Early dormancy

This past  November was unusually windy, wet, and cold.  The rose bushes were smart enough to call it a year and save their energy for next year by just going dormant.  Here they are in a "stitched" photo that I took two days ago, during a brief respite from the rainy weather:

The rose garden
Photo taken:  December 3, 2014

Mostly GREEN up there, so maybe I should add a bit of color to this post by including photos of two of my unnamed seedling roses which produced some very pretty blooms last summer.  Notice how the petals darken as they age on the blooms of the 'Voodoo' seedling.  The rose bushes below resulted from open pollination of their respective parent roses.

Seedling of the 'Voodoo' rose
Photo taken:  August 31, 2014

Seedling of the 'Queen Elizabeth' rose
Photo taken:  July 26, 2014

This is a very auspicious day to be "blogging", as this marks the Third Anniversary of this blog, which I began on December 5th of 2011.  There's a lot of rose ruminating going on here, and I do hope that you enjoy reading this blog.  For those of you who would like to read the blog in a language other than English, just click on the TRANSLATION drop-down menu at the top of the blog and then select your preferred language.

The chicken inspector

No, the title of this post does not refer to an employee of the US Department of Agriculture.  Rather, as seen in the photo to the left below, it refers to my backyard chicken who is inspecting a row of clones from my 'Red Galaxy' rose bush.  Speaking of clones, I've come a long way from the single clone that I talked about in my post of August 26, 2012 which was titled The clones are coming !   It would now be accurate to say that they have arrived !  The clones shown below were grown from cuttings that I took in early June, so they are doing quite well in just 3½ months.   The mother of the clones, 'Red Galaxy', was also looking good today considering that Fall begins in just a few hours -- 7:29 pm (PST) tonight.  Its photo is on the right.

The chicken inspector

'Red Galaxy'

Rose reorganization

The time finally arrived when I had to space out some of my 'Queen Elizabeth' rose seedlings because they were just getting too big.  Then again, some of my 'Voodoo' seedlings were underperforming and were too small.  So it was time to shuffle the roses, thirty-eight of them to be exact.  Some 'Voodoo' seedlings were moved from the big backyard rose bed to the driveway strip, some other 'Voodoo' seedlings were moved from the driveway strip (and backyard bed) to a new bed -- the REHAB bed.  Then, quite a few 'QE' seedlings were transplanted to the vacated places in the backyard bed.  Some of the 'Red Galaxy' clones that I've been starting from cuttings were also moved to the vacated spaces.  This left my remaining 5 seedlings from 'Red Galaxy' to be re-arranged in their own seedling bed (they are still very small).  And for good measure, some of the smaller 'QE' seedlings were moved to the forefront of the backyard bed (might as well call it the "rehab row") so that they would get more exposure to the sun.

Enough talking;  it's time for some photos of the results:

The driveway strip
Photo taken:  September 13, 2014

The backyard bed
Photo taken:  September 13, 2014

The 'Red Galaxy' seedling bed
Photo taken:  September 13, 2014

The REHAB bed
Photo taken:  September 13, 2014

Update of September 1, 2015:   Two of the seedling roses in the "rehab row" were looking very pretty today.  Even though the plants have similar looking blooms, their ancestries are quite different.  The rose to the left below is an open pollinated seedling of 'Queen Elizabeth', whereas the rose in the photo to the right is one of the two siblings of my 'Red Galaxy' rose.  Those three siblings share the same ancestry, namely an unlabeled rose growing in Germany.  Both of the rose plants shown below are over 5 years old, and their diminutive size has earned them spots in the "rehab row".

Photo taken:  September 1,  2015

Photo taken:  September 1,  2015

Seedlings of 'Red Galaxy'

To gain a better understanding of this post, please review my earlier post of April 16, 2014 (My latest "SCIENCE PROJECT"), and also the material that you will read by clicking on the TAB labelled German Seedlings.

Four of my six seedlings from 'Red Galaxy' have produced their first blooms already, but two have yet to develop flower buds (hopefully they will soon catch up).  Below you will see photos of the first four seedlings with their first blooms; I have identified the seedlings by their birthdays.

Birthday:  March 19, 2014
Photo taken:  July 29, 2014

Birthday:  March 26, 2014
Photo taken:  July 30, 2014

Birthday:  March 27, 2014
Photo taken:  July 25,  2014

Birthday:  April 4, 2014
Photo taken:  August 10, 2014

With my "trained eye", I am seeing in these blooms some of the attributes of 'Red Galaxy' and even what I think are ancestors of 'Red Galaxy'.   As the bloom shown in the 3rd photo aged,  the "volatility" inherent in the ancestry of 'Red Galaxy' becomes apparent, as you can see in the photos below.

