Elizabeth' rose seedlings --

Outreach

One of the best things that a seasoned rose grower like myself (I've been through quite a few seasons, if you know what I mean) can do is share his knowledge of growing roses.  Such is the case in my relationship with the good folks at the Willamette Lutheran Retirement Community in Keizer, OR.  We became connected via a mutual friend (and staff member at WLRC) who we'll just call "Craig".  Several of the retirees have acquired a keen interest in growing roses from seed, and have thus far had mixed success.  So, we had what might be called a "Summit Meeting" yesterday to discuss the intricacies of this hobby and see what we could learn.  Here's a photo of the attendees, including me way in the back:

Now here's the GOOD part of mixed success.  Shown below to the left is one of the group's seedling rose bushes, a very handsome rose with blooms of softly blended colors.  To the right are Allan and Dick (my main contacts at WLRC) tending to two more of the group's rose seedlings.  Very nice !

The scalloped rose

One of my 'Voodoo' seedlings has been a bit slow in developing its full-fledged blooms.  The seedling was born on June 19, 2008 but waited a little over a year to show its first bloom, and then it took another 4 years to really express itself.  The petals on the latest blooms can best be described as having scalloped edges, and this attribute is rather rare in the rose kingdom.   I've heard about fimbriated (fringed) rose blooms, ruffled blooms, and frilled blooms, but so far I've seen just one other rose with scalloped petals.  That would be the 'Easy Does It' rose, photos of which may be seen on Google Images.

Below you'll see what I'm talking about.  The seedling's first bloom was colorful enough, but really didn't hint at what would develop 4 years later -- a full 5-inch bloom with scalloped petals.

First bloom:  June 25, 2009

 Photo taken:  May 27, 2013

Update of May 23, 2016:   It must be the weather or something, but another one of my 'Voodoo' seedlings has developed scalloped edges on a bloom.  The seedling was born on April 30, 2011 and is now in its sixth growing season.  Below is a "baby photo" as well as a photo of today's bloom --

First bloom:  July 16,  2011

   

Today's photo:  May 23, 2016

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day, and it's time to reflect on the notion that this is why roses were invented in the first place.  In honor of all of the mothers out there, and in memory of all the mothers who have passed on to rose heaven, this rose is for you --

The above rose / rose bush is the same one as shown on my profile photo, and is described elsewhere in this blog.

New video !

I just finished uploading a new video (more of a slide show, actually) to YouTube.  Its title is: 'Red Galaxy' -- the spotted rose.  The video is about my registered rose seedling that receives quite a bit of attention in this blog.  If you care to view the 1½ minute video, I'll make it easy by providing a link -- click here to see the new video.  When you are finished, don't forget to come back HERE !

Update of February 4,  2013:    For those of you who might be interested in which rose I think is the seed parent of 'Red Galaxy' and why I think so, please read my update to the PAGE titled "German seedlings", which can be accessed via the tabs at the top of this blog.

Mike's secret map

This post could very well be sub-titled:  How does Mike keep track of all of his rose seedlings?  Especially since I don't use garden markers and haven't given the seedlings "names" (with one exception).  I do it with the map shown below, and by the clever method of recording the "birthdays" of the seedlings.  Here's my map --

Updated:  April 18,  2019

Click on the photo to enlarge it and have fun tracking down roses referenced in this blog.  The two big Q's are two of my 'Queen Elizabeth' roses; everything else are roses grown from seed, except for the 'Red Galaxy' clones that I grew from cuttings, which are identified by the dark blue circles.  The orange circles identify 'Voodoo' seedlings; the green circles identify seedlings grown from seed collected in Germany (C - Cologne, T - Trier, W - Wurzburg); the light blue circles identify seedlings of the 'Red Galaxy' rose.  All the other roses are from 'Queen Elizabeth' seed.  The bottom row are the seedlings growing along the driveway in the front yard; the middle part of the map is the big bed of roses in the back yard.  Update of September 13, 2014:  the two new beds shown at the top are the REHAB bed (left) and a smaller TEST bed (right).

For those of you who studied the map and are wondering what the "Mystery Rose" in the bottom-right corner of the map is, wonder no more.  It's a "volunteer" seedling that I found growing in the back yard in the Summer of 2010 (Note: the "birthday" of 6/21/2010 is a rough guess; I just assigned it the first day of Summer).  It has all the earmarks of being descended from a 'Dr. Huey' rose, which is a much used root stock rose that sometimes sends out suckers, and then blooms and sometimes (though seldom) produces hips and seeds.  I've seen 'Dr. Huey' growing all over town, and I'm sure my seedling resulted from a bird "depositing" the seed where it would cause the most confusion.  It now has an ideal spot along the driveway.  Update of May 25, 2013:   The "Mystery Rose" was looking rather nice yesterday, so I took the photo shown below --

Photo taken:  May 24,  2013