April showers bring April flowers

Here in the mid Willamette Valley, the climate is temperate enough to allow roses to bloom from around mid April until mid November.  That's been the trend for my rose bushes, and the photo collage below shows blooms from nine different roses in my yard.  All have fully opened blooms  before the end of April.

•  Row 1:   These are three unnamed roses whose parent is a rose from Germany.  I grew these roses from seed, so they are seedlings as well as siblings. 

•  Row 2:    These full-blossomed roses were grown from seed obtained from one of my parent 'Queen Elizabeth' roses.

 •  Row 3:   The first rose is another seedling from the 'Queen Elizabeth' parent, but it has only 5 petals.   The second bloom is growing on a cutting that I took from my 'Red Galaxy' rose.  The third rose bloom is on a seedling that happens to be a sibling of the 'Red Galaxy' rose.  The sibling does not have the spotting on its bloom that is characteristic of 'Red Galaxy'.
 
                                                                                                                                              

Mere conincidence?

It might just be mere coincidence, but something greater may be at play.  The first open bloom this year happened on the same calendar day as last year, namely April 21.  It's the red rose shown below from one of my unnamed German rose seedlings.  To see last year's "twin", browse back to my post of April 30, 2015 (Ushering in the new rose year) and look for the rose photo taken on April 21.

The second photo below is of this year's second place winner, almost fully open.  It's a bloom from one of my unnamed 'Queen Elizabeth' rose seedlings.

Photo taken:  April 21, 2016

Photo taken:  April 21, 2016