Flowers on Friday ... Sunny Yellow Roses

Many of the yellow roses in the garden are blooming quite nicely right now. 

Detail of 'Zeus'

(Climber, introduced in 1959)

Seedling MR08/2

This is one of my Hollywood Cemetery 'mama rose' seedlings from 2008 that I am evaluating.  Like human children within the same family, seedlings are hybrids and they show traits from each of their parents, but they are usually different from each other in some degree.  A individuals in a batch of seedlings can vary quite dramatically ... the hope being that one or two of the babies is special enough to introduce to the market.

Seedling P08/1

This little beauty came from a seed I harvested from 'Peace'.  It had quite a bit of mildew earlier in the year, but it is spotless now.

'Freedom', a Hybrid Tea introduced in 1984, has been blooming almost non-stop since it arrived here in June.

'Gift of Life' is a little-known Hybrid Tea, introduced in 1999 by Edmonds Roses.  I think I remember something about a portion of the profits from this rose going to a charity.

The miniatures, still in their one-gallon pots because it's been too hot to do any prep work on their new garden by the barn, are blooming like crazy.  This is 'Gold Coin'.  The plant is barely 6" tall right now, the flowers are 3/4" across, and it's been blooming for a solid month!

The flowers on 'Woodstock' , another teeny mini, start out canary yellow, and the outer petals take on a reddish cast as they age.  Ralph Moore, the hybridizer, said that this rose is named for the bird in "Peanuts" comic strip, not the famous music festival in New York.

This miniature is 'Yellow Doll'.  I love the teeny, shaggy flowers!

The flowers on 'Fiesta Gold' sometimes look like little bitty dahlias.

I'll finish this morning with another view of 'Zeus'.  I love this color yellow!!!  This perfect flower is on one of the potted roses in the nursery, if you can believe it.  It's fully 4 inches across!  It sort of looks like a water lily, doesn't it?

We had two thunderstorms last night, with torrential amounts of rain.  This morning, it's been raining on and off.  It's a day for inside projects ... I have a million of 'em.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)

Flowers on Friday

The thermometer outside the back door says it's 21 degrees this morning!  We got 3" of snow last Saturday, and 3" of rain on Tuesday ... so things here are cold and squishy. 

Let's warm things up a bit with some sunny yellow roses for our Friday Flowers.

Zeus, a Hybrid Setigera climber from 1959, produces sunny yellow flowers all summer long.  It's been a bit slow to start its climb up the East fence in the Rose Field, however.  Many climbers, especially those who are growing on their own roots, can take a couple of years to get well-established.

Crepuscule is a beautiful Tea Noisette introduced in 1904.  (The name means 'Twilight'.)  This rose also grows on the Rose Field's East fence.  I love Crepuscule's apricot/gold/yellow color (which doesn't fade as much as I thought it would), and its shiny dark green leaves.

Buff Beauty, a Hybrid Musk from 1939, is fairly well-known.  It's recommended by a number of TV garden shows as a low-maintenance, fragrant rose.  Mine grows on an arch in the Rose Field ... I can't pass by it without taking a big sniff whenever it's in bloom.

"Lundy's Lane" is a Pernetiana/Hybrid Tea discovered by Gregg Lowery in San Francisco in 1979.  It never fails to attract attention from garden visitors.

Old Gold, another Pernetiana/Hybrid Tea, introduced in 1913.  Around the turn of the 20th Century, rose breeders were racing to be the first to introduce a healthy, floriforous, true yellow rose.

Happy Child, an English rose bred by David Austin in 1994, is really as yellow as this photo shows it to be.  It's a smaller Austin rose, good for the front of a border.  I love the name!

Molineux is another yellow Austin rose, introduced in 1995.  It's a lovely compact shrub, in a softer shade of yellow than Happy Child.

Limelight, a Hybrid Tea from 1985, is a rose that is difficult to photograph.  The flowers have a greenish tint to them (as the name suggests).  If I try to photograph Limelight in bright sunlight, I can never capture the subtle shades of yellow of the flowers.  It's much better if I wait for a lightly overcast sky.

Yellow Magic is a miniature rose bred by Ralph Moore in 1970.  Gold buds open to loose, light yellow flowers, that change to coral pink as they age.  I love the way the petals fold back to show those gold stamens.

I'll finish this Friday with Thanks to Sue, a miniflora rose introduced by Ralph Moore in 2004.  You know by now how much I love Ralph Moore's roses ... this one is a lovely, sunny addition to my collection.

