Red, white and blue and roses, roses, roses...

                                                           
                                               
 It's June- the month of the roses ! By pure coincidence both the blue iris , the red rose and also the white rose are in flower at the same time today in my garden- ( slightly too late for American Memorial day but still..pretty good ..) so I thought to send you this lovely red- white and blue to brighten your day. Ah!The colours of roses...
Red-white and blue are not just the colours of the American and English flag, but also of the Dutch flag- so for a Dutch person like me, it's super cheerful and very apt. So I made myself a very patriotic nose-gay.
                                              

  I have been tending and nurturing my roses- I wished I had many more than I have at the moment- but then, maybe not on second thoughts. Roses are enticing and alluring like a voluptuous  1950's Starlet with dark red velours Capri-pants, but also just as temperamental . This rose-arch here below , as you can see , is clad with two white climbing roses .These are really two yellow rose trees .They died off. The roots were left in the soil . Then the roses regenerated themselves and then the roses came back as white climbing roses .

Here is a close -up of the rose.It has a lovely lemony scent .But it just goes to show that rose equals unexpected surprises .I still would have preferred the yellow.But then  - the scent is lovely.So it's a keeper.
                                                
Just a tip in case you're thinking " rose-arch" : if you want to put a rose-arch up, put the legs of your  arch quite deep in the soil and then secure with quick-setting cement. My last rose-arch - which looks perfectly fine here last year- see here
                                                           

was not secured properly ,  fell over, and the metal was completely twisted and unusable because of the weight of the roses .It's not much fun having to completely untie a climbing rose full of thorns from an old rose-arch !So remember- in case of a rose arch : dig deep and concrete in !
The dogs were quite helpful while I was digging the trenches for my arch and trying to get as much cement in my hair as I could in the space of 10 minutes, and kept me entertained, running around amongst all the fallen roses.

And Maud came out of the shrubbery looking like this:

No idea how she got this forget-me-not flower in her hair-this is how she came out - but I think it's adorable.                                                                                                                                                      
                               
My other advice is : be kind to your roses and don't keep them in a pot , but plant them whenever you can, in  full soil ( with some nice and smelly manure).They love that and reward you with clusters and clusters of flowers.This climber is called" Teasing Georgia" .It's getting so big and so full of roses now it's getting a bit scary.The rose-heads are so heavy they all droop down, like they are all looking at you and figuring out what they will do next.Grow some more I guess!!

It's a modern rose, but with the look of an old-fashioned rose..Here's a detail. Lovely and yummy.Almost so tasty that you want to take a bite out of it!Yum!

But I previously had it in a pot and was lucky to have three roses on it during  the whole summer.So get those spades out and those bags of manure and start digging!! 
Soon you will have a house covered in roses, and more sugar- coated rose-petals and self-made rose water  , than you can shake a stick at !                                                                             
I have high hopes for this rose I planted last year-called " Albertine "  a real monster from a growing speed point of view.

 I hope to goodness she hurries up and covers the whole front of my house with an explosion of pink  bubblegum rose extravaganza and I will have to fight my way to the front door with an jungle-knife.
I am so looking forward to that day !  Sadly, the score at present it is...about seven roses on the whole thing .
All good things come to those that wait- that's especially true for gardeners!

                                                       Have a great rest of the week!                                                                

I am linking this to the following link parties ( the button is at the bottom of my page ):

Tuesday garden party. Wow us Wednesday .Show and tell Wednesday.Swing into Spring Wednesday.Tablescape Thursday.    Transformation Thursday, Inspiration Friday.