As Gardening Season Winds Down

Fall is officially here, and winter will soon bring freezing temps and an end to outdoor gardening.  What's a rose gardener to do?  Bring the garden indoors, of course.  

In my last post (which was WAY too long ago) I showed you how I brought a bit of light and cheer into my greenhouse.  Next thing on my list was to finish preparing the area where the baby roses will spend the winter.

Instead of heating the whole building to keep the little pots from freezing, using a TON of propane in the process, I'm going to use a propagation heat mat underneath the pots.  I put two layers of insulation on the bench (one piece of solid foam and a layer foil bubble insulation, topped with the heat mat.

The mat is connected to a thermostat with a probe, to monitor and control the temperature of the pots.  So far, it's working really well.

The read-out on the thermostat shows the temperature of the pot that contains the probe.

The sun warms the greenhouse during the day, and the mat should only be needed during really cold nights.

In the house, things are going gang-busters in the propagation area in my basement workshop.  

I planted these cuttings at various times in October, and some of them are already showing awesome roots!  (I attribute this to some good luck, careful attention, and a little bit of help from bottom heat provided by the fluorescent light on the shelf below the cuttings.)   Roots usually show in four to eight weeks.  It looks like these little baby cuttings are VERY anxious to grow up and become real plants.  

Allow me introduce you to ...

"Haywood Hall"  A Noisette rose that was found at Haywood Hall in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It is one of the best Noisettes in my garden and very few people know about it.  Because of this, I want to share it around to make sure that it doesn't disappear.

Spray of "Haywood Hall" in my garden last month.

Tag, showing the date that I planted the cuttings.

Growing roots like this after only three weeks!

'Pink Poodle' (a miniature rose from 1991) is very rare and, again, needs to be propagated and spread around to insure its survival.

'Pink Poodle' showing some deeper-than-normal color in cooler autumn weather.

Cuttings didn't even drop one leaf.

Visible roots in three weeks!

"Talcott White Noisette" grows in Hollywood Cemetery.  It is a very old, very large plant, in an out-of-the-way location.  As far as I know, no one has ever propagated it.  

Visible roots in four weeks!

While I was in Harrisonburg, Virginia, last month, I visited Woodbine Cemetery.  I always have my tools with me, and I took a few cuttings of the roses that I saw there.  One of them was an incredibly fragrant Noisette-type rose.

The flowers on the cuttings perfumed my whole car.

The plant at the cemetery is 7-8 feet tall.

Visible roots in three weeks!

While the outdoor garden is slowing down, you can see that things are just getting started indoors.  Soon, the basement rose babies will be potted up, and they will join their buddies to spend the winter in the greenhouse ... gonna have to tidy up some more to make space on the bench for them.

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To learn the method that I use to root roses, click HERE.

The First Rose of the Year

It's always fun every year to see which will be the first rose in the greenhouse to bloom.  This year, I am particularly excited to see the first flower on a rose that is new to me, that I have never seen flower in person.

I am pleased to introduce to you, 'Rosa acicularis'

I wish you could smell this ... it's Heavenly!

 

 

This flower was a bud two days ago, while I was releasing the ladybugs that I harvested from the inside the house.

 

 

 

My plant is tiny right now ... only about 6" tall.  I brought it home with me as a sucker, pinched from a flowerbed at the B&B where we stayed in Denali, Alaska, last summer.  At that time, I didn't know what rose it was ... I just knew that it was interesting and healthy and would make the perfect souvenir for my garden.

 

Photo of the rose at the B&B in Denali.

 

 

Thorny stems and lovely leaves.

 

 

I remember being amazed that this little rose could withstand the subzero temperatures of an Alaskan winter.  It's a fairly short grower, not quite two feet tall, and it had suckered quite profusely.

 

Thorny, thorny, thorny.

 

 

Beautiful red hips.

 

 

Using my foot for perspective.

 

 

It will be interesting to see if this plant behaves the same way here in Virginia.  I will have to be careful where I put it when I plant it in the garden ... placing it in a spot where it can sucker and spread without getting out of bounds.

Flowers in the Greenhouse

I'm anxious to get out to the garden to photograph the few early roses that are blooming now ... but it's been really windy and the flowers don't stay still to be photographed.  Windy conditions are NOT a problem in the greenhouse.

Here are a few of the roses that are blooming in there as of this morning.

'Mike's Old Fashioned Pink'

(shrub)

'Cotton Candy'

(rambler)

'Green Ice'

(miniature)

'Pink Ribbon'

(miniature)

I used my finger for perspective to show you how small this flower is.

With some of the roses, these flowers they have now are the first ones I've seen ... and it's really exciting.

This is 'Double Blush Burnet'.  I identified this rose from photos sent by a reader.  She found it in the overgrown garden of her grandparents' homestead in Minnesota.  I am thrilled that she shared some suckers of it with me. 

This next rose has a similar story, but we don't know its identity.  It came to me from a rose friend in Montana, and she got it from an elderly neighbor named Hallie ... she calls it "Hallie's Rose".  It is a vigorous once-blooming rose that I will plant in the Labyrinth Garden, and I will think of Deb every time I see it.

I have no idea what this next rose is.  It's one I bought, but I don't remember where or when, and the writing on that tag is completely faded away.  One day I'll figure out what it is.  In the meantime, these flowers are beautiful, and they smell heavenly!

I don't know what these next two roses are either.  They have tags, but the tags are obviously wrong.

This is supposed to be 'Alice', a pink Polyantha.

... and this is supposed to be 'Shower of Gold', a yellow rambler.

I can't do anything about the first mis-tagged rose, because the nursery where I got it doesn't exist anymore ... and it's really rare and not available anywhere else.  I will contact the nursery where I got the second one and let them know about their mistake.  A reputable nursery will send the correct rose, no questions asked  ... I've had to do it for customers myself on two occasions that I can think of.