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

Do blogs have birthdays ?

This one certainly does, and TODAY we celebrate the one year anniversary of this blog -- my first post was on December 5, 2011.  Besides being entertaining for you, it has allowed me to chronicle events in the rose garden for an entire year, and I will be comparing future happenings with benchmarks that are documented here (and also assuring that the blog will have at least one reader).

As far as adding posts in the future is concerned, I'll do it only when there is something significant to add.  There will not be a repeat of "first bud of the year", "first bloom of the year", etc.  However, I will continue to add updates to existing posts whenever it is appropriate.  The updates will be easily identifiable by the bold red flag:  Update of Month dd, yyyy: .  I've already done this many times this year.

So, let's wrap up the celebration with a photo that I took today.  The wet foliage is SO typically Northwest.

'Voodoo' seedling born:  June 12, 2008
Photo taken:  December 5, 2012

Update of December 24, 2012:   The above 'Voodoo' seedling continues to bloom -- the rose bush is in a fairly good location to capture the intermittent (and brief) periods of sun that shines this time of the year.  This morning I took my final 2 photos for the year, but we certainly end on a cheerful note:

Photo taken:  December 24, 2012

Photo taken:  December 24, 2012

Rose hips

If it wasn't for rose hips, then this blog wouldn't exist !   The main thing with rose hips is to make sure that they ripen sufficiently, and then to let them chill for a while (stratification).  I let my rose blooms of June and July set hips and let the hips ripen on the bush until the end of November.  Here in the Willamette valley, the cold nights of November provide the necessary chilling period.  Then, I harvest the hips in early December.  Even though my rose bed is now full, I still maintain the tradition and give away the hips to interested "valley people".

This year, I selected only one rose bush for growing hips.  It's the largest 'Queen Elizabeth' rose bush in my garden, and it's been growing in the back yard since early 2007.  It was store-bought, and was an inexpensive bare-root bagged rose.  Below are photos of the rose bush in full bloom, and the same plant later in the year bearing hips soon to be harvested --

'Queen Elizabeth' rose
Photo taken:  June 12, 2012

Same rose bush
Photo taken:  November 25, 2012

Another year winding down

So, what do you think is slower than watching grass grow?  Here's something much slower -- moss.  We can get a good idea of the slow pace by comparing the photos below.  The photo on the left was taken one year ago; the photo on the right is from today.  With a little encouragement, moss is slowly taking over the rose bed, turning the back yard into a veritable Japanese garden (but with roses!).   Notice that the chicken has wandered off to a new location, very close to the garden shed.

December 2, 2011

December 1, 2012

But wait a minute !    You say that you see a couple of rose bushes with blooms and denser foliage toward the rear of the rose bed?  That would warrant a closer inspection, so let's walk back there and take a couple of photos of two of my 'Voodoo' seedlings, which are living up to their name because it would take some kind of voodoo to be looking good this time of  the year --

'Voodoo' seedling born:  June 12, 2008
Photo taken:  December 1, 2012

'Voodoo' seedling born:  June 20, 2008
Photo taken:  December 1, 2012

Note:  the rose bush on the left was featured in its very own post of May 20, 2012.  The title of the post was "First 'Voodoo' (seedling) bloom of the year".

Wet and windy (as expected)

There was no way that we could have escaped November without some severe rain and wind.  I just emptied out my rain gauge, which had an inch and a quarter of rain accumulated in just the last three hours.  By the way, the background scenery for this blog is VERY appropriate for the Pacific Northwest, don't you think?

I did have enough time this morning to get out in the rose bed and prune some of the longer canes that were being thrashed about by the wind.  In the process, I salvaged a small vase-full of late blooms to bring indoors.  Below are a couple of photos that I took today -- the first is of the rain in progress, and the second shows the saved blooms gracing the kitchen counter.

It was 4 days ago, November 15, when we had the last sunny day around here, and who knows when we might see a sunny day again.  I took advantage of the light to photograph a bloom on one of my German seedlings.  As luck would have it, all the higher-up blooms around the rose bed were out of range, so the photo captures just the one open bloom.  It's also the one in the tiny vase on the kitchen counter.  Here's the photo of November 15:

The clones are coming !