Birthday:  March 27, 2014
Photo taken:  July 27, 2014

Birthday:  March 27, 2014
Photo taken:  July 30, 2014

The VERTICAL dimension

Quite a few of my seedlings resulting from open pollination of the 'Queen Elizabeth' rose have inherited her tendency to grow rather tall.  For example, my seedling that was born (the sprout surfaced above the soil) on March 19, 2009 is now 5 years and 4 months old, and it stands a full 8 feet tall.  Today  I stacked and stitched together 2 photos in order to get the entire rose in one frame, as shown below.

Photo taken:  July 19, 2014

Below on the left is a cluster of semi-double blooms that were half way up the rose bush, but are somewhat hidden in the full-length photo above.  And below to the right is a photo of this rose's very first bloom, which fully opened on June 1, 2009.

Photo taken:  July 19, 2014

Photo taken:  June 1, 2009

Royal roses

Small clusters of blooms have the potential for some of the best rose photos.  You have to be vigilant out there in your garden, and sometimes you will find some real gems.  The roses shown below all have one important thing in common:  they are all unnamed seedlings resulting from open pollination of the great 'Queen Elizabeth' rose.  Royalty indeed.

Summer photos

It's time to try my luck again with some "panorama" (stitched) photos of the back yard rose bed.  We'll get a couple of perspectives from the photos below; just click on the photos to enlarge them.

Photo taken:  June 22, 2014

Photo taken:  June 24, 2014

A message to inspire you

Don't ever forget this:   When it gets dark, the stars come out !

The 'Red Galaxy' rose
Photo taken:  May 20, 2014

My latest "SCIENCE PROJECT"

My previous "science project" was an unorthodox attempt to seek the true "paternal grandfather" of the famous 'Queen Elizabeth' grandiflora rose.  The results are documented in my posting of December 6, 2011 (The BIG rose) with a follow-up in my posting of May 31, 2012 (Singles are nice, too).

My current "science project" will be an attempt to fathom the depths of a SPOTTED rose which basically fell into my lap back in 2008.  For background, you will need to click on the TAB labelled German seedlings at the top of this blog, and read about the provenance of the 'Red Galaxy' rose.  The question at hand is this:  What if I obtain some open pollinated (i.e. SELF pollinated) hips from 'Red Galaxy' and see what I get when I plant the seeds.  The seedlings, resulting from a re-shuffling of genetic material, will shed MORE light on the ancestry of 'Red Galaxy'.   Note: see the discussion in German seedlings -- there are photos of 2 siblings of the spotted rose, which already have given me some very important clues.

The project began last Summer when I didn't remove several spent blooms, but allowed them to develop hips, as shown in the photo below:

Photo taken:  June 12, 2013

I planted the seeds last Fall, and I now have the good fortune to show you a typical seedling of several that have already sprouted.  Here are 2 photos of one of the seedlings, whose "birthday" was March 27, 2014:

Photo taken:  March 27, 2014

Photo taken:  April 15, 2014

I'll have more to show you later this year when the seedlings begin to bloom.  Don't forget to come back here to share the excitement.  Will we be seeing SPOTS, and what color will the blooms be?

Update of June 9, 2014:  The seedlings haven't begun blooming yet,  but I'll let you know when they do.  I've had the good fortune of obtaining 6 seedlings, and I planted them out yesterday in a small bed with some of their "relatives".  In the photo on the left below, they are the 6 plants with the protective cones.  Also present are 4 more clones of the 'Red Galaxy' mother plant -- for further background, please see my post of 8/26/2012 titled The clones are coming!  The photo on the right gives you a closer look at the small cluster of blooms shown in the other photo, and as they looked five days earlier.

Photo taken:  June 8, 2014

Photo taken:  June 3, 2014

March madness

The middle of March has some notable days, such as the Ides of March on the 15th, St. Patrick's Day on the 17th, and the First day of Spring on the 20th.  Right in the center of it all is the Flowering of the Trees beyond the fence in my backyard.  One could hardly ask for a more pleasant background to a rose garden.  Note the state-of-the-art "weather station" in the foreground of the following photo.

March 16, 2014

"Cold Comfort"

It hasn't been as bad as the rest of the country, but this Winter has been a bit of a surprise here in Salem. On December 8th, the temperature hit a low of 8 ℉, and on the 9th it reached 12 ℉, but there was little snow until yesterday.  We had 8 inches of snow and the temperature never got above 27 degrees, so the  COLD weather persists.  But, I derive much COMFORT thinking about the spectacular rose display of next Summer.

The "Snow Garden"  --  February 8, 2014

Snowbirds  --  February 8, 2014