Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
Any rose producing round, tomato-like hips with long, wriggly appendages is a rugosa. The edible, orange-red hips turn sweeter after a frost and provide a good source of antioxidants and vitamin C. While the comparison with tomatoes or crab apples is more common, they remind me of Christmas tree baubles. Continue reading “Hip-Bearing Roses: Rugosas”
I’ve found myself in the middle of a series of posts about flowers that change colour as they open. Though I don’t have pictures to prove it, people who grow Rosa ‘Dream Come True’ say as the petals gradually redden, the yellow pales to creamy white. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Dream Come True’”
I’m aware that rose cultivars achieve something approaching immortality when small parts of the plant are passed from person to person down the generations, but it still seems amazing to think that Rosa ‘Queen Of Denmark’ has been around since 1816.
Its bicentenary came and went with less fanfare than that accorded a human queen, but the important thing is that people are quietly growing it around the world. You may know it as Rosa ‘Königin von Dänemark’. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Queen of Denmark’ | Pink Alba Rose”
To continue this week’s rose theme, three perspectives of Rose ‘Strawberry Hill’, taken at RHS Hampton Court Flower Show several years ago.
Forcing roses for a show often changes their character: flower size, colour and even form can show subtle or major differences from their typical appearance in the garden and you can see that here if you’re familiar with the rose. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Strawberry Hill’”
While I was gathering pictures for yesterday’s post on rambling roses, I found this red climbing rose. It’s rather spindly, but no less romantic for that – full of flowers, and naturally arching.
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
A rambling rose will grow against almost any garden structure and can be encouraged to scramble into a tree. Most ramblers need to be tied to, or woven around, their support while the canes are still young and flexible.
If you only check one thing before buying a rambling rose, make it the height, which should be a good match for the structure it’s going to be growing against. A common mistake is to choose too big a rambler: you’ll have to keep cutting away potential flowering stems to prevent your rose from completely swamping the arch, arbour, obelisk or trellis. Here are some ways to support rambling roses that will show off these beautiful plants to their best: Continue reading “Beautiful Ways To Train And Support Rambling Roses”