(written by Hartwood Roses. Hartwood Roses blog)

Flowers on Friday ... Wichuriana Ramblers.

Today is the anniversary of my very first blog post!  Those first few attempts were pretty awkward, but things got better and more interesting (I think) as I went along.  I was a cautious blogger back then ...  not sure what I had to say.  I have come to really enjoy my time here, and I look forward to sharing all sorts of things.  I think I've come out of my shell.

It's Friday ("Black Friday", as a matter of fact), so it's time for my Friday Flowers feature.  I want to celebrate my blog's anniversary by featuring my favorite class of roses ... the wichuriana RAMBLERS. 

Alberic Barbier:  Introduced in 1900 ... R. wichuriana X Shirley Hibberd (a yellow Tea)

Rosa wichuriana is a species rose native to Japan that has vigorous, lax growth and shiny, disease-resistant foliage ... but it has small, white, some-say-boring flowers.  It was brought to the US and Europe in the late 1800's.  Some rose hybridizers crossed R. wichuriana with Tea and Hybrid Tea roses to create the ramblers known today as Hybrid Wichurianas.  (The spelling of 'wichuriana' has evolved ... you may also see it spelled 'wichurana' or 'wichuraiana')

Auguste Gervais:  Introduced in 1916 ... R. wichuriana X Le Progress (medium yellow Hybrid Tea)

Aviateur Bleriot:  Introduced in 1910 ... R. wichuriana X William Allen Richardson (a yellow-blend Tea Noisette)

Rosa wichuriana contributed its ground-hugging, flexible, climbing growth habit and its shiny foliage to its descendants. The Tea and Hybrid Tea parents produced the lovely colors and form of the flowers.

Edmond Proust:  Introduced in 1903 ... R. wichuriana X Souvenir de Catherine Guillot (a red blend China/Tea rose)

Francois Juranville:  Introduced in 1906 ... R. wichuriana X Madame Laurette Messimy (deep pink China/Tea)

These roses are best with a firm structure to climb and room to grow.  Once established, they can easily grow 12 feet in a season.  Most of my ramblers are planted along a 4-board pasture fence, on 24-foot centers.  Their flexible canes make handling and training them a fairly straight-forward process .. despite their size.

Leontine Gervais:  Introduced in 1903 ... R. wichuriana X Souvenir de Catherine Guillot.

Leontine Gervais, in full bloom on my Rambler Fence.

Wichuriana ramblers bloom once a year ... beginning in late May and continuing into mid-June here in Virginia.  After they're finished blooming, their foliage is a great green background for the rest of the garden.

Henri Barruet:  Introduced in 1918, parentage unknown.  This one tends to have a modest rebloom in late summer.

Jean Guichard:  Introduced in 1905 ... R. wichuriana X Souvenir de Catherine Guillot.

Rene Andre:  Introduced in 1901 ... R. wichuriana X L'Ideal (red blend Tea Noisette)

One of the features of Ramblers that makes them unique is the fact that they are constantly growing new canes from their base (called "basal breaks" or just "basals")  These new canes that grow each summer will be the ones that produce flowers the following year.

To keep these ramblers tidy and under some sort of control, I remove about half of the older canes during my winter garden clean up.  I untie the canes from the fence, cut out the older canes right at the ground, untangle the remaining canes, and reattach them to the fence.  This job is a good one to do on a nice winter day, because the rose will be leafless and it's easier to see the what you're doing.

This is the south-facing, back side of my Rambler Fence.  Many of the roses grew through the fence, seeking the southern sun, and created quite a show on my neighbor's side.

I attach my ramblers to wire that I stapled between the boards of the fence ... if you look carefully, you can almost see one piece of it in the lower left corner of the photo above.  The roses here are Alberic Barbier, Francois Juranville, and Aviateur Bleriot. 

This last group of photos was taken in my friend Robert's garden.  He trains most of his ramblers onto arches over a path around his pond, which creates a lovely rose tunnel.

Gardenia:  Introduced in 1898 ... R. wichuriana X Perle des Jardin (light yellow Tea rose)

Gardenia on an arch.

Paul Transon:  Introduced in 1900 ... R. wichuriana X L'Ideal

Paul Transon on an arch.

It's easy to see, looking at the photo of Paul Transon above, why I love these roses as much as I do.  How could you NOT love a rose that can produce this many flowers? 

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)