Spring Pruning Time!

After a couple of 70+ degree false alarms earlier in the year, the garden is finally telling me that spring has arrived. We had light steady rain this weekend, and the fields are now a lovely shade of green. The forsythia and cherry trees are blooming, the daffodils are beginning to fade, the roses are breaking dormancy … and it’s time to prune.

Today, I pruned the antique hybrid tea roses in the front yard. All of these were planted last June as one-gallon, own-root plants. We all know the pruning mantra … prune the plant to an outward-facing bud, eliminate overlapping branches, yadda yadda yadda. This winter was particularly brutal, which made pruning most of these roses a cinch. If it’s green, leave it -- if it’s black or shriveled, cut it off. Using this method, I pruned all 80 roses in just under 2 hours.

Some made it through winter very nicely. Red Radiance, Chief Seattle, and Golden Ophelia received a more traditional pruning -- removing about half of their bulk and eliminating conflicting growth. Snowbird, Lyon Rose, and Reichspresident Von Hindenburg have very little left. There is new growth coming from the base of these plants, however, which is a good thing. Since they are own-root roses, the growth I see is the named variety instead of a rootstock, and I think the plants will be okay.

Seedlings!!

What do gardeners do in the winter? Plant seeds, of course. What do rose gardeners do? Plant rose seeds!

Here are some photos of the first germinations of seeds that I planted about a month and a half ago. All are open pollinated, meaning that the wind or bees fertilized the flower to cause the seeds to form. Many hybridizers don’t bother with open-pollinated seeds, preferring to plant only those seeds that result from their own planned breeding program. I, on the other hand, have a really wide ‘mad scientist’ streak. I plant OP seeds just to see what happens.

Maid Marion, a white noisette rose, produced tiny hips full of equally tiny seeds. These seeds germinated about two weeks after they were planted. Here they are two weeks ago:







This is what they look like now. I think they’re starting to look a lot more like roses.





It’s really exciting when these little guys bloom for the first time. Here are a couple of photos of my best seedlings from last year.



This is a seedling of an unknown yellow rose in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. This is Mama … any idea what it is?



This one is a seedling of Souvenir du Dr. Jamain, a dark red hybrid perpetual. The seedling is very, very fragrant. I can’t wait to see how it does as it matures.

Sweet Cindy

The mood here at Hartwood has been a bit somber for the past two weeks. Cindy, our Siamese cat, has gone to join her brother, Murphy, and sister, Patty, waiting for us at the Rainbow Bridge.

Hug your fur-kids. They are with us for such a short time.

Sleep well, sweet Cindy.

I Love eBay!

I am a collector. I admit it. I have probably always been a collector. My mother thinks that I was probably a crow in a former life – flying around, gathering things that appeal to me.

While surfing eBay yesterday looking for something completely different, I scored a prize: an original set of 48 antique rose cards from 1913. I can’t wait till they get here!

The cards have a picture of the rose on the front, and its description on the back. Like this:



Here are some more:







(I have NO idea how I will display these …. any ideas?)

Looking Back

The last two entries here were filled with tales of winter and cold weather. Let's start something new today. We'll take a tour of the roses in the various beds throughout the garden.

Today, we'll look at some from the Hybrid Tea Bed in the front yard:

Bewitched
Hybrid Tea, Queen Elizabeth x Tawny Gold
Bred by Dr. Walter Lammerts, 1967.

Butterscotch
Hybrid Tea, Souvenir du Claudius Pernet x RMS Queen Mary
Bred by Joseph H. Hill Co., 1942

Dagmar Spaeth
Floribunda, sport of Lafayette
Introduced by Wirtz & Eicke in Germany, 1936

Dairy Maid
Floribunda, (Poulsen's Pink x Ellinor LeGrice) x Mrs. Pierre S. Dupont
Bred by LeGrice, 1957

Gail Borden
Hybrid Tea, RMS Queen Mary x Viktoria Adelheid
Bred by Reimer Kordes, 1957

Golden Ophelia
Hybrid Tea, Ophelia x Mrs. Aaron Ward
Bred by Benjamin R. Cant & Sons, 1918

Gruss an Coburg
Hybrid Tea, Alice Kaempff x Souvenir du Claudius Pernet
Bred by Johannes Felberg Leclerc, 1927

Lady Alice Stanley
Hybrid Tea, parentage unknown
Bred by Samuel McGredy II in Ireland, 1909

Lyon Rose
Pernetiana/Hybrid Tea, Madame Melanie Soupert x seedling of Soleil d'Or
Bred by Joseph Pernet-Ducher, 1907

Ma Perkins
Floribunda, Red Radiance x Fashion
Bred by Gene Boerner, 1952

Nellie E. Hillock
Hybrid Tea, Golden Dawn x seedling
Bred by Verne Stone Hillock, 1934

Pink Gruss an Aachen
Floribunda, sport of Gruss an Aachen
Introduced by Jan Spek Nurseries, 1930

Poulsen's Pearl
Floribunda, Else Poulsen x seedling
Bred by Poulsen Roser A/S in Denmark, 1949

Snowbird
Hybrid Tea, Chastity x Louise Crette'
Bred by Hatton, 1936

The Doctor
Hybrid Tea, Madame J. D. Eisele x Los Angeles
Bred by F. H. Howard, 1936

Wagon Wheel Bright Pink
Hybrid Tea, parentage unknown
found rose

White Killarney
Hybrid Tea, sport of Killarney
Introduced by Waban Rose Conservatories, 1909

Next time, we'll look at some roses from other parts of the garden.

Br-r-r-r-r

When I got up this morning, the digital thermometer on the deck read 3.8 degrees. Those of you reading this in Montana (hi, Becky) or New England,or the Arctic Circle won’t find this temperature too remarkable. Here in Virginia, though, it’s the main topic of conversation.

Normally, I would have only a casual interest in this because garden is sleeping and I’m in the house (sitting on a radiator, no doubt) waiting for spring. This year is different, because I have the greenhouse full of rose cuttings and small plants. Roses are not tender like tomatoes or peppers, so temps below freezing for a few nights should be fine. This sort of frigid weather, however, can freeze everything solid and I could lose everything out there.

Up until the last two nights, I have been doing fine heating the greenhouse with two oil-filled electric radiators. These do a good job keeping the inside temperature at least 13 degrees above the outside temperature -- which is fine when the low temp is 20 - 25 degrees, like it usually is. With the reality of temps near zero in the forecast from earlier this week, I knew I had to add something else to the plan. I borrowed a small propane heater from my neighbor, and all has been fine. As long as I keep a steady supply of propane on hand, the greenhouse will nice and toasty.

Winter ...

It’s winter. It’s cold and wet. The roses are asleep. It’s going to be this way until some time in March.

This is the time of year I spend scheming all the things I’ll do when spring comes …. if spring ever comes.

Honestly, I just finished the last of my winter preparations this past weekend. We had a week without rain, so the ground dried enough to allow me to plant the last of my roses. The week before, the wind subsided enough for one day so I could get the ramblers attached to their new wire on the fence. I will have a How To article on the web site about training climbers and ramblers … as soon as I get a spare few hours to write it.

Updates here may not come as frequently as I would like … but that’s what happens when one writes a garden blog in the winter. As I hunker down for winter, with my down throw and an old American Rose Society annual, maybe I’ll share with you some of the tidbits I discover about the world of growing roses in the early 20th century. It’s very interesting reading.