Yes they're coming (actually, just one so far), but they're (just one) arriving rather slowly.  These would be the GOOD kind of clones, the kind that when you take a cutting from a rose bush, it successfully roots and you get another copy of the rose bush.  I've so far been able to create one living clone of my registered rose creation which I named 'Red Galaxy'.  I've written about this rose in a few places throughout this blog, and have also posted several photos of it.  Today I took 2 more photos which are shown below.  The first photo shows the mother plant, a unique rose bush that has already had 2 flushes of blooms this year, and is now commencing some sporadic blooming that will very likely last until November (we'll see).  The mother 'Red Galaxy' was grown from seed.  It was born on February 23, 2009, and is now 3½ years old.  The second photo shows the cloned 'Red Galaxy', which grew from a cutting that I took in late November of 2011.  It's hard to tell when the clone came to life -- let's just say early 2012, and that the plant is now in its first growing season.  So, let's take a look at the mother 'Red Galaxy' (standing 2½ feet tall) and the baby clone 'Red Galaxy' (standing 10 inches tall) --

'Red Galaxy'
Photo taken:  August 26, 2012

cloned 'Red Galaxy'
Photo taken:  August 26, 2012

Update of December 1, 2012:   Well, it's now December, and a few blooms still linger on these rose bushes.  The colder temperatures and steady rain of November/December will probably prevent these blooms from opening completely.  But, they still add a spot of color to the rose bed --

'Red Galaxy'
Photo taken:  December 1, 2012

cloned 'Red Galaxy'
Photo taken:  December 1, 2012

Update of August 4, 2013:    Oftentimes I like to research the origin of words.  Today it was the word clone.  Was I using the word properly in describing the cloned 'Red Galaxy' plant?  In this modern day of intricate manipulation of cells, cloning is widely used in many applications.  Well, I stand completely vindicated, as clone is derived from the Greek word klōn, meaning "twig".

Through the Looking-Glass

Follow me as we journey to an alternative world where the rose seedlings don't grow too big -- we can get there "Through the Liverworts".  All of you gardeners out there should be familiar with liverworts by now; if not, check them out on Google Images.  I'm letting the floor of my rose bed "go natural" (with the exception of weeds), so the mosses and liverworts are having a grand time jockeying for growing space.

This morning while watering the roses, I noticed a "basal break" surfacing about 1½ inches away from one of my 'Queen Elizabeth' rose seedlings.  It was poking up right through the liverworts, as you see in the photo below -- it's directly south of the mother rose bush:

Curiously, the mother plant is a very slow growing seedling.  It was born on July 7, 2008, which means that it is now 49 months old.  It has a pink bloom that you see below sitting atop a bush that is just 20 inches tall.  The photo to the right shows one of its sister seedlings (also of 'Queen Elizabeth'), another slow growing rose bush that was born on April 23, 2008.  This 52 month old plant stands around 2½  feet tall, but it does have some good looking white blooms.  The blooms on both of these rose bushes are considered to be "very full".  It's only now in their FIFTH growing season that the blooms are able to open properly, and they really needed some Summer heat to do so.

REALITY CHECK:  Don't get the wrong impression from the small sample of seedlings above.  The overwhelming majority of my 'Queen Elizabeth' seedlings are substantial rose bushes, as you will see in the rest of this blog.

A garden surprise !

Back on July 2, I discovered an interesting growth coming up about 6 inches away from one of my 'Voodoo' rose seedlings.  After some thought, I concluded that it must be a sucker coming up from an underground runner.  So, it was time to do a little research.  'Voodoo' has both Rosa foetida bicolor (Austrian Copper) and Rosa foetida 'Persian Yellow' among its many ancestors; both of those roses are known to produce suckers.  Also, most of our modern hybrid roses undoubtedly have some untraceable Damask and Gallica ancestors -- these "old garden roses" also sucker freely.

There's a lesson in here somewhere.  It looks like modern roses grown on their own roots (as seedlings, or even from cuttings) can indeed produce runners and suckers.  In these cases, there would be NO alien root stock to blame.  In the end, it all depends on the ancestry of the rose bush.  So, be careful where you step and be observant out there in your rose garden !

Below are some photos of this "phenom".  Note that we have a fully open bloom roughly one month after I discovered the newly emerged sucker.  In the 3rd and 4th photos, I am using a 6 inch ruler to show the distance of the sucker from its parent plant as well as the height of this garden surprise.

July 2, 2012

July 14, 2012

August 3, 2012

August 3, 2012

The 'Voodoo'-seedling "parent" of this outgrowth was born on May 27, 2008.  Below is a photo of the rose bush in full bloom that I took on July 13th, about 3 weeks ago.  You will see 5 canes on this rose bush, and if you look closely between the 4th and 5th canes (and about 6 inches behind the canes -- click on the photo to enlarge it), you will see the sucker starting to establish itself.

July 13, 2012

Update of June 12, 2013:   It's time to check on the progress of our little runner, which isn't so little anymore.  It now stands 2½ feet tall, is developing its own basal breaks, and is carrying another nice bloom.  Not only that, but it now has a "brother", which came up about 2 inches from the main plant and is ready to open a similar bloom.

June 12, 2013

June 12, 2013

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